Kodak EasyShare C330 Digital Camera

In February of 2006, I was desperate to get a new digital camera for selling some things on Ebay, and I also thought it would be nice to get a simple digital camera for my son and me to use for every day pictures. I had a price limit since I was moving in a few months, and I chose the Kodak EasyShare C330 Digital Camera at a local Wal-Mart. The price was around $109 at the time. There are much more added costs; however, and thankfully the employee at the camera area in Wal-Mart was knowledgeable and helpful about this.

He told me that digital cameras practically ate AA batteries, and that I would want to purchase rechargeable batteries. Also, the camera itself had 16 MB of internal memory, so I purchased another card which easily slides into the side panel for additional storage. In May, when my son had a school program, I really needed this for recording a video for one song! After these extra things were purchased (four rechargeable batteries and battery charger, and the extra memory card), the purchase was around $240.

The Camera Features

The camera is easy to turn on with its easy-turn dial on top; however, I wouldn't recommend dropping this camera into a purse because it WILL turn itself on and run down your batteries. Been there, done that!

Once turned on, the camera has different picture settings:

* Auto Mode – Good all around picture taking mode
* SCN Mode – For special picture taking conditions such as Sepia, Black & White, Children in bright lighting, People indoors minimizing Red Eye, Night Portraits minimizing Red Eye or for Low Lighting, Bright scenes such as Snow and Beaches, Fireworks pictures, Close Ups of Self Portraits, and Backlights for people that are in shadows or when the light is behind the object
* Portrait Mode – Full frame people pictures. Background can be blurred by using the Telephoto
* Sports Mode – Fast shutter speed for objects in motion
* Landscape Mode – Distant objects. Flash only occurs if manually turned on in this mode. Auto focus in NOT available in this mode
* Close Up Mode – Wide Angle for 5 – 27 ? inches from the lens, Telephoto 8 ? - 27 ? inches from lens. One should use available lighting if possible.
* Video Mode – Video with Sound (I was surprised a camera this inexpensive would have sound!)

These modes have pictures on the dial for the corresponding modes such as a camera and the words Auto for the Auto Mode, SCN for Scene Mode, a sketch of a lady's face for Portrait Mode, a running figure for Sports Mode, a sketch of a mountain for Landscape Mode, a flower for Close Up Mode, and a video camera for Video Mode.

Flash Modes

The flash mode button in on top of the camera to the left of the picture mode dial. There is an Auto Flash Mode when flash is needed for lighting, Fill Mode no matter what the lighting conditions are. This is to be used when the object has back light or is in the shadows. Red Eye Mode fires off one flash then a second one for the person's eyes to adjust to the lighting before really taking the picture. There are pros and cons of this. This mode might help lessen Red Eye; however, many times the person moves thinking the picture has already been taken! Then finally, there is the Flash Off Mode.

Self Timer Button and Burst

The far left button on top of the camera is the Self Timer denoted by a clock and a camera with rapid pictures coming from it (Burst Mode). This timer can be used for pictures or for videos. This feature is a little tricky. Press the Button once for a 10 second delay and once more for a 2 second delay. Then press the shutter button halfway (This is why this is tricky. I have trouble using this feature.) which is a round button located within the picture dial, then press again all the way down. You can get into the frame within the 10 seconds or the 2 seconds depending on your initial selection.

I think this "ritual" for the self timer is hard to remember and kind of clunky. I do not care for this "press half way, press once or twice, shake your Ju-Ju beads" method. Come on, Kodak, come up with something easier to remember for the casual user!

Burst is another clunky option on the Self Timer menu. To get this to work (get those Ju-Ju Beads ready!), press the shutter halfway to set the auto focus and exposure then press the shutter button all the way down and hold it. Again, I am not crazy about holding a button half way and such and also having one button try to encompass more than one feature like this. It reminds me of a video game console with a few buttons that do different things depending on the location of the joystick. Ugh! I don't see how kids get use to that. Give me a keyboard any day where things are definite.

Internal Camera Features

* Slide Shows can be seen by pressing the Review button, using the up or down arrow to highlight Slideshow, then press okay. This can be done with pictures or with videos and can be shown in a loop.

There is a default interval setting of 5 seconds for each slide. It can be changed to 3 to 60 seconds. These settings will remain until changed.

* Menu allows for options to be changed.
** Exposure Correction for pictures that are too light or too dark
** Picture Size. The default is 4.0 MP. This prints up to 20 X 30" pictures. These are the highest resolution and biggest picture size. 3.5 MP (3:2 Best) which is good for printing 4 X 6" prints with no cropping and also good for 20 X 30" with some cropping. 3.1MP for printing up to 11 X 14" pictures with medium resolution and smaller file sizes, 2.1 MP for 8 X 10" pictures with medium resolution and smaller file size, and finally the 1.1 MP for printing up to 5 X 7" for emailing, internet usage, or screen display. Pictures are the lowest resolution and smallest file sizes.

Concerning the resolutions, since I work now in Photoshop, I prefer always taking the largest resolution pictures. You can always reduce, but to try to reinvent pixels that aren't there, well… it doesn't look as good and most photographers would say it's impossible. So, I would recommend if you are going to work with the photo, make sure you use the highest setting available.

