What a bargain!

A good five or six years ago I purchased my first digital camera. It was a Medion, which is a cheap brand, and was about forty something pound, which was quite cheap even back then. It was a small camera and has really been great. I have taken all sorts of photographs with it and been pleased with results. However earlier in the year, last year, the flap which opens to access the batteries and memory card became a little broken. The camera was fine but looked a little unappealing, with an elastoplast stuck over one end, on holiday this year. Eventually at a family do this Autumn it gave up the ghost and so a new camera was added to my Christmas List. I was not sure what I wanted, as I am not very technical, but I knew that I wanted a camera which was compact, took great snaps and was not so expensive as I would not dare to take it on holiday with me.

When Hubby's staff discount day at Asda came around in early December we decided to have look at their camera section. Of course there were many all singing and all dancing cameras, most of which were more than I wanted Hubby to pay. However on the whole digital cameras have come down a lot in price. I spotted the Kodak Easy Share Digital Camera at a mere £35 and wondered what the catch was.

Talking to the assistant she assured us that it was just that Kodak had special offers from time to time. I also assumed that this camera was not the latest model and I guess I was right. However on face value it looked like it might be just what I wanted. With Hubby's staff discount the price cane down to a very cheap £28. There was an offer to purchase an easy share printer with it but as we have two printers at home we declined. However if the offer is still on it is a good one. We were given a voucher for a special offer for free prints at Asda and the bargain was sealed.

So this camera has been hiding in it's box till yesterday but now I have had a chance to play with it a little and I must say that up to now I am very pleased with it.

Unlike my old digital camera the Kodak easy share sort of resembles a traditional, black camera from the front. It looks like the photograph which accompanies this review but is black. It is about 4 or 5 inches long by about 3 inches wide and about an inch deep. As such it fit's nicely in the palm of my hand and would fit easily in my pocket or handbag. One thing to note is that there was no carrying case provided. However it will fit in my old canon camera case and I know you could buy a case easily and cheaply. There is however a wrist carrying strap which you can attach to the camera.

Unpacking the box there was:-
The Camera
Carrying Strap
Instruction Book
Two Batteries.
USB lead
Software CD
A plastic insert for use with the optional Easy Share printer.

The instruction book looks a little long but includes many languages and so there are only 24 pages for each language. The Kodak C613 is easy to get up and running. The instructions are very easy and details are given of each function on the camera in the instructions.

Pressing the on/off button on the top activates the camera and the zoom lens pops out and the lens is uncovered. This is a good feature as it means the lens is automatically protected when you turn the camera off.

The flip lid at the bottom allows you to put the batteries and memory card in place. This is similar to my other camera but hopefully will be a little tougher. There is an internal memory but it does not hold much. I made sure that my new camera would hold my old memory cards and it does. Usually this is the case but occasionally it may not be so.

When the camera is first turned on you are given the option to set the language, date and time and this is very easy. There is a menu button which gives you plenty of other options but obviously I have only used the basics up to now. There is a handy delete button. My old camera needed quite a lot of fiddling about to delete photos but it is nice and simple on this camera.

When you point to take a photo brackets appear at either side of whatever you are going to take. You press the button slightly and when these brackets turn green you fully depress the button. This is handy for taking shots of kids or pets which tend to move about at just the wrong times. The screen is a nice size at 2.4 inches as my last camera only had a 11/2 inch screen. Size really does matter after all!

The software was installed pretty quick but in some ways I suppose I did not need it, as I have quite a few photo editing programmes on my computer. You can of course register your product, and so receive updates, when you install the software but as usual I decided to do that later. Whether or not I ever will remains to be seen.

At the back near the screen there is a button for wide angle or zoom. I have found this easy to operate and conveniently placed. This camera only weighs 137g and so is very light.
Here are a few details of the specification:-
It has a supported Flash Memory Multi-Media Card
SD Memory Card Integrated Memory 16 MB
Sensor Resolution 6.2 Mega pixel
Shooting Modes Frame movie mode Lens Aperture F/2.7-4.8
Focus Adjustment Automatic Min Focus Range 60 cm
Optical Zoom 3 x Digital Zoom
5 x Camera Flash Built-in flash Red Eye Reduction
Built-in Microphone
LCD display - TFT active matrix has a 2.4" screen, colour Supported
Battery 2 x AA are included
Special effects of black and white and sepia.
Max shutter speed is 1/1400 sec
Min shutter speed is ½ sec
Still photo format is JPEG and Video is MPEG

Of course there is much more to the specification but it generally means nothing to me. If it does to you I am sure you could check out the fine details. One thing I have found is that if you record a video you cannot hear the sound on playback until you link the camera to your computer. However when I listened to the video on the computer it was still a little quiet but I have no doubt that it just needs adjusting.

Overall I recommend this camera as a bargain buy. It is made by a great brand, looks fine and appears to do what I need from a camera. Of course it will not suit the camera buffs amongst you who are more than happy snappers. However if like me you want a camera that takes great photos and is a bargain why not check this out. It may even be cheaper in the post Christmas sales.

Thanks for reading
(C) Eiley 2008
Please note:- I cannot comment on reliability yet.