the 10-megapixel Kodak EasyShare V1003 offers simple digital photography at a good price.
Kodak EasyShare V1003 Review
The Kodak V1003 provides a great deal of control for a family compact and with plenty of custom options offers a lot of ‘bang for your buck’.
Using a 10MP sensor, Kodak advertises that images from the camera can be printed up to A3 in size, which are captured by a fairly standard 36-108mm equivalent zoom. A wide ISO range of 80–1600 offers good flexibility in varying lighting conditions, aided by 22 scene modes and 5 colour modes. If you can’t find your preference in this selection, it probably doesn’t exist. The high colour, natural colour and low colour options are particularly impressive, as they effectively give you tonal control like a mini ‘zone system’. This is useful for outdoor portraits as you can balance the tonal contrast to the lighting conditions on the day. There are also video and macro options to round off the majority of shooting preferences you might require.
The V1003 looks good and its solid metal body comes in a range of nine colours. It’s fast to start-up and focuses quickly, highlighting the area of focus with a five-zone grid. There’s no viewfinder, but it has a 2.5in LCD screen. The layout of the buttons on the rear is a bit fiddly, and isn’t intuitive, but this is one of the V1003’s few shortcomings.
Image Quality
A range of lighting conditions failed to fool the V1003’s auto and scene modes in terms of exposure, though lens distortion is noticeable at the wide end of the zoom, with fringing also present. Noise increases with higher ISOs, as expected, and while you’ll get reasonably sharp results at ISO 200 up to A4, I wouldn’t expect the advertised A3 size to be flattering to your images, regardless of sensitivity.
Verdict
The V1003 is a good family compact camera due to its looks, flexibility and its attractive price.