Kodak EasyShare C813 8.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Pink)

Kodak EasyShare C813 8.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Pink)

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The KODAK EASYSHARE C813 Zoom Digital Camera takes such beautiful pictures; youll want to keep them all. With 8.2 MP, 3x zoom and digital image stabilization, you get striking, accurate shots time after time. But the pictures are not all you'll keep. The C813 Zoom Digital Camera comes at a price that lets you keep money right where you like it - in your pocket.

Kodak EasyShare M1033

Kodak EasyShare M1033

The good: Solid photo quality for its class; well-rounded if rudimentary feature set; slim, sturdy body; simple operation.

The bad:
Lackluster video; only a three-shot burst.

The bottom line:
Kodak's EasyShare M1033 is a better-than-average budget ultracompact.

Specifications:
Digital camera type: Ultracompact; Resolution: 10 megapixels; Optical zoom: 3 x; See full specs

At first glance the 10-megapixel Kodak EasyShare M1033 is a fairly basic budget pocket camera. It's basic at second, third, and well, every subsequent glance, too. But that's the M1033's greatest asset: it's a simple-to-operate, stylish ultracompact camera that takes good--occasionally excellent--pictures without much thought from the user. It won't blow you away with features and performance, but it doesn't disappoint either.

Measuring 2.3 inches tall by 3.7 inches wide by 0.8 inch deep, the M1033 slides easily into a back pocket, and at 5.2 ounces, it won't weigh you down, either. The camera's mostly metal body comes in six colors--black, silver, pink, copper, red, and gray--feels sturdy, and has a clear-cut design, so you can hand the camera to anyone and let them shoot away.

Buttons for the shutter, power, flash, and mode selections are on top, flush with the body, adding to the camera's streamlined looks. On back is a 3-inch LCD that's bright enough to remain visible in sunlight. A relatively large rocker zoom switch for the 3x 35-105mm-equivalent f3.1-5.7 lens is well positioned to the top left of the screen. Below it sits a five-way joystick for navigating menus and for the playing of images and video. That's flanked by Delete, Playback, Menu, and Kodak's standard Share button, which lets you tag an image to be printed or e-mailed the next time the camera is connected to a computer.

Powering on to first shot takes 1.7 seconds on average and typically takes the same amount of time from shot to shot. Using the flash adds nearly a second to that. Shutter lag is very good for its class at only 0.4 second in bright conditions and 0.9 in dim. Burst mode offers only a three-shot spurt in approximately 1.4 seconds. It's important to note that if you let it--by pressing the shutter button completely rather than halfway and waiting for a focus confirmation--the M1033 will take a picture without locking focus. This does let you capture images extremely quickly, but they'll frequently be blurry.

Press the Mode button and you get four options: Smart Capture, Program, Scene, and Video. Smart Capture mode integrates scene and face detection, optimized auto ISO, and a broader dynamic range among other things, so you truly don't have to worry about a setting to take a decent picture. This mode also applies Kodak's PerfectTouch technology to help improve detail and contrast. In general this system works, producing fine photos regardless of subject or lighting conditions. Which is good, since the camera always starts in Smart Capture, regardless of your settings at power off.

The M1033 also has 22 Scene modes you can switch to in seconds. These include standards like portrait and landscape as well as things like in-camera panorama (left to right and right to left), candle light, panning, and blur reduction. The Program mode gives you slightly more control for exposure compensation and metering, color (natural, low, black and white, sepia), white balance, and ISO. It's nice to have, though I'm not sure it's wholly necessary.

Again, the M1033 is capable of shooting some very nice photos for its class, though more often they're a mixed bag. Like most budget models, the Kodak performs best in bright sunlight. Overall, colors are pleasing, though white balance is quite inconsistent. For example, when shooting a mix of plants, the colors would shift depending on which plant was the subject. There's also some serious vignetting--darkening around the edges--and modest distortion at the camera's widest angle.

