Kodak EasyShare M530 review

Sharing your life just got simpler

Released earlier in the year alongside three other Easyshare compacts, the M530 boasts a 12.2MP CCD and Kodak-branded 3x optical zoom lens.

Designed to be a stylish accessory for avid photo bloggers, the Easyshare M530 comes in a range of funky colours and sports attractive styling that doesn’t look out of place among the existing range of compacts that are targeted at this market sector.

Slim and lightweight, the body combines a metal and plastic case with a tactile rubberised finish on the area where your fingers grip the camera, which combines with a sweeping curve on the back where your thumb rests to provide a firm purchase.

On the top, three small buttons sit flush to the body, allowing you to power the camera on/off, access the menu for the built-in flash unit and switch between shooting stills and movies.

Around the back, the 2.7” LCD takes centre stage, flanked by some little buttons down the right-hand side. These give dedicated access to the Delete, Playback, Info and Main menu options, while a small silver four-way d-pad surrounds an OK button, for easy navigation of the menu system and other functions. A silver rocker switch lets you activate the optical zoom, and a dedicated red

Share button completes the

user interface.

The 3x optical zoom lens provides a focal range equivalent to 36-108mm on a 35mm camera. While this is fine for general photography, it prevents the M530 from excelling in any particular area. 36mm is a little narrow for the wide end of a zoom lens, making it less than ideal for capturing sweeping vistas, or – as the intended user is most likely to want to photograph – group shots of more than a few people. Likewise, the telephoto end of the zoom range is fine for candids at fairly close quarters, but if you want to fill the frame with a subject across the room then you’ll need to zoom with your feet instead.

Of further note is the time it takes the lens to zoom to either end of its range: considering how short a distance it has to cover it’s pretty slow, and you may find yourself missing key moments while you wait for it to catch up.

In operation, the camera is fairly responsive. The M530 takes a couple of seconds to power up and the LCD to come to life. Half depress the shutter release and – in good light – the AF system performs well, finding a lock quickly and accurately most of the time. Once the camera’s located your subject, keep the shutter half depressed and you’ll see a green box appear around it. Move the camera around to re-compose your shot and that green box will stay locked onto your target: an impressive feature at this price that works pretty well.

The headline feature is the ability to tag shots (using a virtual keyboard on the LCD) before uploading them. Connect your M530 to a computer, press the Share button and away it goes.

In addition to the very accurate smart capture, which determines what it is you’re shooting and adjusts the settings, there’s a Program mode if you want to take a bit more control. The face recognition feature does a fine job and comes in handy when tagging images post-shoot, too.

Image quality is pretty good, but nothing to write home about. The colours captured are vivid, but zooming into frames reveals a fair degree of oversharpening occurring in-camera. Crank up the ISO and – although usable up to about ISO 400 – beyond that things aren’t pretty.

As an affordable entry-level compact for daytime snaps, the Kodak Easyshare M530 delivers. In low light and as a good all-rounder however, it falls short.