Attn: Ron Baird - DC4800 Issue

Hi Ron,

I'm new to the group, didn't know you guys were here until I was told
by a friend to drop by and talk with you.

I'm mainly looking for advice, and it seems that you are *the* Kodak
guru of the group. I'm a DC4800 owner. I love the camera to pieces but
am aggravated with an issue that has existed in it ever since I have
owned it. The problem I'm having are the crosshairs in the viewfinder.
They're way off alignment, offset to the lower right hand corner. If I
try to align my subject even remotely close to what the crosshairs
look like, I usually will end up cutting off the top or bottom, or
even miss 1/3 of what I'm trying to photograph. It's really just a
gamble if I can take a balanced shot with the thing and an even
greater pain in the posterior when that extra special shot is lost
because of it. A lot of times I'm outside in the sunshine and unable
to use the LCD screen as the viewfinder because I can't see it
reliably in bright sunlight. So, I decided to shoot a query off to
Kodak customer support, and here is the response I got:

--------------------------------------------

Thank you for your recent visit to the Kodak Web site and question
about KODAK DC4800 Zoom Digital Camera.


What you are describing is not a defect. These marks are there to
compensate for the fact that the camera view find is not seeing
exactly what the lens sees.


These are the marks in the viewfinders that are used to frame the
target. They are offset to compensate for the fact that the viewfinder
is positioned on top of and/or to the side of the lens. When using the
optical zoom range of the lens from wide-angle to telephoto, the
brackets near the center of the viewfinder will show the center of the
captured image. Also, there are secondary lines in the viewfinder that
show the portion that will not be captured in telephoto exposures.
When the subject is closer than 4 feet, these secondary marks should
be used to frame the picture. When using the digital zoom feature, or
when the subject is closer than about 2 feet or when using the
Close-up/Macro feature on cameras so-equipped, the color LCD should be
used as the viewfinder because the parallax will be too great to
compensate for with the optical viewfinder.


We are glad to be of service and are here for you if you need us in
the future. Please reply to us "with history" if this e-mail did not
resolve the issue you wrote to us about.


Regards,


Ara T.
KODAK Information and Technical Support

--------------------------------------------

Now Ron, I'm sorry but I have a hard time accepting this. I have used
plenty of other cameras similar to the 4800 and the crosshairs are
aligned and centered in the viewfinder properly as they should be,
hence a well balanced picture can be taken. Do you have any ideas or
thoughts to offer on this?? Is the CSR response indeed correct? I mean
I'll accept it if you think this peron knows what they're talking
about, even though I've never heard of such a thing.. All I know is
that it sure takes the fun out of using such a fine camera when every
shot is almost always unbalanced and unacceptable because of a screwy
viewfinder.

Thanks for your input,
Steve