Ease and simplicity

I lost my older Kodak to a theft, and was without a digital camera for over a year. Last Christmas my in-laws gave us each a $35 Sears gift certificate. We were shopping in January of '07 and came upon the returns cabinet at our local Sears store.

We looked and checked for a short time and found nothing which we felt was what we wanted to spend our gift cards on.

We had a clerk open the cabinet, and while he watched me I went over every single camera within their cabinet. I spent approximately 45 minutes examining all the merchandise ranging from digital cameras, from Kodak to Pentax etc. Many of the returns were also video cameras. After much rechecking all the cameras and paperwork I pulled to models out of the cabinet. The first was the Kodak Easy Share C300, and the other was the Kodak Easy Share M853. The 853 was much more camera, but was missing the door to the battery cabinet. The price was only $53 and we could have purchased the warranty for $30 which would have repaired the camera.

We still debated back and forth and finally settled on the C300. It was the camera alone, no manual, but the price was only $22 and we decided against the extended warranty for $30.

At the time of purchase, we did not own a card reader, nor have the money to purchase any of the accessories.

I was so impressed with the fact that the camera included the 16 mg internal memory. I took many pictures, and must have had 45 on the card until we were able to purchase one at a local mercantile store for $12.99. We opted for the 256 megabyte card which currently has over 200 pictures on it.

I have really enjoyed using this camera. Not only have I become very proficient at taken some neat shots, but I have learned how to use the features to expand the general uses of this camera. We have to kittens, and I have learned so much about taking fantastic pictures of their silly antics. In fact I have entered some of the great photos in pet photo contests. Neither the zoom nor the camera is professional quality, but it takes exceptional pictures with a little practice and imagination.

I generally do not use the LCD screen and prefer to use the regular viewing lens. I also have deleted and learned with trial and error how to use the zoom feature to provide a decent quality photo.

At the time of purchase, I was unaware of the lack of audio recording, but I can’t complain for the low price I paid.

I have used the sepia coloring, and find it does do decent black and white photos also.

I personally have not used the email, nor easy share features of the camera so I am unable to provide information on the ease or abilities of these features.

I was very impressed when I discovered the ability of the camera to transfer your photos from the internal memory to the memory card. I was so happy that it was minimal effort to transfer a photo of my oldest son, who recently moved to Washington State, and I loved the picture of him. It became one of my favorites.

I have done minimal video, but the video turned out okay, but wished it had a zoom capability for doing better closeup video.