Kodak EasyShare LS 755

...a current deal for the Kodak EasyShare LS755 - £149.89 instead of the usual £299.99.

The Looks
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The Kodak LS755 is a compact little camera - not the smallest, but certainly handbag or pocket sized. The picture provided by Ciao shows it quite clearly - the lens is usually flush with the body of the camera and only pops out (like in the picture) when turned on. The little slightly raised sliver part to ...
...I managed to get a Kodak case for this camera for £8 from eBay.

The fact the camera takes a lithium battery means replacing the battery will be more expensive than buying AA batteries that were in my previous camera, however it will also last much much longer and I don't expect to have to replace the battery (because it won't recharge properly) for at least a couple of years if not more. To fully charge the battery takes about 3 hours. ... more

With an upcoming holiday, regular eBay use and the desire to take the odd photo, I was in need of a new digital camera. My previous FujiFilm camera had died and I wanted something to replace it. I'm not a camera enthusiast and although I love my gadgets I'm not really what you'd call 'in to photography'. Mainly I take the odd snap at home and out and about, I like to have a few photos to remind me of my hols and I use my camera to take pictures of things for eBay. I wanted a camera with at least a 5 megapixel resolution, I wanted it to be small enough to put in my bag, I didn't want it to have a lens cap (as I lose them), and I wanted it to be a reasonable price. A bit of research online and I spotted a current deal for the Kodak EasyShare LS755 - £149.89 instead of the usual £299.99.

The Looks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Kodak LS755 is a compact little camera - not the smallest, but certainly handbag or pocket sized. The picture provided by Ciao shows it quite clearly - the lens is usually flush with the body of the camera and only pops out (like in the picture) when turned on. The little slightly raised sliver part to the left of the camera (look at the picture again) is actually a clip - useful for clipping to your belt perhaps, or securing in your pocket / clipping to something within your handbag. You can also attach the wrist-strap (provided with the camera) to the side of the camera using the little hole on the edge of this clip.

The reverse of the camera is almost all taken up with a very large screen! The LS755 boasts a 2.5" (6.3cm) high resolution display - this is the biggest screen I've ever seen on a digital camera and it's great to use for taking photos as you can clearly see what the picture's going to look like. Other than the screen there's a delete button, ok button (which also doubles up as a joystick like control if you push it left/right/up/down. There's also a share, review, telephoto and wide angle buttons.

The rest of the features of the camera are neatly on the top of the camera - first there's a mode button with five little indicator lights by its side (so you know what mode you're in), then there's a menu button, the on/off button and the shutter button.

The fact that all the buttons are very flush against the body of the camera makes it look very sleek and helps keep it small and compact in appearance too. The fact there are no 'nobbly' bits makes it much easier to put in your pocket or handbag. The only downside is that the reverse of the camera (where the screen is) is covered in clear plastic, which mean it attracts finger prints. This doesn't detract from how the camera operates, but being me, I find myself regularly wiping finger marks off it!

Setting It Up
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I'm impatient, and I like things to be common sense. I don't like reading manuals... As such, I was quick to open the box containing my camera and all the bits that come packaged with it! On taking the camera out it was obvious that the battery wasn't already in it - a bit of searching revealed the battery, and it was easy enough to put into the camera.

I had a bit of a play, took a picture (more about this to come) and decided to try playing with the rest of the goodies! It was easy enough to connect the camera to the EasyShare dock, and to connect the dock to the computer. As soon as the dock was plugged into a power supply it started to charge (evidenced by the battery indicator on the dock having one light of the three lit up, and an orange light on the camera flashing.

I put in a memory card from my previous camera, so I knew for a fact there was a picture on the camera's internal 16mb memory as well as the 64mb memory card I'd put in. Now, getting the pictures to the computer. It's easy enough to transfer the pictures by going into 'My Computer' and finding the camera (which Windows XP will pick up automatically) but I wanted to use this new gadget - the EasyShare dock. I'd installed the software - this gave me an animated overview of how to use the EasyShare dock, which was basically a case of checking all was plugged in, camera turned off, then press the transfer button on the dock. Ok, I did that... nothing. I pressed the button harder - lights flashed on the top of the camera, my computer bleeped and told me it was retrieving data... but still nothing. The animation had told me that if this was the first time I was using the EasyDock a window would pop up asking me where I wanted to save the photos... this didn't happen. D'oh - my fault - the window that had popped up was under the instructions window I was reading. The process became self-explanatory once I'd found the window again - firstly setting up an Ofoto account (entering your email address, choosing a password, and entering your first name), which then links pictures in your 'My Pictures' folder on your PC to the EasyShare software. You then can transfer the pictures from your new camera to your computer by choosing the camera from the files/folders displayed. All done! That's pretty much all I'm going to say with regards to the EasyShare software - in summary, it's fairly easy to use if you're prepared to have a bit of a play with it. I didn't like the fact that it linked all the folders within 'My Pictures' to it, as not all of the folders on my computer have photos in, but it was easy enough to 'Remove Albums' from the EasyShare software later.

