I have a few questions actually, first can i use NI-MH batteries for my kodak recharger from a company like Radio shack or does it have to be Kodak brand. Second question is i heard alot about a F19 problem with kodak brand cameras and some say they sent them back and got another camera?? what is the F19 and why did they send them back. Thank You

-- Lonnie (Gmctec@aol.com), January 20, 2000

Answers

I have this camera.

You can use any brand NiMH batteries in the Kodak charger -- I bought four additional batteries from Ritz Camera & they work just as well as Kodak's.

The F19 problem (also called the F16 problem) is this: when you take a photo in very bright situation such as outside on snow-covered field, or white sand beach, or even brightly-lit white building, etc. then the camera uses its auto-exposure to reduce the brightness, but the problem is it seems to keep the exposure TIME very long and reduce the exposure APERTURE to F19 or higher (i.e. very small lens opening) which has the efect that all photos at F16 or higher seem to be fuzzy and lose effective resolution (the guess being it is caused by diffraction lines on the CCD array.)

In other words very bright scenes are fuzzy.

You can apparently fix this by putting a gray filter in front of the lens when you meet with such a situation.

see my we page at: http://members.xoom.com/bkomusin/digicams.html for further info.

-bruce

-- bruce komusin (bkomusin@bigfoot.com), January 23, 2000.