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Details at a glance
Megapixels: 6.1
Zoom: 10x (opt), 4x (dig)
LCD screen: 2.8 inch
Storage: SD/MMC (32mb int)
Size: 111 x 55.5 x 23.2mm
Weight: 160g
(full details at bottom of the page)
We clicked with
Bluetooth, transfer cradle,
h-u-g-e zoom, tiny form factor and well made body
Shots in the dark
No image stabilisation, screen is slightly blurry, defocused areas of pictures can look smeared.
Links
More
Kodak information
www.kodak.co.uk
Price Comparison:
Kodak EasyShare v610
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Here's a camera absolutely stuffed with features: two lenses, amazing 10 times optical zoom, Bluetooth connectivity and panoramic stitching mode - all in a body that you can easily slip into a trouser pocket. This could be a very exciting camera...
Features
You name it - the v610 has got it - almost. You can read the full spec sheet at the bottom of this review but here are some of the features that set it apart.
Twin lens system
This has been seen in a couple of other Kodak cameras such as the v570 but in the v610 it is used to great effect. Turn the camera on and the metal cover slides away to reveal not one but two lenses. These are of a very cunning folded type so they don't move in and out. The bottom lens is a 38 - 114mm f/3.9- f/4, the top one is a 130 - 380mm f/4.8 (all these are in 35mm equivalents). 38mm is about average for a wide angle these days. It's a little bit wide than human eyesight. 380mm is a long lens - it's quite a nice length to take on a safari and few pocket size cameras can get even close to this. Having the total range from 38mm - 380mm (with just a small gap in the middle) is groundbreaking and something Kodak are rightly shouting about.
Bluetooth connectivity
At first I thought this would be just a gimmick but it actually works quite well. Hit a button and your choice of pictures is transferred to a Bluetooth device you have set up earlier. You can also scan for new Bluetooth devices.
This provides an easy way to send your pictures to your Bluetooth equipped computer, phone, organiser or printer. That's about 4 less cables you need.
Panoramic stitching
Again this is one of those features that you go “so what” but it works remarkably well. Select stitch mode (and it's your choice to shoot left to right or right to left) and you can shoot a 3 frame panorama. The frames are reduced to 3MP so you end up with a 9 mega pixel wide format panorama.
The camera shows you a fragment of the previous frame and you line it up with the live view. This can be tricky in bright sunlight but it appears you don't have to be too accurate at all - the camera makes a great job of hiding the joins - often you really can't tell where one frame ends and the next starts.
Of course you could do all this on your computer with an image editor and juggle the frames around yourself but with the v610 you can shoot a panorama and Bluetooth it straight to your printer without even turning the computer on!
Easyshare Dock
This is by no means unique to the v610 (it's an optional extra for all the Easyshare range) but I love it. A cradle sits on your desk. Come home from taking your pictures, drop the camera in the cradle and hit a button. Your pictures transfer to your computer while the battery charges itself. If you like you can also use the camera on the cradle to give a slideshow.
It's not revolutionary but having a cradle that transfers the pictures and charges the battery makes things a whole lot simpler than playing with card readers and battery chargers. I like simple.
On test
Handling
When you read the feature list it's a bit of a shock how small this camera is. I can cover 80% of the camera with a credit card and it's as thick as a couple of CD cases. There are smaller cameras on the market but not with these features. It easily slips into a trouser pocket. There's a rather nice ridged effect to the metal body and overall it's easy to hold and use. I can wrap two hands around it to hold it steady without blocking either the lens or the flash and reach most of the buttons.
The back has a largish LCD screen which measures 2.8 inches and has 230K pixels. From that you might expect a great view of your pictures. Unfortunately the screen is one of the camera's poorest features. It's a little indistinct even indoors but outside it can be pretty hard to use. I really struggled trying to stitch panoramas together on a sunny day because I couldn't really see enough of the screen to line up the pictures. The screen also seems very prone to thumbprints. After using it for a couple of hours it was covered in them and even rubbing with a T shirt didn't clean them off.
The buttons are all reasonably easy to access though the little 4 way didn't seem as easy to use as it does on some other cameras. You can see the current “mode” of the camera (still, movie or favourites) by some extremely bright blue LEDs on top and these also light up while the camera is charging.
Image quality
The fairest word to describe this would be “OK”. The pictures aren't outstandingly good but they are not outstandingly bad either. Chromatic aberration (aka “purple fringing”) seems well under control. It was only really evident at really high contrast edges in my test shots.
The 6 million pixels sensors (there is one for each lens) deliver images that are full of detail and should print nicely up to A4 and maybe further. However, they are a little soft from the camera, even with sharpening set to “high”. It's nothing serious and if you have your pictures printed at a mini lab then the machine will probably sharpen them automatically. If you're printing at home then you will want to sharpen them a little before printing.
I was slightly disappointed though in the A4 prints that I made. The focussed areas were fine but the out of focus zones were smeary and indistinct. It's not unusual in a camera this size but personally I wouldn't want to print larger than A4 from the v610.