** Video Size. 320 X 240 which is the lower resolution and file size.
** White Balance. There is an Auto, Daylight for natural lighting, Tungsten which corrects the orange cast from light bulbs, and Fluorescent which corrects the green tint from fluorescent lighting.
** ISO Speed. Use higher settings for Low Lighting and vice versa. The ISO speed changes depending on whether the flash is on or off.
** Focus Zone. The Multi Zone Mode is to give the picture a more even focus. This is the default. The other is the Center-Zone for precise focus. I generally use the Multi Zone for easy of use.
** Color Mode. This settings is defaulted to Color. You can change it here for Black & White or Sepia tones.
** Long Time Exposure which allows the shutter to stay open longer for up to 4 seconds.
** Image Storage where one can choose which default location to store the images such as internally or on another memory card (this is what I do).
** Set Album On or Off. Here one can choose names to categorize the picture types before taking the pictures.
** Video Length. The default is set at continuous, but one can change it to 5, 15, or even 30 seconds. When I took the video of my son's music program, I used the continuous length, and it is easy to manually turn off. All one has to do is click the shutter button to either start or stop the video.
** Setup Menu. Here one can choose some additional settings to customize the camera. The options are Return to the previous menu, Liveview On or Off, Auto Power Off in 1, 3, 5, or 10 minutes. This might help eliminate the "battery usage in the purse syndrome", but I have a short term memory problem and forget it can do this! Haha! The Date and Time can be set here along with Video Out regional settings that allows the camera to be connected to a television set. The Orientation Sensor (defaulted to On) allows the camera to display the pictures with the correct side up no matter if one is taking a landscape or portrait type of picture. The Date Stamp will also allow for the date to be imprinted on the pictures, and this default is set to Off. There's also a Video Date Display (default On) at the start of the video playback. There is a Language option for English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, and a few others that I cannot distinguish.
** Format. One can format the internal memory and external memory card which deletes all pictures and videos.


Software

The Kodak EasyShare software was simple to install on both of my machines; however, I noticed that the software wants to run in the memory as a Terminal Stay Resident program. I find this rather unnecessary since as soon as the camera is plugged into the USB port, it automatically loads, and the pictures and videos are easy to download. The options for downloading to which subdirectories one wants are also included in the software. I still have some trouble with a fresh install on doing this. I guess I just do not take pictures and download as much as one should to get familiar with it. Once it's set up; however, it's a breeze to download into the right place. It also will create a new subdirectory with the date the photos and videos were taken. This is nice so that I can sort them out at a later date.

A nice slideshow can also be viewed using this software. And a wireless printer dock can be set up with this software. I did not buy one, so I cannot review that portion of the peripherals.

A neat feature that this software has is the sorting capability. One can view the pictures and videos by Albums, by Calendar Months, by Calendar Days, or Full Screen.

Pictures can be edited by cropping, rotating left or right, red eye removal, enhancing, scene balance, color balance, scene effects, and fun effects. I prefer using photo shop, but these features are available. Every enhancement is automatically done except for Scene Balance where the exposure, shadows and highlighting can be modified, the Scene Effects to change to Black and White, Sepia, Forest, Scenic, Portrait, or Sunset, and Fun Effects that allows Spotlights, Coloring Book which I couldn't figure out, Cartoon which changes the saturation, and Fish Eye that makes an oval shaped image in a 3-Dish pop out from the original photo.

Files can be burned to CD/DVDs from the software along with printing images. Want to share this with a friend? No problem. There is an Email button where you can send emails of your pictures to your friends as attachments or as an online gallery option. Prints can also be ordered online if you cannot print them yourself.

Prints are $0.15 for each 4 X 6", $0.99 for each 5 X 7", and four wallets are $1.79 for each set. 8 X 10" are $3.99, 16 X 20" are $17.99, and 20 X 30" are $22.99 a piece. If the image has insufficient resolution for the sizes selected, the Order Pictures Online will tell you. All prints are glossy except for the 16 X 20" and 20 X 30".

Under the Creative Projects menu, photo cards can be generated and printed at home. One can also buy calendars and coffee mugs with your selected photos. One will pay through the nose for this though, but if money isn't an object, it's a neat gift idea.

Personal Dislikes

As for my personal experience with this camera and its features, it is an okay starter digital camera; however, it makes subjects look really fat compared to what they really are. My Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 does NOT do this. I am very unhappy with this camera's lens and the way it distorts image sizes. If you are looking for a camera for portraits, I would choose something else. Although I can stretch the pictures more into proportion with Photoshop, I shouldn't have to. Scenery pictures and videos seem to look fine, but portraits whether close up or further away, it will add 50 pounds or so to the person. I recently took a picture of my skinny son for his school registration, and he looked almost unrecognizable since the image put so much weight on him!

I find the timer controls rather hard to work along with the Burst mode. However, just taking simple scenic pictures, it will be okay for that. And that is all I would really recommend this camera for…scenic pics or videos. The videos look fine in proportion to the real people in it.

I am pleased that the camera came with a decent microphone for the sound. It's not as sensitive as my Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 as I can pick up things across the room and into the next room, but the microphone is adequate for normal use.

Thank you for reading.