Kodak EasyShare C530

Viewfinder
Many compact cameras are foregoing the viewfinder, instead relying on the LCD screen for image preview. The C530 goes against this trend, which is probably a good thing seeing as the LCD screen is fairly small. It’s as if Kodak felt bad about including such a tiny screen, but not bad enough to make it large: the viewfinder is a compromise, although the viewfinder coverage area is less than that of the LCD screen.

LCD Screen
The LCD is a 1.5-inch display with 130,000 pixels. The size means that it’s not really suitable for showing off pictures, but it is reasonably sharp. We have seen models with 2.5" LCDs at 110,000 pixels, or even 85,000. It’s your call as to whether you’d rather a large LCD with poor resolution or a small LCD with a decent resolution—unless you resign yourself to spending more for both.

Flash
The flash on the EasyShare C530 is a fairly large rectangular model (at least in comparison to the lens) with a claimed range of up to 7.9 feet. It’s pretty close to the lens, which should avoid shadows, but might lead to problems with red-eye. A pre-flash red-eye reduction mode is included, though, along with other settings of auto, fill and off. These settings are basic and fairly standard for a camera of this type.

Zoom Lens
Kodak generally offers Schneider-Kreuznach lenses on their higher-end point-and-shoots, but this is another corner that had to be cut to keep the price low. There is no optical zoom lens on the C530: the lens is a fixed Kodak lens equivalent to a 36mm focal length on a 35mm film camera. (One Kodak rep at CES candidly described it as a sneaker zoom: you stand up and walk closer.) There is a 5x digital zoom, but the quality does suffer as you zoom in. The lens is also a fixed focus: there are no focusing mechanism or autofocus modes. Kodak claims a focus range of 3.3 feet to infinity; there’s no macro setting either.