Digital Trends

Kodak EasyShare P880

November 27th, 2005 | by David Elrich

Performance

The P880 starts up very quickly and in less than two seconds you're good to go. I shot images at 8MP Fine (3264 x 2448 pixels) as well as RAW. Images were taken initially in Auto and then it was time to explore the many options offered.

The camera has excellent feel and heft. While not as bulky as some D-SLRs, it does weigh 20 ounces with battery and card. It's definitely not going to fit in your pocket but that's not what this camera is all about.

Although Kodak claims the 2.5-inch LCD is good for indoors and out, I found myself using the EVF especially when outside in bright sunshine. The LCD has five contrast levels to choose from but I found the 115K pixels couldn't withstand the strong light. Another thing that bothered me was the lack of an auto pop-up flash. You have to open it manually. It's not the end of the world but it's something you'd expect at this price level. Still I really liked having the option of 24mm.

When shooting at full JPEG resolution there's a definite lag as the camera saves photos to the card (and I used a high-speed edition). It's even longer for RAW. For casual shots this is no big deal but consider moving to burst if you're the resident photographer for the kid's soccer games. After taking a variety of shots indoors and out, in Auto, manual and different resolutions, it was time to make some prints, truly the best way to measure any camera's real-world quality.

After downloading images to my Dell, JPEGs were cranked out with no processing or tweaking to a Canon Pixma MP780 printer. The 8.5x11 prints were very good with very accurate colors with very little purple fringing. Some macro shots of late Fall mums looked as lifelike as one could ask for. Shots taken with the ISO pushed to 200 and 400 were noisy but not as bad as other 8MP cameras I've used.

Kodak handles RAW image files (13MB-plus) rather uniquely. It has an in-camera system to “develop” them. If you haven't taken the plunge for Adobe Photoshop CS2 ($500), the de facto editing program for RAW files, the P880 lets you adjust the file in the camera while keeping an original copy (for the day you plunk down the cash for CS2). Some of the adjustments are exposure compensation, color mode, sharpness, contrast, white balance and white balance compensation. This is a very useful feature for photographers who are dipping their toes into RAW. The developed file is a JPEG or a TIFF, files that can be easily handled by less expensive editing programs. Kodak is to be commended for this.  

Although this is a D-SLR wannabe, it can take video clips at 640 x 480 pixels at 30 frames second. Although you can zoom while shooting the camera picks up the noise of zoom. As I've said many times before, these clips are fun for a quickie video but it won't replace your MiniDV camcorder.

Image Courtesy of Kodak