Viewfinder (2.0)
The Kodak EasyShare C663 has an optical viewfinder that zooms just as the lens does. It isn’t entirely accurate, as its view is different from the view of the lens. Kodak publishes an 84 percent accuracy rate, which doesn’t sound very good at all. However, it clips from all edges and doesn’t favor any particular side of the composition. As the viewfinder zooms in, it becomes increasingly inaccurate. To make matters worse, the top and left edges of the viewfinder are blurry and will make you wonder if you have a concussion. The viewfinder itself is a square window within a rectangular platform that is flush with the LCD screen’s platform and above the rest of the camera body, but only slightly. The window is small, but certainly not the smallest ever installed on a digital camera. On the platform, next to the optical viewfinder, is an LED indicator light; this blinks when the camera is reading and writing to the memory card. Overall, the C663’s optical viewfinder has plenty of flaws but would still be a decent gamble when battery power is scarce.
LCD Screen (6.25)
A much more accurate view can be had on the C663’s 2.5-inch LCD screen. The display is large enough that you won’t need to squint to see pictures, but its resolution will leave the edges in your pictures looking jagged (don’t be fooled by the “HI-RES” sticker Kodak tags above the screen). With only 115,000 pixels, users will be able to read menus just fine but will be disappointed when checking out images. Showing off pictures to a large group of people will be a problem too. Sure, the screen is big – but everyone would have to squeeze directly in front of the screen. It doesn’t have a very wide viewing angle, so when looking from the side, the image solarizes and looks like a negative. Another obstacle to viewing this display is the blazing star the earth orbits. Yes, direct sunlight makes it nearly impossible to see the screen. There is a LCD Brightness option in the setup menu, but unlike some other digital cameras, there is no 10-step scale. Instead, there are only two choices: Power Save and High Power. Power Save dims the screen after a few seconds of inactivity, while the High Power boosts the picture’s contrast for viewing outdoors. After going outside and hardly being able to see the screen, then fiddling in the menu system trying to activate the LCD Brightness option without seeing the screen– well, let’s just say it was disappointing to find out that the High Power setting just doesn’t cut it. It’s still hard to see outdoors.
Another viewing issue with the Kodak C663’s LCD screen is the visible artifacts that showed up on the live view. When a subject was backlit, the bright light produced purple bands that ran across the screen. These weren’t captured in pictures (although seen on the display), but can be seen in videos. The 2.5-inch LCD screen does have some good qualities too. It has a 30 fps refresh rate, so viewing moving subjects looks smooth. A Blur Warning appears on the screen in various colors to mean different things. If the icon of a shaking hand comes up green, then there are no worries. If it shows up red, the picture is not sharp enough for a decent 4 x 6-inch print. A yellow icon means the sharpness is not determined. A white icon means the camera is still thinking about whether it is sharp enough. The Blur Warning appears on the quick view just after a picture is taken. While it is nice to have all this info, I never really used this feature much because I was always busy trying to snap the next picture before the moment passed – and I could never remember what all the colors meant. The information on the LCD screen can be changed using the Display/Info button on the right side of the screen. Pushing the Display/Info button brings up a clean live preview, a preview with status icons, a preview with icons and a histogram and a mode that turns off the display completely. Overall, the 2.5-inch LCD screen is nicely sized and is much more accurate than the optical viewfinder, butit still has downsides such as poor resolution, narrow viewing angle and ineffective viewing in daylight.
Flash (4.75)
A built-in flash is cornered in the top-right portion of the C663’s front. It is off-axis from the lens and it shows in the images. I took a picture of my son using the flash and with the camera oriented in a vertical position; it turned out awful. There were harsh shadows and brightly lit skin, with a bright spot at his feet! When landscape-oriented photos are taken, the bright spot appears on the left side. So, while the C663’s flash won’t wash out foreheads, like on many models, anything in the bright spot could turn out a white wash. The flash also skimps on the edges and corners of the frame; it has a sort of vignette effect, but coupled with the off-center bright spot it looks quite awful. The flash reaches from 2-12.1 ft at the widest focal length with an ISO 140 sensitivity. When zoomed in on a subject, the flash is only effective to 6.9 ft. The EasyShare C663’s flash has the following modes that can be changed with the designated button atop the camera: Auto, Fill, Off, and Red-Eye Reduction. The red-eye preflash can be turned on and off within the menu system; it isn’t totally annoying when turned on though. Rather than a six-second disco party of fast strobes – yes, this happens on some digital cameras – the C663 fires one preflash and then the real thing with the shutter. Overall, the flash is disappointing with its spotty coverage.
Zoom Lens (6.5)
Like other Kodak digital cameras, the C663 is equipped with a Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon 3x optical zoom lens that offers equivalent focal lengths of 34-102 mm. For a wide angle, this lens doesn’t have much, so snapping pictures of large groups will be tough (“Everyone squeeze tight. More, please. Okay, how about the people on the edges kneel in the front?”). The lens itself isn’t very high quality. It shows banding when portions of the frame are blown-out and other chromatic aberrations. The lens is controlled by two buttons: a “W” for wide and a “T” for telephoto. The buttons aren’t very sensitive, so it takes a good push to go one way or another. The lens stops at about 6 focal lengths throughout its range, however, much of the time, the lens over-shoots where you want to stop. When zooming, a bar shows up about two-thirds of the way up the LCD screen – right in the way of subjects most of the time. Across the horizontal bar are three letters to show where you’re at in the range: W, T, and D. One push of the zoom button will get you from “W” to “T”, but you’ll have to lift and push again to make it to “D”. You’ll never want to go there because that accesses the digital zoom, which makes jagged edges look much worse.
The 3x lens does have some redeeming qualities. It remains quiet while zooming and shooting, which is nice. It also has a manually controllable aperture. Although it is only two steps, users can choose from f/2.7 and f/5.1 in wide and f/4.6 and f/8.7 in telephoto. Overall, this is one of the cheaper lenses that Kodak includes on its cameras but it’s still functional.
