Dock Me Baby (Kodak Easyshare C310)

Member Name: dadofthree

Product:	Kodak Easyshare C310
Date:	19/11/06 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good camera, great value (even if you dont get your kid to win it!)

Disadvantages: Not as complex as some cameras - maybe not suitable for a pro.

Firstly, I have a confession. I admit to cheating somewhat here (what's new?), I didn't actually pay for this. Instead, my lovely daughter won it in a raffle during a recent fun day. Rather lucky really as I would never have paid the £129.99 it cost (they gave us the receipt with it) and would otherwise have missed out on a brilliant little camera package.

Having kissed daughter on head (she is easy to bribe and sold me it for £10 towards a toy in town - so really it only cost me a tenner - bless her), I opened the packaging to see what it was all about.

Lets get to the camera first. Now you can buy the camera on its own for about £80. For those in the know, it's 4 megapixels and has a 16mb internal memory plus a flash card slot. This means it holds a few pictures (literally - you really do need some form of external memory, I paid £20 for mine ages ago with an old camera so had one in the house) and the pictures it holds are of a good enough quality to expand to about 20"x30" prints. That's pretty damn big.

Indeed, as far as picture quality goes, I am really impressed. I had a 3 mega pixel camera before, and putting the pictures side by side when you upload them to the PC, you would be amazed at just how blurry the older ones look. On their own they didn't look too bad, but stand them next to excellence and they fall apart.

Now this could be down to the fact that we have become mini-experts in photography, that the sun decided that all our pictures with this new camera should be perfectly lit through the trees, or it could be the Kodak Colour Science that is proudly boasted about on the box. Whichever it is, I am impressed. For those who want a hint by the way, I only ever take pictures of the kids, and that is only when really pushed by relatives to show them how the youngest is growing.... and I do mean really pushed!

Now the camera itself is rather small, which isnt always a good thing. It fits neatly in the palm of my hand and comes with a little cord thing, barely enough to put over your wrist. Now small cameras are all the rage these days (a bit like phones), but to me it just makes it easier to carry but easier to lose. However, we haven't lost this one yet and it is generally guarded with my life.

The back contains the menu buttons (4 directions and select on one side and the 'menu' and 'review buttons on the right' and a screen that takes up about 50% of the cameras size. Now the screen may look small, but the high definition of picture means it more than satisfies my needs. I don't doubt that a professional photographer might want a little more from a camera than me, but I just want peoples heads in the frame, and that is easy with this little beauty.

Oh dear, I almost forgot that the flash button is also on the back (guess what this does anyone? turns the flash on and off.... clever boy at the back there!) and you also have the old style viewing window, like what you find on those disposable camera things (we should all go back to them, less hassle and far more fun, no worrying about your £130 getting broken on a day out!).

On the top of the camera you have the 'take picture' button (god knows what it is really called, I am sure the manual will tell me but that thing is so thick it makes Jade Goody look like a wafer!). More importantly though (like anything is more important on a camera than the take picture button), there is a small dial that selects the camera mode. This includes 'film' for taking moving pictures or mini films of your subject, 'auto' for taking pictures, off (now if this isnt self explanatory then you need to put those arms back into the straight jacket and lay on the bad for the good doctor) and a love heart symbol which I have only recently discovered is your favourites (stored images etc).

As with most cameras these days, when you play about with the thing you will find all sorts of extra hidden features. Taking pictures and films is easy, thats just point and click, but the camera offers a multitude of options once you have images stored.

Entering the menus allows you to select options from as basic as 'store images onto memory card or internal memory' right down to how long it should be inactive before it switches itself off (never cared for this, I am so protective of the damn thing that it never gets left on for long anyway). Fortunately, the options are all in plain English and don't have a hint of camera jargon about them, even I understood what they all meant. They are also in easy to navigate options with things being where you would expect them to be. Naturally, the clever people at Kodak have decided to put the most used options to the front (less delving in that way), so you can delete your unwanted images with 2 clicks of a button. And they say they rush these things?

You also get a CD with the camera (when you buy it with or without the dock), that allows you to edit your images once on the PC. I installed it and quickly found that it was relatively useless and annoyingly seemed to want me to go to the website of Kodaks choice to order my images. I eventually uninstalled this bit of kit and went back to using Photoshop to edit them. Don't ask why I have Photoshop - it was actually sent to me by the mother who was trying to get me to email pictures at the time! I just like what I like I guess and the Kodak software, although easy to use, was annoying to a fault with its 'come to our site and order prints' messages every time you click anything.

So the camera itself is quite nifty and looks good too. It produces some clear and crisp images that are of a high quality. It really does make all 4 megapixels count. In this view you could argue that the camera is among the best in value for the type of camera it is and it can be purchased as a stand alone from Tesco for £80. But this package is more than just a camera. Oh yes, this includes the docking station!.

For those who are not clear on what a docking station is (sounds like something from Star Trek doesn't it?), it's basically a little mini photo lab. Or to put it in english, it's a printer. Yep, that's essentially what it is. However, this printer does mean that even those without a PC, or the will to make a journey to a developer every time thier card is full, can simply put the camera on top of it, select the relevant buttons and print the images. Easy stuff.

And it really is quite simple. I have only used it to print a couple of images (I prefer to use an online photo printing company), but they come out clear and were good enough to send away to family. However, what this thing doesn't tell you is the high maintenance costs. You need to supply the replacement ink and paper for the printer. Now working this out, I found that averaging my costs I was looking at about 7p per image not including electric. Now I pay 5p per image for my online printers to do the work and send the images to me (granted I have to order 150+ at a time). With this in mind, and the infrequency of the times I take a picture anyway, I wouldn't personally pay for the docking station.

However, if you are always taking the odd photo, it might be worth your while as it does give good quality prints. One thing I would argue though, don't expect this thing to do 20-30 prints at a time. You do them one by one and you stay there while it does it..... hassle!


SUMMARY:

I hope I managed to sound like I half know what I am talking about here, as I really am a camera novice. However, I like what I like and when I compare the end products, this is probably the camera that produces the best images for the price you are paying. You may well be better of paying for just the camera at £79.99 (Tesco) though as the docking station, although cool to have and let friends see, isn't all that practical if you want to take a lot of pictures. For an extra £50, I don't think it was worth the money as it is more expensive to run than simply uploading your images and getting them sent to your door.

Professionals may want a better camera and be willing to spend a lot to get it, but for family use and general picture taking, this is an affordable little camera that won;t disappoint.

Summary: Good family camera. Heartily recommended.

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