This Kodak surveillance camera has two features that, we think, make it worth the cost. First, it connects via Wi-Fi and does all the cool tricks that come with that like motion-triggered notifications. Second, it’s got a panoramic 180-degree lens, which is way wider than the 75- or 80-degree lenses that other cameras brag about. Here’s a still one of our merchandisers was kind (or naive) enough to share from the inside of his home:
As you can see, the camera has a “de-warping” feature that allows for this wide viewing angle without much of a fish-eye effect. – bad if your trying to create a Kubrick-style masterpiece but good for monitoring your home. As you can also see, our merchandiser has a very cute dog.
So this wide-angle lens that doesn’t look like a wide-angle lens is clearly the selling point of this camera. Yet in the video that accompanies this camera’s Amazon page, Kodak chose to highlight another feature: the Wide Dynamic Range or WDR. This feature allows for consistent video quality even in shots with very different lighting. You know when you try to take a picture indoors and a brightly lit window ruins it? WDR fixes that.
So far so good, right?
To illustrate how this works, Kodak shows this woman setting up her camera in a home that’s just like yours or ours — aggressively modern and featuring enormous floor-to-ceiling windows:
(Sorry about the big “play” buttons you can’t press on these screengrabs. It’s extremely frustrating even to us.)
OK, fine, they wanted the house to look “aspirational” rather than “relatable.” That’s understandable.
They then show how easy the camera is to set up:
Looks great. So what’s she planning to keep tabs on? Is she worried about intruders? Wants to keep an eye on her dog while she’s at work? Nope:
She wants to watch this old man putter around in his robe.
What?
The setting is perfect for demonstrating what WDR does, we’ll give them that:
But why is she watching this old man? Maybe he’s an Airbnb guest and she wants to make sure he’s not up to anything untoward, but that’s creepy (and probably criminal). Maybe she’s his caretaker and wants to make sure he doesn’t wander off in a demented haze, but that’s a very depressing example to use as the first demonstration of this product.
If you choose to buy this yourself you should do it for the Wi-Fi features and crazy wide viewing angle. The WDR is a plus, for sure, but not the most important feature. And we won’t judge you no matter how you use, but … don’t be a creep.
