Silver gets Gold! (Kodak Easyshare CX7430)

Member Name: Azurel

Product:	Kodak Easyshare CX7430
Date:	06/09/05 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great pictures, Easy to use, 3x Optical zoom

Disadvantages: LCD screen could be bigger

I found this camera on special offer at Dixons for £150 and decided it had all the features I was looking for (which were mainly 4mega pixels and 3x optical zoom) as well as a whole host of other nifty features. I have found it really easy to take good quality pictures with this camera. The focus is spot on thanks to the range of setting which allow you to take pictures in a variety of conditions and situations, these are:

* Auto, for general shots

* Portrait, for people pictures.

* Sport, this is a great setting which has a faster shutter speed meaning that you can take great pictures of things moving (or of things stationary while you move!)

* Night, for low light or night time unlike Sport mode this setting has a slower shutter speed.

* Landscape, this takes pictures of things in the distance

* Close-up, this takes pictures of near items (28 inches), though you need to use the screen on the back as focussing through the view finder produces blurry pictures.

* Video - This camera will also take video with sound. The length of the video you can take is around 5min with the internal memory.

While on holiday I developed a terrible habit of wanting to take pictures of everything! Even being in the car couldn’t stop me (not driving! :D), but surprisingly the sport setting meant that even pictures taken from a car moving at, at least 40mph came out clear and un-blurred! I was really amazed by this as I didn’t really expect them to come out but as the views were so nice I figured it was worth a try : )Any pics that aren’t quite right can be deleted straight away so no one but you has to see the blurry picture of the back of some random persons head!

This camera has 4 mega pixels (the number of pixels affects the quality of the photos, the higher the number the better the quality) which is perfectly respectable though you can get cameras with many more! It takes 2 AA batteries which generally have quite a long life in standard use but if you use the viewing screen on the back a lot their life drops severely, so if your planning on using the close up mode or taking video footage (you can take up to 5 minutes) you will need more than one set of batteries.

There is a useful 3x optical zoom on the camera which means the lens actually moves to zoom in/out rather than digital zoom which just involves manipulating the picture, optical zoom gives a clearer picture than digital zoom and is a definite advantage in this camera.

It has 16mb of internal memory which isn’t very much but Secure Digital (the type of card) can be bought cheaply from the internet (I paid around £13 for my 256mb card) so this isn’t really a big issue.

The camera comes in a silver finish and is a nice size and weight. It has a slot for the memory card which is under a little flap which also houses the connector to link the camera to the computer. This allows you to save pictures to the computer and then edit them before printing. The camera also comes with some Kodak editing software, which lets you manipulate photos to resize, reduce red eye as well as other fun and useful things.

There is an LCD screen on the back which allows you to see your pictures and also helps you take better pictures in close up mode, the only problem is that the LCD screen could be a little bigger as it doesn't show the pictures to their best. Around the LCD screen are several more buttons, the delet button, menue, flash on/off/auto, navigator button, timer and zoom in/out buttons.

This is a really easy to use and useful camera. You can take great pictures straight out of the box without worring about needing to spend hours setting it up first. All in all this is an excellent camera which makes it easy to take great pictures

Summary: Great easy to use camera produces excellent pictures but the LCD screen could be bigger

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