Noise is pretty well what you would expect in a camera this small. It's non-existent at ISO 64, visible in shadows at 100, visible at 200, clearly visible at 400 and you would really have to want the picture to use ISO 800. I ran some ISO 800 shots through Noise Ninja and they produced acceptable quality 6X4s though. This is an occasion when the live histogram on the camera would be handy because you really need to make sure that high ISO shots are correctly exposed.
Shooting
The v610 is ready to shoot a couple of seconds after pressing the power button and shutter lag is a relatively low 0.3 seconds. Shot to shot time is a respectable 1.1 second and in burst mode you can shoot 8 frames at 1.6 frames per second.
There are 22 scene modes covering almost any imaginable scenario (and some you hadn't thought of - “museum” mode turns off all sounds and flash). Most of these pretty well do what you expect - choose “snow” if there's snow in your picture, “beach” if you are on a beach etc.. The most commonly used one after auto is likely to be “close up”. This allows you to take pictures down to about 2 inches (5 cm) - but only with the wider lens. That caught me out a couple of times because if you are using the longer lens then the minimum focussing distance even in macro is about 27 inches (70 cm). Again it's not unusual for macro to be limited to a certain zoom range but the wide lens often seemed a little short for the pictures I wanted to take. There is also no obvious way to exit a scene mode - there's no “auto” in the scene menu. To exit you just press the still photo button on the top. It probably tells you that somewhere in the manual.
Apart from my reservations about the screen I was pleased with the display while shooting. The info button lets you choose 4 different display modes. These range from a minimalist focus area only up to focus area, shooting information, alignment grid and live histogram. It's a little hard the frame shots in bright sunlight - especially when using the long end of the zoom. For some reason it can be quite hard to get the camera lined up with a distant subject. This would be a lot easier if there were an eyepiece on the camera though there's really nowhere they could have fitted one on a camera this a small.
What's not to like
I've already mentioned the screen a couple of times. It's nice and big but it isn't great in strong sunlight, especially as it seems to pick up fingerprints very easily. You'll need to carry a lens cloth with you to clean it if you need to see details on the screen.
The screen also isn't as sharp as is could be. There are plenty of pixels in the twin CCDs and the lens is decent enough but if you look at your pictures they can look blurred on the screen when they really aren't - the lesson here is not to delete pictures from the camera but check them on your computer first.
I was also a little disappointed in the print quality I could get from this camera. With 6 million pixels it should be able to handle A3 prints but background details were looking a little indistinct at A4. The most likely reason for this is over aggressive noise reduction software but it was evident even at ISO 64.
The other drawback with this camera ironically comes because it has such a huge zoom range. A 380mm lens is pretty hard to hold still, especially when you don't have a viewfinder to push into your eye. This camera is absolutely crying out for image stabilisation. With it, the reach of this camera would make it ideal for somebody going on safari. Without it, you'd need to have a very bright day to use the long end of the zoom with confidence.
The spec sheet quotes 135 pictures per charge and my tests showed this to be about right. That's plenty for a casual day's shooting but not a lot if you go out with the intention of taking pictures so you should probably budget for a spare. The battery is a proprietary Li-on type which can sometimes prove pricey but a 3rd party compatible battery is available for less than £20. RRP of the camera is £349 but you're unlikely to need to pay much more than £300 for one - expensive but not excessive given to wealth of features.
Kodak EasyShare v610 specs
| Mega-pixels: |
6.1 |
Photo: |
JPEG |
| Optical Zoom: | 10x |
RAW: | No |
| Digital Zoom: | 4x |
Aperture: | f/3.9-7.1 wide, f/4.8-8.0 tele |
| LCD: | 2.8 inch |
Focal Length: | equiv. 38-144mm & 130-380mm |
| Dimensions: | 111 x 55.5 x 23.2mm |
Shutter speed: | 8 sec to 1/2000 |
| Weight: | 160g |
Exposure: | ISO 64 to 800 |
| Storage: | SD/MMC (32mb int) |
Movie: | MPEG (640x480@30fps) |
| Battery: | Li-ion |
Microphone: | Yes |
| Interface: | USB 2.0, AV, PB |
PictBridge: | Yes |
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Included accessories: Battery KLIC-7001, USB and audio/video cables and USB/AV dock connector adapter, 5V AC adapter, Carry strap, Camera case, KODAK EASYSHARE Software, Getting Started Kit, Custom camera insert for optional KODAK EASYSHARE Photo Frame Dock 2, Custom camera insert for optional KODAK EASYSHARE Camera and Printer Docks |
Camera and sample images
Rollover the links to see the image, click for a larger view. Images may take a few seconds to appear.
v610 angled |
v610 on printer |
v610 top view |
v610 in dock |
v610 back |
v610 sample picture 1 |
v610 sample picture 2 |
v610 sample picture 3 |
v610 sample picture 4