Lastly, one of the hyped features on the M1033 is its 720p (1,280x720) video recording at up to 30fps. However, the HD-recording performance was a little disappointing. The picture is good, but my results display some stuttering when panning, and while you can zoom while recording, focusing is slow and you could hear it working in the recorded audio. Exposure control seems to be a bit of an issue, too. The image stabilization can't be turned on when recording at 1,280x720, either (you'll have to drop to 640x480, since electronic image stabilization requires the extra pixels to do its work). The moral: if you are considering buying this to shoot handheld HD clips longer than 30 seconds, don't.

The Kodak EasyShare M1033 might not be overflowing with features or staking major performance claims, but it is a respectable budget ultracompact with good looks and simple operation. And there's nothing wrong with that.

New Kodak digital camera does it all

New Kodak digital camera does it all

George Eastman must have had a premonition when he coined the phrase �you press the button, we do the rest.�

Kodak has introduced an easy to use compact point-and-shoot that makes it much easier to take good pictures. The M1033 retails for $199.95, has a 3x zoom lens, sports a big 3-inch CCD display, uses SD memory cards and is available in red, pink, pewter, black, silver and dark grey.

Kodak�s digital history is an interesting one. After being one of the first to enter the digital market, Kodak faded away as fast as its film sales. And it missed the boat on being a leader in digital film card sales. Kodak has now been creeping back into the market with its Easy Share cameras which give anyone the ability to share their pictures with the world. This gives Kodak the potential element of surprise in the market.

Adding to this, Kodak has now figured out a way to make just about anyone able to take great pictures. Kodak�s new invention, Smart Capture, makes more than 50 calculations involving exposure, focus and image processing adjustments before it even writes a picture to disk.

Smart Capture figures out what type of scene you are shooting, automatically sets the appropriate exposure and even readjusts the exposure after the picture is taken.

Among the most impressive aspects of this 10-megapixel camera are its face-detection technology and its post-exposure processing.

The face-detection technology will wow you with its amazing ability to not only detect faces but to follow them in live action. If your subject bobs and weaves, the detector bobs and weaves right with them. This works really well with young children and fast-moving adults, too.

As far as the post-exposure processing goes, a magic act occurs after you push the shutter button. Details that were lost in a brilliant sky suddenly come back to life, snapping into detail.. The experience mimics having a well-trained lab team work up your picture.

Add to that an automatic macro function that detects when things are too close for normal focus and a 30-frame-per-second HD video capability and you�ve got one powerful little camera. The only thing that is hard to do with this camera is to use the zoom control. It is very low profile - maybe a little too low profile - which makes it especially hard to zoom while holding the camera one-handed.

For years, the Canon Elph has set the standard in the compact camera market. Kodak has just taken a leap over the leader with some amazing American innovations.

George Eastman would be proud.

Kodak Zi6 (pink)

Kodak Zi6 (pink)

Product Summary
The good: Solid 720p video; comparatively large LCD; memory-card expansion slot; AA rechargeable batteries included along with protective carrying case and video output cables.

The bad: Insufficient onboard memory and price doesn't include an optional memory card; can't recharge batteries via USB connector; included software isn't Mac compatible.

The bottom line: While bigger than most of its competitors and high priced for a mini camcorder, the Kodak Zi6's attractive design and decent video quality adequately compensate for some usability drawbacks.

Specs: Video input type: Camcorder; Effective sensor resolution: 1.6 megapixels; Optical zoom: 2x

Like many inexpensive competitors, the Kodak Zi6 is technically an HD camcorder the way a tomato is technically a fruit: it meets the definition, but doesn't deliver the experience. True, the Zi6 records video in 1,280x720-pixel resolution at both 30 frames per second and 60fps--720p resolution--which technically qualifies it as an HD camcorder, but a lot of factors go into creating an image, not just a CMOS sensor capable of capturing an image at a certain resolution and frame rate. Still, the 720p video it does capture is a step up from the 640x480-pixel VGA resolution video you typically find on competing sub-$200 direct-to-YouTube camcorders from Flip Video, RCA, and Creative.

