Kodak EasyShare C340 First Impressions Review

Viewfinder
There is a small optical viewfinder on the C340. Surprisingly, it is fairly accurate, as far as I could tell from framing and then recording pictures. Unfortunately, for the traditionalist, it is generally better to frame subjects in the LCD screen because it has close to 100 percent accuracy; though it is a nice option to have a working optical viewfinder handy to conserve battery life when needed or to get an alternate perspective, even if it is a bit compromised.

LCD Screen
The LCD screen is extremely disappointing on the C340. With 76,000 pixels, the 1.6-inch LCD screen only covers a small portion of the back of the camera, though most users should not have to squint because the menus are printed in an extremely large font. To the right of the display screen are several buttons, one of which has an icon representing the LCD monitor. This button will turn the screen on and off. The compromised LCD screen is a true travesty on this model as the camera is intended for point-and-shooters and beginner users. Problems may arise when viewing images in playback mode, especially in the thumbnail frames, with this small screen and very minimal resolution; playback could be an exercise on the eyes.

Flash
The C340 has a built-in flash that isn’t very effective. It reaches from 2-11.8 feet when the lens is zoomed out. In telephoto mode, the flash is only good from 2-6.9 feet. Even when the flash reaches subjects, lighting is uneven. The following flash modes are available when the flash button on top is pressed: Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Fill, and Off. With the limited illumination range and lack of a hot shoe, the C340 should be restricted to bright days and abundant lighting as users forced to rely on the C340’s stock flash for visibility in the image will be quite disappointed.

Zoom Lens
This EasyShare has a 3x Kodak Retinar, all glass optical zoom lens that measures from 5.6-16.8mm. In 35mm format, this is equivalent to a 34-102mm lens. There is an additional 5x digital zoom, but like all digital zooms, this feature disintegrates picture quality exponentially. For their C-series models, Kodak has opted to keep price down and include a Kodak Retinar lens rather than the Schneider lenses they apply to higher-end models. Although there is a considerable difference in quality, the all-glass Kodak lens contains aspheric elements and should produce well-defined, high quality images for the price.