Taking Photos
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The good thing about this camera is that you don't have to worry about all the extras it can do if you don't want to. You can switch it on, point and click and get a perfectly good photo. The LCD screen is big enough that it doesn't take much effort to point it in the right direction and click the button and get the subject of your photo in the middle!

For a reasonably priced camera it's packed full of additional features should you want to use them. One click of the 'Mode' button when it's switched on reveals a menu on screen outlining various instances where you may want to take photos - these are:

• Portrait - use for full frame photos of people and other subjects
• Sport - use when subject is in motion
• Landscape - use for distant scenery
• Night Portrait - use at night to capture both subject and background
• Night Landscape - use for photos of distant scenery at night
• Snow - use for bright snow scene
• Beach - use for bright beach scene
• Text - use for photos of documents
• Flower - use for close-up photos of flowers in bright light
• Museum - use when sound and flash are not desired
• Panning Shot - use for expressing speed of subject in motion
• TV Screen - use for subject on TV screen
• Candlelight - use when capturing in candlelight
• Sunset - use in sunset light
• Auction - use for e-mail resolution still life photos

The name of the mode and the text describing what it can be used for are displayed on screen, so you don't have to remember what icon does what, and once you've chosen the mode most suitable for your needs you just press the ok button.
Given all these choices there's no real excuse for taking a poor photograph! The settings of the camera such as shutter speed, flash, colours etc are changed slightly to give you the optimum settings in your situation. This is great, as for the amateur (or novice!) photographer you don't need to know anything about how to properly set up a camera!! You do have the option to add your own customer settings to the camera too, though I think I'll stick with what I've been given.

Obviously the portrait settings are the ones that get used most often as they are the default settings when you switch the camera on - they produce good quality results - see the picture attached of my doggy (he didn't like the flash much though). I've also attached examples using the TV settings and the Auction settings. Can't think when I'd be likely to ever want to take a picture of my TV, but I guess for concerts when you can see the screens better than the stage this might be handy. The Auction settings are good for taking pictures for using on eBay - they produce good quality pictures that are smaller in file size than portrait pictures hence easier to upload to eBay or email to people etc.

Technical Info
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For those that are interested in the tech specs of this camera - here goes: The LS range of cameras are the 'pocket series' according to Kodak. They describe the series as 'a pocket full of power. LS and V Series cameras are ultra-compact and feature-rich for picture-takers on the go.' This camera has a 5 megapixel resolution (2592 x 1944 pixels) and can produce prints up to 20 x 30 inches. It has a 3x optical zoom and 5x digital zoom (15x zoom in total). The high resolution LCD screen is 2.5". It offers enhanced capture controls and supports VGA and OVGA, motion JPEG video and audio. You can edit pictures while they're still on the camera (cropping, rotating etc), and the 'share' button allows you to tag pictures for printing, emailing and organising. It comes with 16mb of internal memory, but you can extend this using XD memory cards.

The Verdict
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Usually priced at £299.99, I purchased this camera for £149.89 from Dixons where it is currently on offer (it seems the whole group currently have this same offer on, including Currys, PC World). At half its usual price I believe it's a fantastic purchase. The fact it's 5 megapixels means photos are excellent quality. XD cards are gradually becoming standard in use in digital cameras - I've read this is because of the demand for smaller cameras and quicker file transfers. As this camera uses XD cards for additional file space it's certain to keep up with the times (until the next new thing comes along). Although it only has 16mb of internal memory extra cards can be picked up fairly reasonably priced online (I purchased a 256mb card for just short of £20 including postage on eBay, but prices online and in bricks and mortar stores vary greatly so it's worth shopping around - I've seen cards the same as I've purchased on sale for around £45).

I've just purchased a camera case for my new gadget as I'm concerned about it getting damaged kicking about in my bag - I think this is something all digital camera manufacturers should include in the box, but obviously this would mean they'd have fewer ways to grab extra pennies from you! I managed to get a Kodak case for this camera for £8 from eBay.

The fact the camera takes a lithium battery means replacing the battery will be more expensive than buying AA batteries that were in my previous camera, however it will also last much much longer and I don't expect to have to replace the battery (because it won't recharge properly) for at least a couple of years if not more. To fully charge the battery takes about 3 hours. A fully charged battery can take over 100 photos I'm told.

I wasn't overly impressed with the instruction manual and leaflet provided, but that's more because I never read them properly than them being useless. The quick start leaflet wasn't great and was a little misleading in places describing things differently to what I had in my box (obviously a one leaflet suits more than one camera situation). The User's Guide was more useful than the leaflet and contained information in three languages, but it was dull to look at, definitely not something to read through all in one go, therefore I've preferred to play with the camera to find out what it does and only refer to the User's Guide when I've needed to know something in particular that I can't work out or am not sure of - in those situations its been very useful.

I'm very impressed with my latest gadget and I can't wait to take it on holiday with me. Thank you for reading my review.

My rating - 5 stars * * * * * 

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