That higher resolution comes at a price. To accommodate the larger 1/4.5-inch 1.6-megapixel sensor and generous 2.4-inch LCD, the Zi6 is bigger than most of its competitors, particularly the similarly priced Flip Video Mino. Weighing 5.6 ounces, it's not huge and it fits in most pockets, but if supercompact is what you're after, there are better alternatives.

Instead of a built-in or removable lithium ion rechargeable battery, Kodak opted to include a set of two rechargeable AA nickel metal hydride batteries and a charger. The upside is that in a pinch you can use readily available standard AA alkaline batteries to power the unit. The downside is you can't just charge the battery with the built-in USB connector like you can with some models, such as the Mino and Creative Vado. Also, a smaller lithium ion battery would probably have helped trim the size of Zi6 a bit.

Like other products in this category, the USB connector is of the flip-out variety. Cleverly, the button for the connector also serves as a tiny mirror for recording yourself. Another nice touch: a switch that toggles between standard and macro focus distance. We also appreciate that the Zi6 incorporates an expansion slot for SD cards. However, the onboard memory is a paltry 128MB--only 30MB of which is available for storage. That 30MB only lets you capture 36 seconds of video recorded at the highest quality (HD, 60fps). Extrapolating--since Kodak hasn't published any capacity information--that's about 50MB per minute, or 41 minutes of video on a typical 2GB card. The Zi6 will accept cards up to 32GB, but you must supply your own cards, whatever the capacity. Kodak includes an inexpensive neoprene carrying case, hand strap, video cables for output to a TV, and there's a threaded mount on the bottom of the unit in case you want to use a tripod.

As with all these mini camcorders, the Zi6 is meant to be easy to use--and for the most part, it is. Unfortunately, we have a few problems with the design. First, it takes some effort to get used to the controls. There's a joystick button flanked on either side by a video/playback button and stop/delete button. When the same button performs two functions it can be a little confusing for some people. and I found myself accidentally hitting the play button at times when I should have been clicking the joystick button. Second, the camcorder doesn't turn on when you plug the USB into your computer, the way the rest of the mini camcorders we've tested do. That's just a bit annoying. But the real kicker is there's no way to completely erase and format a memory card--or even delete more than one image/clip at a time--within the Zi6. Kodak expects you to do that when connected to the PC via its bundled software; that's a serious usability problem in general.

When in video recording mode, you can use the joystick to toggle down the setting to HD, VGA (640x480), and finally, still image capture. The lower VGA setting is useful if you're low on memory (files sizes are much smaller when you capture in lower resolution) or know you're going to be compressing your video for Web distribution or e-mail distribution. That said, it's always better to capture the best possible image and keep that as your "master" and work down from there.

We do appreciate the four speeds of fast-forwarding and rewinding, and you can advance or rewind your footage frame-by-frame if you want. The 2.4-inch LCD is pretty sharp and the sound played back loud enough through the Zi6's little speaker so long as I cranked up the volume (the mic seems sensitive enough). No complaints there.

What do you do after you've captured your video? Well, like most of these types of mini camcorders, Kodak loads software into its memory. Windows-only ArcSoft MediaImpression is included with the Zi6 and it automatically installs when you plug the Zi6's USB connector into your desktop or laptop PC. There's the usual shortcut upload to YouTube, as well as some editing features that allow you to trim your clips, adjust contrast, color, and brightness, and splice you clips into a cohesive movie, complete with customized background music and titles. If you own a Mac, you can copy your video and still images to your computer by dragging and dropping the files from the camcorder as you would with any USB storage device (and upload them to YouTube easily enough) and then edit your video using iMovie. So, all is not totally lost.

The Zi6's extra resolution helps when comparing its video with that of the Flip Mino and Ultra, but image noise and lack of sharpness keep it from overshadowing those models. Though the video looks softer overall, it looks that way at a larger size, which some people may find ample compensation. Typically, you only view these video files in a small window on your computer. However, with the Zi6's footage you can actually blow the video up full screen and it retains more detail. Video shot in the Zi6's VGA-resolution mode does look comparably sharp to that of its competitors. In low light, however, the Zi6's footage looks perceptibly noisier than that of the other camcorders. But it remains usable.

