Kodak EasyShare C530

 

Manual Control Options
There are no manual control options, except for exposure compensation and the flash mode control—if you could call that manual control.

Focus
No focus options are provided, since this lens is not capable of zoom and the internal components are lacking. Kodak claims that the fixed focus lens has a range of 3.3 feet to infinity, and this seemed accurate from our limited testing.

Metering
No metering mode options are provided. The camera uses center-weighted TTL metering while taking pictures.

Exposure
Users can adjust exposure compensation of 2 stops either way in 0.5 stop intervals. This is accessed through the menu, but is only a couple of button presses away, so it doesn’t take long to find. Many cameras have this option in 0.3 stop intervals, but the 0.5 interval is normal for Kodak.

White Balance
Auto white balance is the only setting. No user presets, custom settings, or other controls are present. This may be a budget camera, but this lack is a disappointment. We regard manual white balance as one of the most important options. We do recognize that it need not be present on extremely basic cameras like this one, but to not even offer presets? Ouch.

ISO
Although it’s not user accessible, Kodak claims that the EasyShare C530 has an auto ISO range of 100 to 400. ISO is something else that’s usually manually controllable on inexpensive cameras, so this is a disappointment, too.

Shutter Speed
Again, the user can’t control this, but Kodak claims a range of half a second to 1/1618th of a second. This range is a bit truncated on either end for what we’d like to see.

Aperture
The aperture is fixed at f/4.5; again, this camera has no focusing mechanism.