Kodak EasyShare C875
First Take: It’s touted as a point-and-shoot camera, and its price straddles the budget range, but the Kodak EasyShare C875 boasts some impressive controls for a camera of this class.
Though it’s part of Kodak’s point-and-shoot C-series, the C875’s manual modes will appeal to budget-minded amateur photographers and snapshooters looking to experiment with more advanced photography. It has program, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and manual (PASM) modes, so aspiring photographers will be able to take some of their first tweaked or artsy shots. The C875 also sports a relatively narrow (37mm equivalent) 5X optical zoom lens, giving it a bit more zoom power than the standard 3X optical zoom lenses found on most snapshot cameras.
The C875 includes Smart Scene, a relatively new feature from Kodak that lets the camera automatically choose from among a handful of its 21 scene modes, depending on the subject. For example, if the camera detects a face in the photo, it will automatically switch to portrait scene mode. If the camera detects a great deal of light, it will automatically switch to beach/snow mode. This feature could be very handy to users who want to take advantage of the camera’s various settings but don’t want to dive through menus. Once the photo is shot, you can use the built-in Kodak Perfect Touch image-processing technology to tweak the final image.
As a high-resolution point-and-shoot with manual controls, the C875 faces competition from cameras such as the slightly pricier 7-megapixel Canon PowerShot A700, with its 6X zoom lens.
The C875 sits at the top of Kodak’s EasyShare C-series of point-and-shoots, superceding the 6-megapixel, 3X-zoom-equipped C663. While the C663 has program and manual modes, the C875 is the first C-series camera with aperture-/shutter-priority mode and a 5X zoom lens. Other C-series cameras include the upcoming 7-megapixel C743 and the bargain-basement 4-megapixel C433.
Previous EasyShare C-series cameras were plagued with poor image quality and cheap builds. The C875’s new sensor, lens, and Perfect Touch processing might help improve its photos, but we’ll have to see the test shots first. Since the C875 has more advanced features than previous C-series cameras, Kodak could decide to put it into a more durable, solid-feeling shell. Again, we’ll have to have the camera in hand before we can judge.
The 8-megapixel Kodak EasyShare C875 point-and-shoot boasts a solid manual feature set for a budget model.
The Kodak EasyShare C875 ships at the end of August, with a suggested retail price of $300.
Source: CNET
