| Product: |
Kodak Easyshare DX4330 |
| Date: |
26/06/05 (105 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Robust , Good Functions , Great for the inexperienced
Disadvantages: Bit on the large size(bigger is not better), Newer cheaper models on the market, External Lens cap
The Kodak Easy Share Dx4330 was the first digital camera I bought. It was 3years ago and was £200 at the time. It still remains my favourite to this day.
As affordable digital cameras were relatively scarce at the time I was worried that I would be buying essentially rubbish, however the camera exceeded my expectations in every way.
The appearance is pleasing to the eye and the camera has a solid feel to it with no delicate extrusions to get knocked off or annoying spiky bits!
It is slightly on the heavy side, and while not anything as heavy as a SLR camera it comes quite close. however this is only a problem with someone who was incredibly weak and doesn’t have an impact on the cameras performance so is negligible.
However a "larger" problem is the size (excuse the pun) the dimensions may make the camera easier to hold and work with, finding a place to put the dam thing when you are not using it is another matter. I have often found that it is too big to take out with e, as being a male I don’t have voluminous and seemingly never ending handbag space! and have to make do with my meagre pockets, which after being filed with mobile phone and wallet leaves little space for something that resembles a house brick!
The size does have an advantage though, it is easy to handle, as being a teenager, hand to eye coordination isn't my strong point! and further more seems to make the camera robust. I have so far, dropped it in two inches of snow, puddles of water and yes even a bowl of cereal! but after a quick wipe down the camera seems no worse for where and functions perfectly.
The only fault worth mentioning is one common with most digital cameras; if you do not use high power lithium batteries and try to use the normal AA type you will find the camera has a strop and will refuse to take pictures, it will cut out the moment you try and I con only think that in an emergency you may want to use alkaline batteries to view your picture collection on the camera.
The video function is not limited to the 30second clips like most modern cameras and you can film as much video as will fit on your memory card (multimedia) with sound. And although the quality isn’t up to much it is good for a bit of fun and to capture the atmosphere.
Annoyances:
Having to have an external lens cover as there is no in built one. This ends up hanging off the camera and makes the whole thing look tacky. You also have to manually remove it every tome you shoot.
The batteries are drained like crazy. I need to take 6lithium batteries with mo on my camping expeditions as the camera eats juice! But this could be due to the quality of my battery charger
Tips
The single thing that irritates me the most and I am sure you can all agree with me on this one is this. You are at a party taking pictures, and you decide to get someone else to take a picture of you and your mates for once so you can be in the shot for once. So you give them the camera and explain like you would explain to a child (or a monkey) how to operate the button “press it all the way down….that’s right…and make sure it clicks ect” you get in the scene, say cheese and its all over. You thank the man and carry on with your night, safe with the knowledge that you have a picture of you and your mates which you can treasure for the rest of your life. You look just to make sure that the picture is saved and it all looks ok on the menu. You then go home and transfer the files onto the laptop. Your there flicking through the images laughing at the ones where your best mate rob made a fool of himself…again! Then SHOCK HORROR you get to the one with you in it and it is all smudged around the edges and out of focus, because the twit that you asked to take the pick, moved it as he was taking it!
To avoid this problem I suggest you always use the “running man” setting (sport) on the top dial. This will prevent this kind of thing from happening without losing any picture quality.
To sum up. The camera is great for a first time buyer as not a lot can go wrong with it and you can put it through hell and it will still come out smelling of roses!
However it is pretty big and is becoming outdated, with newer, cheaper models coming on the market.
Hope I have been help!
Question answers
Memory card sizes:
You can get all the usual sizes including 64mb, 128mb and 256mb. however I don’t think you can get anything higher than 256mb, this is due to the conversion to cards like sm and xd. However I have found a cunning way to get round this, if you need to take loads of pic’s without buying additional memory cards. I bought an Archos AV420 which is an mp4 player and then bought a 4in1 card reader which slots in the side. This allows me to transfer the pictures to the Archos (memory capacity 20gb) so not only can I view them on a higher quality and larger lcd screen, it also clears or backups the files on the camera.
Where would i get one of these?
You can obtain Multimedia cards from most online retailers but I recommend ebay as you can pick one up for half price second hand! However the camera is harder to find. You again would need to look on ebay or an online camera dealer, of which I don’t know any can recommend. Sorry
Summary:
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TheChocolateLady - 27/06/05 One other thing - what about the memory card? What size card comes with this and can you get bigger ones? If so, are they easy to find, and how much would they cost?
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