Kodak EasyShare V610

Color (5.77)
Just from the live view and the recorded images, the naked eye can see that something is a little off about the colors; however, testing was necessary to determine whether this discrepancy was due to the camera's LCD or the image processor. To see just how accurate the V610's colors are, we took some pictures of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart and uploaded them into Imatest Imaging Software for analysis. The program output the chart below, which shows the original colors from the GretagMacbeth chart as the vertical rectangles within each color tile. Imatest software modified the chart so we could see the Kodak EasyShare V610’s produced colors as well. The camera’s colors are represented by the outer squares in each tile. The color on the inner square has been corrected for luminance by Imatest.

The chart confirms that V610's rendered colors are less than realistic; the chart below depicts this result a bit more quantitatively. It shows the ideal color as squares and the V610’s produced colors as circles. The line connecting the two shapes shows the degree of error – which ideally wouldn’t be seen at all.

Almost the entire left half of the chart is totally exaggerated, which is a bit strange. Most compact digital cameras exaggerate the red tones, but the Kodak V610 does so with the cooler, blues, greens and even yellows. For its disappointing performance, the Kodak V610 received an overall color score of just 5.77, which comes up short of the V570’s dismal 6.31 score. The Kodak EasyShare V610 produced a hefty mean color error of 10.7 and over-saturated its colors by 12.8 percent. The color error is the most alarming, while the saturation is still within normal range for a compact model. Overall, the produced colors of the Kodak V610 are unrealistic and very disappointing. The built-in Kodak Perfect Touch technology may remedy some of this problem, but the blue sky in the picture still won’t quite be the blue sky that was photographed.

Still Life Scene
Below is a shot of our still life scene, captured with the Kodak EasyShare V610.

Click on the image above to view the full resolution image.

Resolution / Sharpness (3.21)
The Kodak V610 adds a megapixel to its predecessor's specifications, so the new model has 6.36 total megapixels on its image sensor. Of those, 6.1 megapixels are effective and the largest image size comes out to 2832 x 2128 pixels. With that resolution, Kodak claims that the V610 can print as large as 30 x 40 inches. To see if the V610 can walk the walk, we snapped several shots of an industry standard resolution chart and uploaded the files into Imatest Imaging Software. We report the sharpest shot, which is shown below.

Click on the above chart for full res. image 

The above picture was taken using a focal length of 21.5mm, which is the widest point in the camera’s top telephoto lens and is equivalent to 130mm. The camera chose an aperture of f/4.8 for this shot. Imatest expressed the resolution results in terms of line widths per picture height (lw/ph), which is a unit that describes how many alternating black and white lines could theoretically fit across a frame without blurring into oblivion. Vertically, the Kodak V610 resolved 1605 lw/ph and over-sharpened by 19.3 percent. In the horizontal direction, 1552 lw/ph were counted and the camera over-sharpened by 18.4 percent. 

The Kodak EasyShare V610 performed much better than its predecessor even when considering the extra megapixel included on the image sensor. However, the camera's resolution still isn’t up to par with its competitors, even with excessive in-camera sharpening imposed on JPEGs. The Nikon Coolpix S4, which also has 6 megapixels and a 10x optical zoom lens, read 1805 lw/ph vertically and 1363 lw/ph horizontally. For its average performance, the Kodak EasyShare V610 received an overall resolution score of 3.21.

Noise - Auto ISO (4.38)
The Kodak EasyShare V610 has an automatic ISO range that claims to be wider than most. The specs indicate a range from 64-400 when many compact models keep the entire automatic range under 200. We tested the camera using the automatic ISO setting in optimal lighting and came up with a noise level equivalent to what we found in the manual ISO 200 setting. The V610 performed a little better than its predecessor at this test. The original dual lens V570 received a score of 4.2, while the new V610 grabbed a 4.38 overall automatic ISO noise score.

Noise - Manual ISO (7.64)
The V610's manual ISO range is improved from the V570. Both cameras have the same 64-800 range, but the V570 could only capture tiny 1.8-megapixel images when using the ISO 800 setting. The Kodak EasyShare V610 utilizes the entire image sensor to produce pictures – even at the higher ISO setting. To see how the image sensor handled noise in optimal lighting, we tested the noise levels at each manual ISO setting. The following chart shows the ISO settings on the horizontal axis and the resultant noise on the vertical axis.

The Kodak V610 performed similarly to its dual lens sibling through the ISO 400 setting, then performed much better at the higher ISO 800 setting – even with the larger image size. The slope is steady, so there are no major jumps in noise, but images shot at the camera's ISO 400 and ISO 800 settings are reasonably noisy. For its consistent performance, the EasyShare V610 received an overall manual ISO noise score of 7.64 which is much improved on the V570’s respectable 6.29 score.

