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CNET editors' review
- CNET editors' rating: stars Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 03/31/2004
- Released on: 06/01/2003
The simple mode dial and the shutter release are alone on the camera top.
To the left of the 1.6-inch LCD is the four-way controller. Above and below it are buttons for deleting images and tagging them for printing or e-mailing.
This EasyShare's control layout is reasonably good, though we'd prefer to have the four-way controller under the right thumb rather than the left. A straightforward mode dial combines with an equally simple menu system to make the CX6330 admirably easy to use.
Buttons for choosing self-timer, drive-mode, and flash settings sit beside the zoom toggle at the top of the camera back.
These keys let you access the menu and play back your photos.
The EasyShare CX6330 captures JPEG photos at one of four resolutions. You can save the pictures to SD/MMC media or the camera's 16MB of internal memory.
The 3X zoom lens covers a reasonably sensible focal-length range of 37mm to 111mm (the 35mm-camera equivalent). At f/2.7 to f/5.2, the lens's variable maximum aperture is lackluster but roughly average for this class of camera.
A sensor automatically detects vertical compositions and rotates them for properly oriented playback--a very nice convenience. In movie mode, the EasyShare CX6330 can record 320x240-pixel QuickTime video with sound until your storage card is full.
Like all EasyShare cameras, the CX6330 is compatible with Kodak's EasyShare docks and software. The system facilitates photo printing and sharing.Though it doesn't break any records, the Kodak EasyShare CX6330 performs somewhat better than most cameras in this class. Start-up takes about 4 seconds; shutter lag, including autofocus time, is a reasonable 0.8 second or so; and the delay between shots is a bit longer than 2 seconds. The flash recycles in around 3 seconds; that's very quick, much better than the 7 seconds Kodak lists on the spec sheet. In continuous-drive mode, the CX6330 can record four photos at slightly more than 3 frames per second.
The EasyShare CX6330's battery life is excellent. On one charge of our nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable cells, we got more than a thousand shots, about half of them with the flash.
The fairly decisive autofocus achieves only average speed in well-lit scenes, but dim conditions don't slow it down much, so the EasyShare CX6330 ends up delivering above-average low-light focusing until it gets very dark. Then the absence of an autofocus-assist lamp forces the camera to give up. The lens zooms quietly, but its travel is a tad jerky and difficult to control precisely.
In outdoor light, the 1.6-inch LCD is easily visible, and you'll see 100 percent of the picture area, but the small image is not terribly sharp. Though not very bright, the optical viewfinder is better than average, offering an unusual 90 percent of the scene and reasonable sharpness. The flash's maximum range is a slightly short 11.8 feet at ISO 200, which is equivalent to 8.4 feet at ISO 100.We found a lot to like in the EasyShare CX6330's photos, but Kodak's very aggressive noise reduction also eliminates fine detail, especially surface textures, and that smoothness combines with compression artifacts and mosquito noise to give the pictures a peculiar airbrushed quality. We easily duplicated the effect with Adobe Photoshop's Smart Blur function. Shots end up looking a bit like paintings, more and more noticeably as the print size increases. As a result, we lowered the camera's image-quality score, but we recognize that some folks might not mind painterly photos. Kodak evidently believes that lots of people won't.
Our test shots were very clean; the camera Smart Blurred electronic noise into near oblivion along with our surface textures and other fine details. Large details and clear-cut edges came out crisp, so our pictures looked sharply defined, especially in modest enlargements. Most of our exposures were good, with vibrant and reasonably accurate colors. The EasyShare CX6330 also ably avoided blown-out highlights, although high-contrast edges exhibited moderate purple fringing. In flash photos, we noted a slight tendency toward reddish skin tones.
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