Mobility Digest Review: Kodak EasyShare C713 7MP 3x Optical/5x Digital Zoom HD Camera Reviewed

Happy Thursday to you all, the weekend is in sight!

I’m back with another review of a product from our friends at Geeks.com. It’s one of many Kodak digital cameras on the market today, specifically it’s the EasyShare C713 7MP camera. The name Kodak is one that’s been around for a long time when it comes to camera, so one would think they know what they’re doing when it comes to photography right? This camera is your sort of basic point and shoot, it’s small and portable so you can take it with you easily. The pictures taken with it aren’t too bad for what it is. The 3x optical zoom works well but the digital zoom is lacking a bit though that’s normal for most any level of digital zooming. The C713 I got is a refurbished product, but it looks brand new, not a mark on it at all. So read on to learn a bit more about this camera…

We’ll start off with the specs:

Kodak EasyShare C713 7MP 3x Optical/5x Digital Zoom HD Camera

With the Kodak C713 7.0 megapixel digital camera you don’t have to spend a fortune to get a great quality, simple to use camera, that’s packed with exceptional features.

With 7.0 megapixel you can get exceptional quality prints up to 20 x 30 inches and you can capture bright, beautiful color with KODAK Color Science. The 3x optical zoom captures crisp details and gets you closer to your subjects without losing picture quality and 5x digital zoom enlarges your pictures even more!

With HD still capture you can view your pictures in high definition on an HDTV or other HD device. Capture all the details in low light conditions and fast action situations with high ISO (up to 1250)! View your pictures with brilliance and clarity on the 2.4 inch color display.

General Features:
# Silver color
# 7.0 megapixel (MP)
# 3x Optical Zoom
# 5x Digital Zoom
# Sensor Type: 1 / 2.5 in. CCD
# Lens: 36–108 mm (35 mm equiv.) f/2.7–4.8, 2 step aperture
# Built-in Lens protection
# HD still capture
# Digital Image Stabilizer
# 2.4-inch indoor/outdoor color display
# 16 MB internal memory
# SD/MMC card expansion slot
# Power: two (2) AA batteries (included)

Auto Focus:
# Type: TTL-AF
# Focus Modes: normal, landscape, macro
# Focus Range: normal: 2.0 ft (0.6 m)–infinity, macro (wide): 5.1 in.–2.3 ft (0.13–0.7 m), (tele): 8.7 in.–2.3 ft (0.22–0.7 m),
landscape: 32.8 ft (10 m)–infinity
# Auto Focus Zones: multi-zone and center zone

Exposure Control:
# ISO Sensitivity: auto: 80–200, manual: 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1250
# Metering Modes: TTL-AE, multi-pattern AE
# Compensation: ±2.0 EV with 0.5 EV steps
# White Balance: auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, open shade

Flash:
# 2.0–11.8 ft (0.6–3.6 m) at wide, ISO 200, 2.0–6.9 ft (0.6–2.1 m) at tele, ISO 200
# Modes: auto, fill, red eye reduction, off

Shooting Specifications:
# Drive Modes: self-timer: 2 second, 10 second, 2-shot
# Shooting Modes: auto, SCN, video, digital IS, close-up, Favorites
# Scene Modes: portrait, night portrait, landscape, night landscape, sports, snow, beach, text/document, backlight, museum/manner, fireworks, high ISO, children,

flower, self-portrait, sunset
# Click to capture: < 0.3 sec. at > 0.5 m, wide, preview off, flash off
# Shot to Shot: < 0.5 sec. until buffer full

Still Capture:
# Still Format: JPEG/EXIF v2.21
# Compression: JPEG standard
# Color Modes: color, sepia, black and white
# Review Options: album, edit picture, slide show, multi-up, copy, protect, image storage, set-up menu, view by, undo-delete
# Editing: crop, KODAK PERFECT TOUCH Technology

Video Capture:
# Format: QUICKTIME motion JPEG with audio recording
# Quality: VGA (640 × 480) at 15 fps, QVGA (320 × 240) at 30 fps
# Length: continuous up to 80 min. based on memory capacity
# Review Options: view by, protect, album, copy, slide show, multi-up, image storage, set-up menu
# Editing: trim, make picture, action print (1, 4, 9, 16-up)

Custom Settings:
# camera sounds, LCD brightness, auto power off, date & time, date stamp, video date display, blur warning, language, format, about

I/O interface:
# KODAK Camera Dock/Printer Dock interface
# Digital (USB 2.0) connection

Dedicated Buttons: menu, review, Share, delete, display/info, zoom, 5-way control, (top) power, flash setting, shutter, mode dial

Dimensions: 3.6 x 2.6 x 1.5-inches (W x H x D, approximate)

You’ll notice I don’t have a price listed here, that’s because this camera is part of the ‘GeekLine’ where they’ve got many products listed without a price to allow you to make an offer on them. It’s an interesting concept and you might be able to get yourself a very good deal on something..

