POINT AND CLICK PARADISE (Kodak Easyshare DX3600)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	Kodak Easyshare DX3600
Date:	10/07/06 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easily held camera that offers a lot.

Disadvantages: Battery life.

When I was looking for a Digital Camera a few years ago, I read magazine after magazine. Some were far too complex for my needs, some were too cheap and cheerful to convince me that they could do what I wanted them to do. The Kodak kept coming up time and time again in the comparison tables of computer magazines, both in England when I was spending time there, and in France as well, so much so that I was convinced that I should buy one.

I went to town in Plymouth and priced one up and the price was £265 which I thought was a little more expensive than I could manage. I then searched through the net for a better price for the same product and eventually found one at £210, printed out the advert and took it into a price promise shop in Plymouth where they honoured their promise and I got my camera at the cheaper rate.

This was exciting and innovative for me at the time. The camera comes with full, easy to understand instructions, and very soon I was taking pictures of everything in sight. The nice feature about this camera is that is not only takes snaps, but it also has the capacity to zoom. It's description of 2.2 mega pixels did not really mean a lot to me, as I am a technological disaster area, though it was stated that this produced a good 8" x 10" print, and this was good enough for me.

The lens is great for a typical user of a point and click camera, with a focusing range of 0.5 metres to infinity set on normal, and 20-60 centimetres with the close up macro lens in use. The results of zooming into macro mode are splendidly pleasing, for photos of flowers or insects, though for someone who wants perfection, perhaps a more complex camera would be a better idea.

The 8 mb internal memory which holds 12 images was not enough for me. I did not want to run out of space for photographs on long trips, so I upgraded this to 64 mb Sandisk Memory Card, and now find that I can take 265 good quality pictures, or a little less if I use the video feature.

The video feature means that you can actually shoot small videos that can be sent in email, which to me was a great innovation. This meant that my father could wave to my sister in Australia and say hello instead of just writing. I was very pleased with this feature although I must admit that sending emails with an attachment such as this is a slow process. I gave up using this feature after a while because it seemed more of a gimmick than a useful thing. Taking anything more than seconds meant that transmission by email was painful. Another thing that is not too clever is the quality of sound on the videos. It's pretty tacky at best.

Moving on to another feature of this camera, the optional Docking Bay which was included in the price mentioned above made my life easier at the time, having had no experience of transferring photographs to the computer from a camera. Once the software for the camera is installed on the computer, (which was very simple), the Docking bay is plugged into a USB point, and when you place your camera onto the bay and press the button on the front of the bay, your pictures are transferred immediately into a dated file on your computer. What I found after a year or so was that the docking bay was a pretty useless and superfluous item as my printer at that time had a slot for a memory card, and I could transfer pictures without having to use the invasive Kodak software.

The software that came as part of the package is the Kodak Easyshare and I have to admit that I do not like it, compared with my own very good software packages, such as Roxio Suite and Microsofts own “Picture It”. You could of course order prints on line at the time I purchased the camera, and the prices that Kodak offered were competitive, although nowadays, I question the need for this, since more and more stores offer the same printing service locally.

Features of the camera.

One of the nice things about this camera is the way in which the lens is protected. When you switch the camera off, the zoom retracts, and the cap slides neatly over the lens. The quality of the pictures that I took with the zoom are pretty astounding, although compared to the camera that I use now, limiting to the more adventurous photographer.

The menus are simple to follow and are accessed by clearly marked buttons on the back of the camera, which give menu options on the left hand side of the LCD screen, which really are easy to navigate. Adding time and date stamps is simple. Transferring photos on the cameras own memory to a memory card is easy. choosing the quality of photograph that you wish to take (i.e. Best quality 1800 x 1200, or good at 900 x 600) is a simply process, and here using the Good quality option, the photos are crystal clear, and a whole holiday's worth of photos can be stored on the camera easily.

The buttons on the camera are strong. The options button on the top is in metal and even now after years of ownership has withstood misuse, and has never failed.

Batteries. This really is a sore point with me, as I took the option to buy the Kodak batteries, that were supposed to charge whilst the camera was on the docking bay. Here, time and time again, the camera let me down. I found that switching to good quality AA batteries was the only option, and here if you want to make them last a good amount of time, I would suggest that you use the little screen on the back of the camera sparsely, only looking briefly at your photographs or menus. I found that two good quality batteries last me about three days on holiday which is bad news.

The flash on the camera is a basic built in one and doesn't produce too much red eye, although the software provided does let you modify this if it happens.

Ease of use.

The camera makes the decisions for you. If you are a person who does not have expertise in photography then this probably is a good bet for a camera.


Overall, after having had this camera for approximately 5 years, I would say it's a darned good one. I use it now as a back-up camera because I wanted more complexity than this camera offered, although must admit that for ease of function, I do tend to grab this one if I need photos of day to day things. It's a neat little camera, well built and certainly worthy of thought for the novice, as I was at the time of purchasing it and the good news is that it has come down in price since the time I purchased it to a reasonable level of just under the two hundred pound mark and is also available cheaper than that second hand on Amazon, though I would suggest buying new, so that the makers guarantee is in place, as Kodak do take their responsibilities seriously.

Want a point and click ? Buy it.
Want complexity – look at Kodak's more expensive range.

Rachel

Summary: A good all rounder for everyday use.

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