Kodak Easy Share C643 Camera Review

The Kodak Easy Share C643 camera has treated me well but has many flaws. At first, I could not seem to take a quality picture. All of the pictures I took would be blurry or out of focus. I thought the camera was at fault. This was my first camera and I hadn't read the directions because they are for those who need them and I considered myself above this. However, after a lot of practice and messing with settings I was finally starting to get some good pictures. I now realize that reading those directions would have saved me a lot of time and bad pictures (still having not read them). One day I may get around to reading them but as for now I am able to take decent quality pictures.

At first all I used was the auto setting. This works some of the time but is not the greatest. Using this for everything was my first fault. It works OK for many things however if the object is moving or far away special settings would be better. The makers of the camera could have certainly gone without it. The landscape and close up settings both work much better for shots that are very far away and very close to the camera respectively. These can easily replace the auto setting for most things on either end of the spectrum.

For medium distances I found that the portrait setting works the best. If chosen between these three options Kodak could have easily made the auto setting obsolete. If you want a camera that takes quality pictures with the auto setting this camera is probably not for you. However, switching from auto to portrait for most shots will make it a better shot.

The zoom feature is somewhere in the middle. The digital zoom feature could have been taken away entirely because if you want to zoom in that far you are going to need a tripod to even have a hope in the world of holding the camera still enough to get a good picture. The regular zoom can be used efficiently to a point then will become the same as the digital zoom. I usually do not have to zoom in very far so this feature is not a problem for me.

There is a feature that is supposed to tell you how good of quality a picture is, however the only true way is to look and see for yourself how good it is. I have had pictures where the camera told me were of poor quality and they turned out just how I wanted. I have also had the exact opposite happen but this is less frequently.

If properly lit the video feature works great but it has to be fairly bright in the room you are in for it to work well. I tried using it for a class to make a music video and the room we were in was fairly well lit I thought, the camera thought differently. The video was very dark when I went to put it on the computer. Minus the need for generous lighting the video feature works great, especially the sound, it was crystal clear during the video.

For the price, each of these features seems to be what I paid for them. Also, I would like to note just because I did not find a feature particularly good does not mean someone with more camera experience might feel the same way. I would say to take a picture at any distance someone must have adequate knowledge of the camera and reading the instruction manual for this one is the only way.