Kodak EasyShare C663

Manual Control Options
The C663 offers a full manual mode, selected by turning the mode dial to P/M (for program/manual) and pushing the joystick down. There are no aperture or shutter priority modes, though. Changing both aperture and shutter speeds in manual mode is a little awkward since you have to switch between them using the joystick. Clumsy as it is, it’s good to have a full manual mode in a compact camera.

Focus
Auto focus
The autofocus of the C663 was reasonably snappy in our (limited) testing, quickly zooming in on the appropriate focus point. You choose the autofocus mode through theonscreen menu, and there are two modes available: multi-zone (where 3 focus zones in the center, left and right of the image are used) and center zone (where only the center of the image is used to focus). The focusing range is from 2 feet to infinity, with a macro mode that brings the focus range down to 0.43 feet.

Manual Focus
Though the manual mode lets the user select aperture and shutter speed, no manual focus is present on the C663: you have to use the autofocus. However, as a rule Kodak’s C-series does not have manual focusing as a priority, so this is nothing unusual.

Metering
All metering is done through the lens, and center spot and center weighted modes are offered. A multi-pattern mode (where the camera evaluates the scene to pick the correct weighting) is also present, and is the default. This selection of available modes is average.

Exposure
The aforementioned 13 scene modes are present on the camera, plus a program mode and a manual mode. Exposure compensation (2 stops either way in 1/3 of a stop steps) is available, but there is no exposure bracketing option.

White Balance
Options for auto, daylight, open shade, tungsten and florescent are offered, but there’s no custom setting or fine tuning. Bare-bones Kodaks have only four white balance settings, so the inclusion of tungsten is nice.

ISO
The ISO range is 80 to 800, but the highest setting is only available in the smallest image size (1 megapixel). Otherwise, it’s limited to 400 ISO. This is an acceptable range, with the 800 setting being a nice bonus for night owls who don’t mind small prints.  

Shutter Speed
The shutter speed ranges from 1/8th of a second to 1/1600 of a second. An additional long exposure mode is available that can run up to 8 seconds. The shutter speed can be controlled in manual mode, but there’s no shutter priority mode.

Aperture
The aperture range on the Schneider-Kreuznach lens is f/2.7 to f/4.6, which is a fairly typical range for cameras of this type, if a bit generous on the wide angle end. The aperture can be set in manual mode, but there’s no aperture priority mode.