The Zi6 delivers reasonably accurate color and exposure, but performance feels a bit slow. While it adjusts properly moving from brightly lit environments to darker scenes and compensating for overly backlit subjects, it doesn't do so particularly quickly and its autofocus is relatively sluggish. When you pan and move the camera around, things tend to go in and out of focus. For rock-solid video, you really have to keep the camera still.

When you factor in that you have to buy an additional memory card, its price runs it up against a whole other class of products, such as the Aiptek Go-HD, which offer features like higher resolution stills and optical zoom rather than digital zoom. Despite its problems, I generally liked the Zi6. The video is pretty good and plays larger than Flip Video's current lineup offers; with its big screen, support for removable memory and the ability to use AA batteries it all adds up to an attractive package.

Kodak EasyShare M863

Kodak EasyShare M863

This small camera packs a big screen and useful dial mode, but inconsistent image quality holds it backby Daniel Grotta and Sally Wiener Grotta on June 2, 2008

Kodak loads on the extras with its $149 EasyShare M863 and does so in a very compact package. And the camera�s compatibility with Kodak�s HDTV dock and printer make it a tempting option for one-stop shoppers. Unfortunately, the image quality isn�t quite up to snuff.

M863 Design
Definitely on the small and light side, the 3.6 � 2.2 � 0.8-inch M863 is available in a bevy of colors, including silver, pink, black, red, copper, and blue. It sports a large and legible high-resolution 2.7-inch LCD monitor. Buttons are haphazardly placed around the camera, unfortunately. Because the Flash button is next to the Power button, and the Delete button is positioned right under the Zoom lever, it�s possible to hit the wrong control by accident.

Kodak�s menu structure is deceptively simple. It�s easy to navigate, but some of the options, such as Sharpness, Maintain Settings, Multi-Pattern, and Multi-Zone, are more appropriate for advanced users than the entry-level market for which this camera is intended. We like that the memory card door is on the side, though.

Modes and Extras
Like the Canon PowerShot A580, the Kodak camera comes equipped with a rotary dial, but it has fewer positions than the A580 for setting the most frequently used modes. However, the SCN position brings up 18 additional modes, which is more than the Canon camera offers. Landing on each mode or pressing the OK button briefly displays a helpful explanation of what each mode does, and sometimes, how to use it. There are even two Panorama modes, one that lets you shoot from left to right, the other, from right to left.

The best thing about the M863 is that Kodak created a system rather than simply an individual camera. Like other models in the series, the M863 plugs into Kodak�s $80 G610 snapshot printer and interfaces with its $100 HDTV Dock for displaying stills and videos on your widescreen TV.

Fast Shooter, Mixed Photo Quality
The M863 operates relatively fast. It powers up within 2 seconds, has a shutter lag of less than half a second, and can shoot a full-resolution image every 2.5 to 3 seconds. And it�s always ready to shoot, even in Playback mode; just press the shutter halfway, and it instantly switches to Capture mode.

Image quality was somewhat uneven, and all images were slightly soft. Our flash pictures, even macro shots, were all perfectly exposed, but indoor pictures without flash were slightly underexposed and had a bluish tint. In our daylight photos, colors were muted, and highlights tended to blow out. On the plus side, face recognition worked well in both Auto and Portrait modes.

Mediocre Video
The M863�s largest video resolution is 640 x 480 pixels but at a jerky 15 fps. We wish the camera offered a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. It�s possible to zoom while filming video, something most other digital still cameras can�t do, but for the most part the results aren�t worth the effort.

Kodak EasyShare M863 Verdict
The Kodak EasyShare M863 is a decent choice for users who want an ultra-slim camera at an entry-level price and appreciate its ability to interface easily with a compatible printer and HDTV adpater. But those interested in better picture quality should look elsewhere. We recommend the Casio Exilim EX-Z9.