Kodak EasyShare V603

When you think of Kodak, you think of simple point and shoot cameras that even the most novice of users can get his hands around. You don’t need any particular expertise in getting around Kodak cameras’ options because they are all so simplified into presets that anyone can understand. This is what makes them a favorite in the casual user level.

The Kodak EasyShare V603 follows the same footsteps to bring you simplicity when it comes to shooting options, but excellent quality where it matters the most. But before we get to that we’ll start with the way it looks and feels.

Build
Like with the other cameras in it’s V-series is that even though it’s thoroughly a compact consumer camera, it still requires 2-handed operation to successfully click the picture and then view it. Why Kodak? Why can’t you shift the screen a little to the left and move those buttons to the right, where they rightfully belong?

Moving away from my dramatic moment, the V603 also has one other annoyance in it’s build—the smooth and shiny metallic exterior. The shiny bit may look good, and may also be less susceptible to finger prints than the shiny plastic finish that most gadgets seem to be getting into these days, but it sure does get slippery after a while of use.

The 2.5" display at the back may boast a 230,000 pixel resolution, but it still ended up looking terrible. It’s as if the camera shoots up the camera’s sensitivity to give a fast preview and in the process adds in a lot of noise. Not that this noise reflects on the images, on the contrary the images look pretty good (more on that in the performance section), but the preview can get pretty misleading about what you’re shooting.

Still I’ll give the display props for keeping things visible even is low-light conditions, thanks to its super-high light sensitivity.

But all’s not lost here. The buttons are surprisingly convenient to use considering their small size. I especially appreciate the soft-touch shutter release, which makes it easy to click pictures inspite of the rest of the build.

The thing with this camera’s build is that even though it’s not the best one for my tastes, everyone around me thought that the camera looked pretty cool and sleek in its black, slim, rectangular body. So it brings to mind that though the build is not the most functional one, it still has a lot of appeal.

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Features
Staying true to the V-series of digicams, this one comes with a huge range of scene modes, including the excellent panorama mode that flawlessly stitches multiple shots taken in a horizontal sequence into a single wide shot. I have always appreciated the quality of the panorama mode in these cameras and I’m glad to see that quality continued here.

Click on the image above to see an actual point of stitching

The 6.1 megapixel camera resolution is accompanied by 3x optical zoom, which may not be much, but is not bad either for a model like this one.

The V603 has a unique slot-based SD card slot for additional memory. While most manufacturers keep the memory cards well hidden with a door-protected memory card slot, Kodak decided to keep things simple with a slot based one, so you can simply slide your cards in and out of this one.

In their quest to keep things as simple as possible for the users, Kodak has limited any manual options to the basics like Exposure compensation, Light Metering and ISO sensitivity setting. Everything else including White Balance is in presets. Luckily there are tonnes of presets to choose from, so casual users should mostly not feel the need to go beyond what the cam has to offer. Advanced users, however, will probably cringe at the lack of options, but then again, this isn’t a camera for them.

Performance
This is where the camera really excels. As long as the right shooting mode is selected, the shots turned out really well.

Colors, to begin with were perfectly natural in normal mode. You do have an option of selecting a more vivid color palate in the camera options, but even in the natural mode, the colors looked great and deep to the right extent without looking 2 dimensional.

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Image clarity too was practically impeccable with the right amount of sharpness at the required sections of the image.

Skin tones too came out looking very natural, even when shot with flash, which would really help during night portraits.

The camera performed pretty well when shooting the night scene modes, by limiting the ISO sensitivity level and playing more with the shutter speed. The night portrait shots without flash, however, turned out a little grainy. I suggest using flash in those cases.

Performance time isn’t too high either. The V603 takes over 4 seconds from the turn-on time to the first shot. Shot to shot time wasn’t bad though at just over a second between consecutive shots and close to 2 seconds at consecutive shots using flash.

Conclusion
It all comes down to the audience Kodak is catering to. They have made a simple point and shoot camera that can practically fit anywhere and look good when you slip it out of your pocket that even performs well where it matters the most.

At the end of the day, the Kodak V603 is a good point and shoot camera that’s meant mainly for occasions like parties, outings, and any other social occasions. It may even go up to serving as a good option for family vacations, but if you’re into roughing it out, or even getting more control on your compositions, then look elsewhere.

The gripes I’ve had with the build and the features are something that casual users may not really be affected with, but will definitely matter to veterans. If these negatives don’t matter to you then it’s worth the Rs. 14,999 street price.
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Kodak EasyShare V603