Good camera from the camera company. (Kodak Easyshare CX7530)

Member Name: f1ndl0w

Product:	Kodak Easyshare CX7530
Date:	15/05/09 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple to use, great pictures (nearly) every time.

Disadvantages: Not quite as advanced as it's modern counterparts.

I purchased this camera a few years ago from eBuyer, at the time for what felt like the bargain price of just £100 including an AA battery charger and (huge!) 128 MB memory card. At the time I had many reviews, which seemed to be praising this camera, and focusing on it's small size, so upon receiving the package I was eager to try it out. Despite what I had read I felt that it was pretty large (compared to my expectations anyway), although still a good enough size to make operating it a comfortable experience.

Included in the box were the standard accessories; wrist strap, USB cable, A/V cable, a lot of printed instructions, software disk, and (due to it being a Kodak), a printer dock adaptor.

It is in no way an ultra-compact credit card sized thing that is often seen nowadays, but this to me means that image quality is not compromised upon. You can tell that it is by no means of DSLR quality, although pictures from it are significantly better than a newer, slimmer, higher MP Casio. The camera is capable of taking decent quality photos under most conditions, except for very dark nights.

The camera does have a video mode, capturing at 640 * 480 (@ 15fps) with audio, limited only by the size of your memory card. Quality is reasonable so long as there is sufficient lighting, the only thing that let's it down is the low frame rate, making sudden movements appear rather jerky. In addition to this zoom is disabled whilst recording video (although you can set it beforehand), this is no doubt due to the fact that the motor would interfere to the microphone (in close proximity to each other), hence messing up with the audio.

There are 6 different modes on the camera, all of which automatically adjust the settings based on different environments, under most conditions I have found the Auto mode to produce good results, although depending on usage others may be more appropriate to you.

A nice little feature is that the camera is capable of taking multiple sequential shots, this allows for SLR like capabilities where up to 5 pictures can be taken at once. Although when using this the autofocus system seems to be disabled (presumably because it can't keep up with the camera) resulting in sometimes blurry shots, although the effect can look quite good when capturing moving objects!

As your knowledge of the camera progresses you will find that there are a few manual controls, allowing for you to override what the camera thinks' is best. You don't get full control over everything, although some nice picture's can be had by adjusting settings such as shutter time - allowing for nice effects at night time (just be sure to keep the camera still!).

Despite being many years old, and out of date by today's standards, I still use this camera regularly, and the quality of the pictures is yet to let me down, if you want to see some examples of what it is capable of take a look at places like flickr.

Summary: Often available relatively cheap on eBay - don't be fooled by it's age.

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