Digital Trends

Kodak EasyShare V1003 July 27th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Testing and Use

The V1003 is a 10-megapixel camera so it takes 3676 x 2764 pixel images at the highest resolution. One of the more annoying things about the vast majority of Kodak cameras is the fact they do not offer compression options—no Fine, Normal or Basic here. You can only choose resolution such as 10MP, 8.9, 4.9 and so on. And RAW isn’t in the same universe. I imagine this doesn’t mean anything for the target buyer but it bothers me since I like to have as many options as possible. That off my chest, I set the camera to auto at 10MP and started off from there. Once done, I downloaded the images and made my usual 8.5x11 full-bleed prints.

One thing that strikes you right away is the poor quality LCD screen. When you’re out shooting in bright light, it’s really a crapshoot trying to frame your subject. Unfortunately, Kodak doesn’t tell you how to adjust the brightness in the Getting Started brochure. Phooey. It goes downhill from there. There’s a big-time lag from the time you press the shutter to the point you can take another shot—even in bright daylight. You might expect this with the flash (it’s bad here as well) but surprising without. After shooting in Auto, I switched to the Flower setting to shoot some blue hydrangeas that popped up in the yard. Although the color was fairly accurate, the focus wasn’t sharp. Yet in the macro setting I did get a tack-sharp image of furry cat. Go figure. 

In Auto I took some photos of trees and the overall exposure was bad—it dealt with the sky but the green trees below had very little detail. Phooey again. The camera has a burst mode and given the prior issues with response, I didn’t hold out much hope. I was right as the poor thing gave it up after four images with the screen blacking out between each shot. Another bummer: the camera uses digital electronic image stabilization rather than the much preferred optical image stabilization. That probably hurt image sharpness in some cases. And although the camera has a high ISO setting of 1600, it’s practically useless—unless you like Pointilist-style paintings. 

Conclusion

It’s really hard for me to recommend this camera, even if it costs only $199 USD. Comparing this to the 8MP Sony DSC-W90 in terms of processing power and speed is a joke. And that camera only costs another $60 USD in the real world, a very worthwhile investment. Perhaps this camera is a good one for its intended audience of people who want a fashion accessory rather than a “real” digicam. It works all right for casual snapshots (4x6) but that’s about it. You can do much, much better.


Pros:

• Pretty in pink
• Good menu system

Cons:

• Slow saving files
• Low-quality LCD
• Uneven focusing