Bob the Kodak CX6340

Well, after a two-month absence, I've returned. And it's not to write about fascinating travel destinations or great roadtrips, either. Nope, the order of the world is being upturned as I embark upon the one great odyssey that has eluded me thus far (aside from a cruise to Alaska) - the technological review. If I start drowning in a sea of ineptitude, well, I only have myself to blame.

Owing to my arrival in a new country, and the travel opportunities presented, I decided that one of the first things I needed was a new gadget. Since I already had memory cards and assorted Kodak paraphernalia already, and being a cheap bastard as well, I decided that a new Kodak would best suit my needs. And so it was that I found Bob, sitting in a Target somewhere in suburban Los Angeles.

The specs are pretty straightforward. Bob has a maximum resolution of 3.1 Megapixels (2048x1536 pixels), which takes up about 1 megabyte on your memory card. Bob has three other resolution sizes - a slightly smaller 2.8MP, a 2.1MP and a 1MP resolution. If you actually want to get some decent prints, the highest resolution is of course what you want, though it occupies three times the memory that the smallest resolution does.

Bob has seven shooting modes and a rather handy little video mode. Unlike many cameras of this type, the video is limited only by the amount of space on memory. You'll get about a minute and a half of decent-resolution video with sound out of a 32MB memory card - so if you have something a bit bigger, you'll get some fair sized videos out of it. Of course, Bob's main function is to take photos, and the modes are many and varied - so much so that I've still not managed to figure out how some of them work.

Bob's Program mode is perhaps the handiest if you don't want to just point and shoot. You can change the aperture, shutter speed or exposure depending on what you want to do, although some of these are somewhat limited. Shutter speed ranges from1/2000 to 4 seconds - slow enough for those wishy-washy silky water photos, or to catch a high-speed object frozen in motion. Bob's aperture has an overall range of f/2.2 to f/13 - not quite world-beating, and not always available, but Bob certainly gives the above-average photographer something to work with.

While the sharpness isn't supremely good, Bob can take some crystal-clear shots when he wants to. If you do take photos with the 3.1 MP resolution turned on, you can see a little bit of pixelisation and a slight lack of sharpness in the finished results. If you know what you're doing with post-processing, you can probably help Bob's shots come out a little sharper. Alas, I'm a little useless there, so I've had to make do with what rudimentary skills I possess. Having said that, don't let me make you think that the photos aren't good - but if you want true sharpness, a good film camera/SLR or a very expensive, larger-resolution digital SLR is going to do the job. And for that, you need some decent money.

As far as making prints goes, you'll get pretty good results from any of Bob's relatives. I've had several 11x14 prints made from the 3.1MP resolution, and I was rather impressed by how they came out. If you look too closely, you'll pick up the lack of great sharpness, but from a normal viewing distance, the prints look pretty bloody good. From the lowest resolution you can certainly get good 5x7 prints - I have a couple lying around which bear testament to that. They look every bit as good as a film camera print at that size. And of course it's very handy to have the prints on a hard copy - saving them on the computer or a CD is great, but being able to view them is the best advantage that film cameras currently have over digital - unless you have a good deal of money to get prints done of all your shots!

Bob, as with most digital cameras, comes with some handy stuff in his little box. You'll have the CD you need for the software - in this case, Kodak EasyShare, which is a program shared by many other Kodak cameras. You can do some editing and of course uploading with this program, though I use it mainly just for uploading and maintenance of the folders and so on. It's a little basic for editing, so if you have something snazzier, you're better off using that. Bob also needs a USB cable, which is supplied, and which usually works, though not always. Anyone with a USB port can probably attest to this. There's also a little Tv-Out cable, if you're of a mind to view photos on the TV - though I'm not sure how well they'd come up even at the highest resolution. I suppose it might be something to try!

All in all, Bob is a pretty good, versatile little camera. He's not yet obsolete, and as digital camera prices continue to come down, he's a very viable choice for the everyday photographer who wants a little bit of control with his photos, but doesn't know how to fiddle with every manual mode - or can't be bothered! His photos usually come up pretty good, and I would certainly recommend Bob to someone with a couple of hundred dollars (or a hundred quid) and a camera to find.