Kodak EasyShare C663

 

Optical and digital zoom are disabled in the movie mode, and there is no image stabilization to speak of. Thus, if you’re recording your daughter’s track race with this camera, every shake of the hand and bump of the elbow will show up on screen – making your viewers a little sick from all the commotion. The Kodak C663’s movie mode is great if you have something to steady the camera and are in bright sunlight. However, videos in low light are awful. Colors take on a warm hue, so people’s faces look unnaturally red. Another drawback to the movie mode is that it records all the issues from the lens: purple banding around light sources and lens flare are quite pronounced, etc. In the right light, movies can look like a Pink Floyd music video.

 

Movies are compressed as MPEG-4 files and can be played back on computers with QuickTime software. When played back on the LCD screen, there are no editing options available but the volume can be adjusted. The Kodak EasyShare C663 has an option to create video prints with either 4, 9, or 16 tiny prints per page. These certainly aren’t high quality because the resolution is already minimal to begin with. The camera doesn’t let you pick out which frames to print either; it automatically selects them from different points in the clip. Overall, the C663’s movie mode isn’t all that impressive but will garner decent videos in bright light with a steady hand.

Drive / Burst Mode (5.5)
Atop the Kodak EasyShare C663 is a continuous shooting button that doubles as the self-timer activation button as well. There are two burst modes: a first burst and a last burst. Both shoot at the same 2 fps speed, which isn’t incredibly speedy but is still decent for a compact model. The first burst mode snaps and records the first 4 pictures. The last burst snaps up to 30 times and records only the last four pictures. In both modes, if the ISO is set to Auto, 400, or 800, the camera can only record 3 pictures at a time. After the pictures are snapped, it takes about six or seven seconds to write to the memory card. If you’re recording any kind of action, the burst mode is a necessity. Otherwise, between the shutter lag and recording time it takes forever just to snap one shot!

 

The C663’s burst mode isn’t the best out there though. Besides the short burst and long writing time, the camera only meters, color balances and focuses for the first shot. The other two or three shots are a Hail Mary. It gets worse. Not only does the camera "not look" at the other shots, but users can’t either. The screen blacks out after the first shot and users don’t get a look at them until they enter the playback mode. With the continous shooting button, self-timer modes are also selectable. Users can choose to snap a shot after 2 or 10 seconds of waiting. There is also a 2-shot mode that waits 10 seconds, snaps the first shot, waits another 8 seconds, then snaps the last shot. The 2 and 10-second self-timing modes are available in the movie mode too.

Playback Mode (6.75)
This Kodak digital camera has plenty of features highlighted in its playback mode. The playback mode is accessed by the Review button at the very bottom of the right side of the LCD screen. This isn’t the most convenient place; users will wish it were a little easier to reach with the thumb. There are several ways to view a picture in playback mode, along with a few ways to change pictures and save them.

Photos can be seen individually or in groups of nine pictures. The multi-up view is only available from the playback menu, unlike most compact digital cameras where you would push the ‘W’ end of the zoom toggle. Individual pictures can be viewed with or without their recording information and histograms. Users can zoom in up to 8x on a picture. In the setup menu, users can choose to have their pictures automatically rotated or not. Videos can be played back and paused, but cannot be fast forwarded or rewound. All files can be protected from accidental deletion via the playback menu.

Videos cannot be edited, but pictures have access to in-camera editing features. Kodak Perfect Touch technology and cropping are available. Kodak’s Perfect Touch technology is like an "auto fix" button that tweaks the lighting and applies a digital red-eye reduction filter. The red-eye reduction doesn’t work as well as it should; sometimes it only catches one red eye. However, the lighting can usually be greatly improved with this function. Best of all, the camera shows the before and after pictures side by side before letting users save the touched up shot. It also saves the edited shot as a separate file , so the original copy is still preserved. Cropping is done by zooming and panning with the zoom controls and joystick; it works well but users should keep in mind that they’re cropping pixels – i.e. you can’t make an enlargement of a heavily cropped photo.

 

The camera can play slide shows, but they are nothing fancy compared to what has been coming out on other recent compact models. The slide show is available from the playback menu and lets users choose whether to play the show on a loop and how long to show each picture (from 4-60 seconds). This is basic, but it’s fine for those users who just want a simple medium through which to show off their latest snapshots.

Pictures and videos can be saved on a memory card or on the internal memory, with the ability to copy from one to the other. Print orders can be made from the Share menu, which allows users to select images quickly or to select all of them. Print orders can be canceled there too. The Share menu includes the following choices: Print, Email, Favorite, Print All, and Cancel Prints.

Users can tag their pictures as "favorites" in the Share menu. When a photo is tagged, it is transferred to the Favorites folder – but only after connecting to a computer equipped with the included Kodak EasyShare Software. Once transferred via a computer, the user’s favorite pictures are accessible by its own position on the mode dial.

The Email option is as much of a hassle. The camera comes with some demo email choices (you can send email to a generic Michael), but to add names and email addresses of people you actually care about you have to connect to the Kodak EasyShare Software. It is there that the address book is managed and loaded to the C663. The camera can only store up to 4 names and addresses. However, once set up, this feature is a breeze to use. When users select a picture and an email address, the camera automatically configures the picture to a smaller size and when connected again with the software, it syncs to email the picture as an attachment.

The Kodak EasyShare Software also gets involved with the album process. The C663 comes with three albums – Birthday, Holiday, and Wedding – preloaded into the playback menu. The album mode is the first choice at the top of the menu and is designed to organize loads of pictures and make them more manageable when loaded into the software. Users can delete, edit, and add up to 32 albums to the camera by hooking up to the included software. The process is a little confusing. First, users must create the albums on the computer. Second, they must connect to the camera and upload the album names. Third, snap a shot and file it. But if it’s a "favorite," connect all over again to the mother-ship Kodak EasyShare Software and transfer it from one spot on the memory to another.

Overall, the playback mode has some basic features like the viewing and simple editing features. The Kodak Perfect Touch Technology works really well and will make users wonder why their pictures didn’t come out looking like that in the first place. The only problem with the playback mode is that all of the really cool features require hooking up to the software and tinkering with it for hours. This is supposed to be easy, but for most people it won’t be. Some of these functions should, in theory, be performed without hooking up to the computer. Why should you have to connect to move a tagged "favorite" photo to the "Favorites" position on the mode dial?

Custom Image Presets (7.0)
The Kodak EasyShare C663 comes with 15 scene modes: Portrait, Sport, Night Portrait, Night Landscape, Snow, Beach, Text/Document, Fireworks, Flower, Museum/Manner, Self Portrait, Party, Children, Backlight, and Close Up. There is a "scene" position on the mode dial, which gives access to the scene list and can be scrolled through with the joystick. The scenes are depicted as icons, but their text titles appear when scrolled on. There is also an explanation of the scene mode that appears simultaneously and lingers for a second or two. Many of the explanations include the phrase, "Steady camera for best results." The Self Portrait mode garnered decent shots; it won’t distort and blow up noses larger than they should be like on some cameras. Flower saturated the colors a bit and really made brightly colored flowers look great. The Backlight mode works well, but it uses the flash. There isn’t a preset mode for taking good pictures in low, natural lighting. Even the Party mode, which is designed for indoor scenes, uses the flash. Some of the scene modes are so similar that so many options hardly seems necessary. The Beach and Snow modes are nearly identical. The Flower and Close Up modes are very similar. And the Children and Sport modes have the same concept: fast-moving subjects in bright light. Most C663 users will rely on these scene modes to snap great pictures. And if they’re in great lighting, that’s just what they’ll get. However, if the light is low, expect plenty of harsh shadows from the flash.