Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)For the past few weeks on trips around the state, I have been taking basic snapshots with my cell phone camera, and then picture-messagin them to the web. But after a few hundred snapshots this can start to add up ($$$), and cell phone cameras are not exactly the highest quality.
So, last week I set out to find a very simple, basic, low-cost digital camera. Browsing through Amazon, there were plenty of cameras to choose from. And ultimately, I decided to stick with the tried-and-true Kodak company with their Easyshare cameras. And in particular, I settled on the lower-end of the scale - the Kodak C613.
And then, over this past weekend, I went out the eastern High Sierra and snapped away with about 150 photos.
Overall, I was pleased with the camera. It's nothing fancy - just your basic point-and-shoot camera, which is exactly what I'm looking for. There are about a dozen different settings you can play around with, but for about 90% of the time the "auto" function is just fine. I'm not the type that is trying for "high art" photography - I don't have the patience nor the skills for the high-end stuff. I just want to center the photo on the screen, click the button and that's it. And this camera is good for people like me.
Got back home, and hooked up the camera to the computer with the USB cable, and downloading all the photos was a snap. I haven't tried using the Easyshare software (and I don't really plan to). I was also very pleased to see that the quality of the pictures (once on the computer) was quite a bit better than they had originally appeared on the camera viewscreen - more detail and brighter.
Problems - I was surprised at the tiny internal memory - it can hold only about a dozen 6 Megapixel pictures (or several dozen smaller-sized pictures), so I immediately went out and bought a 1Gb card for the camera - this is an absolute MUST. Now I can store thousands of pictures without worry.
It runs on AA batteries, and they lasted through the weekend and no more. I would turn on the camera for about a minute, snap a picture or two, then turn it off until the next shot. I did this at least 100 times over the weekend, rarely leaving the camera on for more than a couple minutes at a time. I don't know if this is normal operating time for the batteries, but it would be a good idea carrying around spare batteries.
The manual that comes with the camera is a complete joke. Totally useless.
The button layout and operation is a little non-intuitive, but I figure it will just take a little bit of time getting used to it, that's all.
The only feature I wish this camera had is a "timer" function, so I could set it down and take pictures of myself in front of a big mountain backdrop, for example. As far as I can tell, no timer.
And finally, twice the camera would not start up when I pressed the "On" button. But all I had to do was open and close the battery cover - and it was fine - I assume it's just a very slight short where the battery is/not touching.
So, after one weekend trial, I give it a tentative thumbs-up. It's nothing big and fancy - but then again it's not supposed to be. Just a simple, low-cost point-and-shoot camera for the simple photographer.
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