We’ll start off with the video unboxing:

Then we’ve got the still pictures:

The camera itself is silver in color and small. One thing you’ll notice missing is an optical viewfinder. To me that doesn’t matter much, but I know some people out there do not like not having the viewfinder on a camera.

On the back of the camera though you’ll find a nice large LCD display to help you forget the missing viewfinder..

On the back you’ll also find several buttons for navigation, delete, share, review, menu and the zoom buttons as well.

On the top of the camera you’ll find the on/off switch, flash mode button and the camera mode dial.

On the left side of the camera is only a hole for a lanyard and the right side is where the USB port is located.

On the bottom is where you’ll find the dock connection, battery compartment and tripod mount.

The Kodak C713 takes two standard ‘AA’ batteries. Here’s where I found another gripe about this camera, the missing viewfinder I can forgive but not the fact that they put the memory card slot into the battery compartment! I guess for a lot of people they wouldn’t care about this, really most people use the USB cable to transfer pictures, or even the dock connection but I personally take the cards out of my camera and put them into the card reader that’s in my computer. So now every time I take the card out the batteries pop out as well, to make matters worse when you close or put the batteries in the camera powers on automatically. It’s very annoying to me truly, both the fact of the placement and the fact that the camera powers on automatically.

If you’ve ever owned a Kodak point and shoot camera then the menus will be familiar to you, they look the same as my four year old Kodak has. You can adjust quite a few settings from the menus, but most are really just camera related and not really related to taking pictures.

Here’s two pictures of the view in still picture mode and in movie mode. I’m using an 8gig memory card, so even in 7mp mode I can take over 7000 pictures and have 80 minutes of video time at 640 resolution.

Yes it does movies, but don’t expect excellent quality, it’s on par with most other still camera that can do movies, meaning they aren’t that good really…

Ok, let’s take some pictures.

Here’s a few of my youngest son:

Click on them for a bigger view and you’ll see the redeye even when he’s not looking directly at the camera.

I found that flash isn’t that powerful really, in other words it doesn’t cover great distances.

These two pictures below were taken about 12 feet away, and they are a bit dark.

On my HTPC that’s hooked up to the above HDTV I’ve also got a secondary 8” monitor, here’s a picture of it with the cover on using the digital zoom from the same distance. It’s with the flash but yet very dark and very blurry and grainy.

Here’s about 3 feet away without flash and then with flash:

Here’s a few shots in Macro mode, and they’re not bad except for the bright flash at close range.

Here’s a couple more pictures for you, the first is with flash and the second is no flash just natural like from outside and the overhead lighting:

Finally I have three more picture for you. I was standing about four feet away. The first is no zoom:

The next picture is max optical zoom:

and finally maximum digital zoom:

This last picture is a bit grainy but overall not bad, especially compared to the other digital zoom picture I showed you above.

So the closer you are the better quality the digital zoom is, but even then it’s not too good. I personally never use digital zoom as the quality is just not as good as the optical zoom is.

The battery life seems pretty good with this camera as well, not sure how many pictures I got from it, but it was more than I got from my older Kodak camera I can tell you that.

I’ve found that the process time after taking a picture can be rather long, you’ll have to wait a few seconds before you can take another picture.

I also found that the display isn’t that great in bright light like if you were outside. If the C713 had an optical viewfinder than this wouldn’t matter much, but it doesn’t so….. Taking pictures outside is doable but you really can’t look at the pictures you’ve already taken in the bright light.

Overall the Kodak C713 is not a bad camera, for a point and shoot it’s fine really, most people will be more than happy with the results it provides.

It would be a great camera for children, or even for someone who just needs an easy to use digital camera.

Pros:

+Easy to use

+Nicely made

+Small and lightweight

+Can use larger capacity SDHC cards

Cons:

-No optical viewfinder

-Memory card slot inside battery compartment

-Digital zoom is worthless really

-Long time for pictures to process

-Display not great in bright light