EZ-ish (Kodak EZ 200)

Member Name: KirkcaldyDad

Product:	Kodak EZ 200
Date:	30/05/01 (369 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Low Price, Multi-function

Disadvantages: Picture Quality, Reliability

I bought an EZ200 in January 2001 to get a feel for whether I could justify buying a more expensive digital camera. It is obviously cheap and a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, but what can you expect for £75.

At that time this was the only cheap camera I found that could work as a video webcam when attached to the PC as well as a still camera for taking out and about. It can also do short 10 second video bursts when disconnected from the PC, but I think that's more of a gimmick than a useful feature.

The good points: It is cheap. It does a bit of everything, including taking several shots in a burst, delay timer just like a film camera, two different resolutions for still shots and quite sensibly doesn't use battery power when the USB is plugged in. As is usual, the accompanying CD has the essential drivers, plus some basic but easy to use programs to get you started - in this case ArcSoft PhotoImpression and ArcSoft VideoImpression for still and video editing respectively.

Not quite so good: It doesn't have a flash, the memory can't be removed or expanded and there's no fancy viewfinder, just a simple lens that lets you see approximately what you are photographing (like a £20 film camera) and no zoom. However, you didn't really think you were going to get those things at this price did you?

And plain gimmicky: It makes fake shutter and film winding noises. You can turn them off if you don't like them, but they do convey information and I think they are probably less annoying and less intrusive than the digital beeps that they might have used.

Overall I think this is an OK product as long as you take it for what it is.

It will not take great still pictures that you can print up on photo quality paper and put in a frame. It will take reasonable still pictures indoors and outdoors that you can easily get onto your PC, do some simple cropping or editing and put on y
our web site or email to Auntie Mary in Australia.

It will not take great video. A few 10 second bursts of outdoor video in 160x120 resolution is not particularly useful. Anyone who has used a camcorder knows that you need to take many minutes video to get a few seconds of useful or interestimg material. It will let you record a much longer piece of video within USB range of your PC, to stick on a CD and send to Auntie Mary (in Australia, remember). And it's much easier than video tape if you want to make a second copy to send to Granny as well. The quality is not spectacular and deteriorates if the lighting is not very good, but it's OK, and I was quite impressed at how well it adjusts for fairly low light.

I've found the overall package to be not 100% reliable. Setup was quick initially, but I did have problems getting both my scanner and the EZ200 working at once. The scanner has a parallel connection, so it's nothing to do with USB, probably a TWAIN driver problem. A bit of uninstalling/reinstalling in a different sequence (which I can't remember now) sorted that out. I tried out a few stills at different resolutions and it all worked fine. I tried recording some video with it connected to the PC and it all worked fine. So I took the camera out when we went on a day trip. Back home with a camera full of pictures in various resolutions, and a couple of video bursts I connected up to see what I had got. What I got was the Kodak software crashing consistently when downloading image 18. I tried reinstalling the software with no effect. I tried looking for a newer version of the software on Kodak's web site. I tried contacting Kodak's support people through their web site. Nothing worked, and I never heard back from Kodak. You can only download all or nothing to the PC, and you cannot selectively delete pictures from the camera; you have to clear it completely, so that's what I ended up doing. I'
;ve no idea what format picture 18 was. Perhaps there's some feature or combination of features that you just need to avoid using, but I can't say exactly what.

In view of this, if you are using the camera away from your PC I would recommend downloading pictures and clearing the camera as soon as you can after each use. Alternatively, if you are taking even still pictures within range of the PC, connect it up. The capture software lets you view the scene in video mode, then press a button on the screen to take the picture and download it without saving it in the camera's memory. That way you can adjust the framing and lighting whilst looking at the image on screen.

So, I think this is a reasonable place to start if you want to try out digital photography or webcam applications, or for occasional use. If you find you don't use it very much you won't have wasted hundreds of pounds. If you find you do use it, you can move upmarket to a more specialist product and you'll have a better feel for whether you want a camera that's primarily still, or primarily video; connected to your PC or remote from it; feature rich or simple.

I think in the last few months more multi-function cameras like this have come onto the market in about this price range, so if I were starting again I would certainly investigate the others before buying.

Summary: