Kodak EasyShare V705

Manual Control Options
"Minimal" is the word for this section. Manual control is just not in the cards for this camera. That’s okay with Kodak since they don’t want to play that game anyway. They expect the audience of the EasyShare V705 to appreciate the no-fuss, limited-options approach. There are a few options that can be manually controlled, with the most available in the auto mode. If you’re looking for manual control, though, you’re wasting your time here.

Focus
Auto Focus (6.0)
The through-the-lens auto focus system normally focuses from 2 ft to infinity. In the macro mode, it can focus from 2 inches to 2.3 ft using the ultra-wide lens and 1-2.3 ft using the 3x lens. The macro mode is accessible when pushing down on the navigational joystick; this is where the infinity focus mode is found too. The focus can be controlled singly or continuously, selectable from the recording menu. The continuous auto focus system makes quiet clicking sounds and breathes a bit at times, but it still works better than the single mode while shooting movies. The single AF control is perhaps the best way to go with still images because the focus locks once the shutter release button is pushed halfway. The focus system doesn’t take as long as some equivalent systems on compact digital cameras. Kodak publishes a 0.2-second lag and is accurate. For a camera of its size, the V705 is speedy. It has an auto focus assist lamp that supposedly helps the camera focus in low light, but the tiny orange LED certainly isn’t that powerful, and pictures in low light were still very often blurry and fuzzy. In the recording menu, the auto focus zone can be chosen to multizone and center zone options.

Manual Focus (0.0)
True to its point-and-shoot audience, the Kodak EasyShare V705 does not have manual focus control.

ISO (8.0)
This Kodak digital camera has more ISO sensitivity options than many of the EasyShare digital cameras. The auto ISO option dips in a 50-200 range that works well only in perfect lighting. Settings can be manually accessed in the recording menu: 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1000. Previous Kodak models sometimes had a manual ISO 800 option available, but only at reduced resolution. All of the V705’s options can be used at full resolution. To see how the ISO settings performed in terms of noise, check out the Testing/Performance section of this review.

White Balance (4.0)
White balance options are limited, to say the least. Auto, Daylight, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Open Shade options are available. There is no way to customize the white balance, and that is unfortunate because this camera has some serious issues with color reproduction anyway. There is a live view of these options in the recording menu that makes it easier to choose an appropriate mode for the shooting situation.

Exposure (6.5)
The Kodak V705’s exposure cannot be tweaked with individual shutter speed and aperture adjustments; those just aren’t available. Instead, an easier exposure compensation adjustment is available that automatically tweaks both and keeps the interface simple. On the LCD screen, numbers appear indicating the exposure value and arrows appear next to them to show where to scroll. Moving right and left pushes the exposure value up or down 2 stops in 1/3 increments. If users want to monitor exposure more closely, they can activate the live histogram by pushing the joystick upward.

Metering (7.0)
The Kodak EasyShare V705 has metering options typical of a compact digital camera. Multi-pattern, center-weighted, and center-spot options are available. The spot option is fixed to the center, but it measures from a smaller area than the center-weighted option. The camera has a Backlight scene mode that uses the center-weighted option and activates the flash as well to keep subjects properly exposed.

Shutter Speed (0.0)
The shutter speeds vary depending on the scene mode, the lens being used, the ISO selection, the focal length, etc. Sounds complicated, right? No worries, this camera automatically chooses the shutter speed for you most of the time. When the ultra-wide lens is in use, the shutter speeds range from 8-1/1448th of a second. The 3x lens allows only 8-1/1170th of a second. The camera opts for faster shutter speeds in the auto and many of the scene modes, but it slows down to 4 seconds for the Fireworks mode. Longer exposures are available from the auto mode’s recording menu: 0.5 Sec, 0.6 Sec, 0.8 Sec, 1 Sec, 1.3 Sec, 1.6 Sec, 2.0 Sec, 2.5 Sec, 3.2 Sec, 4.0 Sec, 5.0 Sec, 6.0 Sec, and 8.0 Sec. When these longer exposures are activated, users give up control over the ISO though, so low light shooting is still tricky.

Aperture (0.0)
The aperture is fully automatic, but it is also dependent on which lens is in use at the time. The ultra-wide lens has a decent aperture of f/2.8 that lets in plenty of light. Any zooming in, though, brings users to the 3x lens that has horribly limiting apertures. The maximum aperture on this lens is f/3.9 at its widest 39mm focal length and f/4.4 at the 117mm focal length. This severely limits the amount of light let in to the image sensor, and once again hinders the camera’s ability to shoot in low light without the flash.