Low Light Performance (4.5)
The Kodak EasyShare V610 was tested in dim lighting using both the automatic and Night Landscape scene modes. In the preset mode, colors were even more unrealistic than usual and the camera had a difficult time focusing – even when the 10-second self-timer was used. The white balance could not be manually set either, so an orange hue plagued the tests. In both modes, the ISO could not be manually set. Normally, the automatic mode permits that setting but the camera defaults to the automatic ISO setting when the Long Time Exposure setting is utilized. We chose the lesser of two evils, the automatic mode, because it produced sharper and more realistic results.

We tested the V610 by taking pictures at diminishing light levels of 60, 30, 15, and 5 lux. The first test of 60 lux is a common light level found at dim restaurants and bars. 30 lux is a bit darker and is approximately equivalent to the light from a 40-watt bulb. The last two tests at 15 and 5 lux are uncommonly dark; we tested these to look for limitations on the image sensor more than to critique the beauty of its pictures.

With the white balance at the tungsten setting for our studio, the Kodak V610 produced off-color pictures at its best – although pictures still remained illuminated for the most part. At 60 lux, we used a 1-second exposure that resulted in a mean color error of 9.43 and 11.1 percent over-saturated colors. The camera selected a low ISO of 64 and kept noise relatively low. Surprisingly, the camera automatically selected the ISO 64 setting for every low light test – even in the 5 lux test when the shutter opened for 8 seconds. From 60 to 5 lux, the noise increased quite a bit, but not as badly as some other compact models. Saturation levels remained fairly constant and the luminance darkened only slightly. Colors suffered quite a bit, as the mean color error went from 9.43 in 60 lux to 10.8 in 30 lux to 15 in 15 lux to 16.3 at the darkest 5 lux.

It wasn’t hard to outperform the V570 in the low light testing, as it performed so horribly. With the Kodak V570, pictures were totally discolored in all tests and completely black in the darkest two light settings. Overall, getting decent low light shots with the Kodak EasyShare V610 was like pulling teeth. The Night Landscape preset was almost unusable and the Automatic mode was hard to tweak. Still, it did better than the original dual lens camera. For usable low light shots, V610 users will need a tripod – which isn’t exactly what most users will carry around with their slim pocket cam.

Dynamic Range (6.0)
All pictures combine light and dark elements, and dynamic range describes how well a camera records details in both light and dark areas. A picture with good dynamic range shows detail and texture in both light and dark areas, rather than just pure white and pure black.

We test dynamic range by photographing a target that shows a range of rectangles that run from very bright to almost black. Using Imatest software, we measure the range of tones a camera can record at two different quality standards.

The Kodak V610 delivers very competitive performance for a compact camera, starting out with a few good score at ISO 64, and maintaining good results at ISO 200. Its results at ISO 400 and 800 fall off considerably. Most users will notice the falloff in quality at 400 and 800, but in comparison with other compact cameras, the V610 performance is good.

Kodak V610 Dynamic Range - ISO 64

Kodak V610 Dynamic Range - ISO 400

Kodak V610 Dynamic Range - ISO 800

Speed / Timing
Start-up to First Shot (7.98)
The Kodak V610 takes about 2 seconds to start up and take a picture. That's a bit slow, even for compact cameras that typically have to activate both mechanical and electronic components. We recommend turning the camera on before a key moment is likely to happen – while they're lighting the candles on the birthday cake, for instance, not when it's placed before the guest of honor. Two seconds can be a long time in situations like that.

Shot to Shot (9.43)
The V610 shot 8 frames in 4.3 seconds, for a rate just shy of 2 frames per second. We shot this burst with a charged battery and a 128 MB Sandisk SD card, so we expect our trial reflects typical performance. 2 fps is not quick enough for sports, and other compacts do up to 3 fps at full resolution, so the V610 does not compete well on this front. Still, 2 fps could be useful for portraits, and an 8-shot burst is longer than many cameras can muster.

Shutter to Shot (5.62)
No digital camera takes an image the instant its shutter is pressed. Professional-level cameras reduce the delay to hundredths of a second, but compacts like the V610 usually take a noticeable interval to get the shot. Our shortest delay for an in-focus shot was 0.43 seconds, and we had delays up to 1.69 seconds – much too long for moving subjects. By punching the shutter twice in succession, we were able to get off shots in 0.2 seconds, but the camera didn't focus, and the images were not useable.