Viewfinder
The Easyshare V1003 has no optical viewfinder, relying entirely on its LCD screen for composition and playback.

LCD Screen
The V1003's 2.5-inch, 150,000-pixel LCD is disappointing. It's visible over a narrow range of angles. It is also dim, has little contrast, and is only fairly sharp. The floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center may be glamorous and exciting, but with a mixture of tungsten, mercury vapor and fluorescent lighting, it's no place to judge color accuracy by eye. Still, no color problems were obvious in our time with the V1003.

The V1003 displays a range of shooting data onscreen in both shooting and playback. The user can shoot with a live histogram, grid lines, exposure compensation, battery information, image mode, autofocus mode, scene mode and autofocus area displayed. If not, most of that can be shut off. In playback, actual exposure data shows up.

Flash
The Kodak V1003's flash is small and placed to the left of the lens. Typically, flashes like that produce harsh shadows and accentuate skin blemishes. Kodak predicts the flash will reach less than 10 feet in wide angle and less than 6 feet in telephoto, which radically limits its usefulness. It's also close to the lens, so it will be prone to producing redeye. The V1003 flash can be set to always fire, never fire, or fire automatically. Pre-flash for redeye reduction can be turned on or off.

Zoom Lens
The V1003 lens is a Retinar, one of Kodak's own lens brands. With a maximum aperture that runs from f/2.8 at wide angle to 4.9 at telephoto and a 35mm-equivalent of 38 – 108mm, it's a typical low-end 3x zoom. In shooting on the show floor, we didn't notice distortion or color fringing. Controlled testing in a full review will reveal more about the lens. We found the rocker switch zoom control very frustrating – it is very hard to set accurately.