Like many others, I have just spent $800 on a Kodak DC260 only to discover that it doesn't have an exposure lock. I'm badly disapointed. My main reason for buying a digital camera was to do QTVR panoramas. Of course, the camera has scripting capabilities. However I have read the Scripting Manual and it does not provide any functions for creating exposure lock. You can "get" and "set" various settings but you cannot Get and Set both F stop and Shutter spead. The only hope is that when in External Flash mode the camera uses a default shutter speed. But this is such an obvious point why didn't Kodak say anything?

-- Charles Evans (cevans@apple.com), January 31, 1999

Answers

I don't know how, but there *must* be some way to do this, since Kodak's selling the 260 in a kit with a Kaidan panorama head as a "virtual reality" setup. You might try talking to the folks at Kaidan (www.kaidan.com), to see if they have any hints as to how this was done. (FWIW, I think you're right that the 260 uses a standard shutter speed whenever its set to external flash m

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), February 01, 1999.

I haven't yet tried panoramas with my DC260 yet, but I think there's two ways to do it. First is the External Flash mode already mentioned, which uses a fixed shutter speed (I forget the value, but it's something typical of flash sync'ed pictures, maybe 1/60 sec.) I've read that the shutter speed in Ext Flash mode is slightly different at telephoto than at wide-angle. Makes sense, I guess. Second idea: I think the camera locks focus and exposure when the trigger is held halfway (like many point-and-shoot film and digital cameras). To do a panorama with consistent exposure, point the camera at the same spot before each shot, press the trigger halfway, then point at your actual panorama "slice" and snap the picture. This may require a lot of panning on your tripod (or handheld if you're brave), but it doesn't sound like too much trouble to me. Setting manual focus mode for doing these panoramas sounds like a good idea too. Failing this, you'll have to rely on software to adjust brightness/contrast of the slices. Depending on the scene, you may want to do this anyway. I can imagine circumstances where a consistent exposure may not be desirable across the entire panorama.

-- Ryan Baucom (rjb8e@virginia.edu), February 10, 1999.

I tried setting the camera to "external flash" mode and took one picture at f-16 and one at f-3 and both the images were identicle. The exposures were exactly the same. Try this on your camera and see if you get the same results. It appears that the camera compensates with the shutter speed even in exteran flash m

-- Charles Evans (cevans@apple.com), February 13, 1999.