For this week's review I decided it was time to dust off another vintage Digicam from my collection instead of one of my remaining Interchangeable Lens cameras I have left to review this year. In this case, the Kodak Easyshare C330.
Kodak was one of the first companies to produce not only the early Digital consumer cameras but the early "Professional" digital cameras which started as massive attachments containing Hard Drives and PCMCIA card bays for data storage that were digital backs that mounted to film camera bodies. These are so prohibitively rare and expensive as well as a pain to get photos off of that I would never consider trying to get one of the early digital back Kodak cameras for my collection.
However in 2003 Kodak shifted its focus from the professional market to the low-end consumer market; the failed DCS 14n being the swansong of their professional digital camera division (and Kodak's one and only Full Frame DSLR).
Kodak leaving the professional digital photography arena would pave way for brands such as Canon and Nikon; which ironically Kodak made the early Digital Image sensors and digital backs for.
The camera I own that I am reviewing of Kodak's became what Kodak Digital was known for; an inexpensive no frills "shovelware" point and shoot alternative alongside other budget brands such as Vivitar, Coleman and Insignia.
Released in 2005, the Kodak Easyshare C330 was a budget digicam of which Kodak became notorious for after they left the more professional realm of Digital Photography in the early 2000s.
The Kodak Easyshare series was marketed towards consumers who wanted an affordable digital pocket camera that could be dropped into a dock of a specific portable photo printer and have digital photo prints at home in an instant. In this respect, the Easyshare cameras were ahead of their time.
Sadly I do not own the printer that goes with this camera, if I did I might give this camera slightly higher (or lower depending) marks then what I did for this review. But all I can review is the camera itself, not the print system that Kodak developed to go along with this camera.
The Kodak Easyshare C330 has a fairly standard sensor for a compact camera of the time: a 1/2.5" 4mp CCD sensor. That said, this sensor was not the smallest on the market as cameras like the Canon Powershot A410, which had a tiny 1/3.2" sensor and was a direct competitor to this camera by Canon. (A camera I reviewed earlier this year).
It runs on 2 AA batteries which are fairly easy to replace but the battery life is poor to mediocre. I did have to swap batteries on this camera once and I shot less then 100 photos with it total. (Though I only had to change them for the last 10 photos, so I would expect you could get up to 100 shots on a full set of AA batteries- mine had a little drain on them prior)
Just like the Canon Powershot A410 and A510 the Kodak Easyshare is incredibly picky on SD cards. Not only for not taking SDHC cards but even 1 or 2 GB SD cards will not read on this camera. Luckily I have a 128mb card that will read on all 3 of these cameras.
With the technical specifications out of the way, the million dollar question: Is the Easyshare C330 the worst digicam I've shot this year so far? And the answer to that is no. It overall did a better job then the Canon Powershot A410, Fujifilm A345 and the GE RS1000.
That said, this camera would likely be in the bottom five of digi-cams I have shot this year from both a usability and quality/output standpoint. It has a slow write speed, no RAW support, very limited and basic shooting menu, and just overall is not unique or "fun" to hold and shoot as a lot of other digicams are in spite of their shortcomings.
The shooting experience was a slight improvement over the Fujifilm A345; a camera that I struggled with back in my early days of Digital Photography to no end, mainly because it had a 4 way D-Pad that the A345 lacks.
The buttons are flimsy and the build lightweight and plastic, but it does have about the same build quality as the Fujifim and A410, which puts it above the GE.
The rear screen is very dim and low contrast which makes it really difficult to "eyeball" if something is under or over exposed. It is also difficult to shoot in bright light as a result, so you either need to just trust the light meter and shoot or use the tiny OVF.
The C330 did however do a good job of finding the right exposure in direct sunlight, something some early or cheaper Digicams like the Powershot A410 struggle with.
For a CCD sensor it really struggles to pull in warm colors on an overcast day; but it does much better in direct sunlight to pull more vibrant colors as long as the actual light is warm.
This seems to hint that the C330 suffers from a lack of White balance adjustment (manually or automatically) to make images warmer in "cooler" lighting, unlike cameras such as the Fujifilm A345 and GE RS1000 which are very cold for a CCD sensor no matter what light they are shot in.
My overall verdict is if you are only shooting this camera in direct sunlight the Kodak Easyshare C330 is passable to get that vintage Digicam look. But I honestly wouldn't recommend it unless this camera is your cheapest or only option.
All and all the Kodak Easyshare C330 was pretty mediocre and not a camera I would shoot as a daily shooter on a regular basis. There are a good number of other Digicam's I would recommend over this one for those wanting to get into Digicam photography.
It will likely go on my chopping block when I thin my collection as it is not unique itself (which I can consider the GE to be in spite of how terrible that camera is) nor does it have a story behind how I acquired it that will make me hold onto it as in the case with the Powershot A410. But I managed to get a few passable images out of it this week, which I will share below:
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