The Kodak EasyShare C533 Digital Camera Does Exactly What I Hoped It Would Do

Author's Rating:

Pros: inexpensive; small and attractive; easy to use; great editing package; good quality photographs

Cons: memory card necessary; gobbles batteries; don't know if the case would survive a serious hit

The Bottom Line: 
The Kodak C533 is a good basic digital camera that comes with a versatile editing program.

Author's Review
I am clueless when it comes to digital cameras. I still own the Olympus OM-1 I bought back in the dark ages, and it has suited me fine until recently. But when I started listing stuff on Ebay, I needed something that could take a couple of decent pictures and allow me to upload them to my computer so I could post them quickly for all the world to see.

I bribed my friend with Japanese dinners, and she let me use her digital camera, and life was good. Until her camera died.

My first consideration was price. I knew I didn't want anything elaborate. My second consideration was dependability. I didn't want anything by an unheard of manufacturer that would break on me in a month. My third consideration was quality of pictures. I wanted my speakers to look crisp and clear on Ebay. When I saw the Kodak EasyShare digital camera on sale at Walgreens for something like $89, I jumped on it (after reading a couple of reviews).

Here's what you get:

The camera itself
Two AA batteries
CD with editing software
USB cable for connecting camera to computer
Wrist strap
Manual in several different languages

What you don't get:

Memory card for storing more than a handful of pictures

My initial experience:

I removed the plastic packaging without injury (I think I used a pair of scissors) and found that the instruction manual, although written in several languages, didn't contain much information about getting started with the camera. But there was a CD in the package, and I figured it would contain more instructions. Download time was several minutes, and there were no glitches, but the CD does NOT contain instructions; it contains an editing package that allows you to do a bunch of stuff to your pictures once you have them uploaded to your computer. More on this later.

The camera itself:

The camera is very small, simple, and attractive, though the case feels more like molded plastic than like metal. I'm not sure what it's actually made of. A simple dial around the shudder release serves as on-off switch and determines function. These functions are clearly presented on the screen when you turn them on:

general (for general picture taking)
landscape (for more distant pictures)
close-up (closer than 28 inches)
portrait
video (with sound)
"enter favorites," a function I haven't figured out yet

Zoom is controlled by a separate pair of switches on the back of the camera. Functions like delete and review are controlled by a combination of little buttons and arrow keys on the back of the camera. All pretty easy to figure out.

Taking pictures:

When you turn on the camera, it makes a happy chirping sound to let you know all is well. I got right down to taking pictures of familiar things like audio speakers and my feet, viewed from my desk chair, and the quality appeared to be good. I haven't timed the lag between pressing the shudder release and having the picture actually taken, but I'd guess it to be about .5 seconds (that's 1/2 sec, in case you can't see the decimal point). Not great for precision work, but good enough for most of what I do.

After only five pictures I got the following message: memory full! Take home message: You must have a memory card with this camera. The internal memory doesn't hold much. A memory card costs about $25 and inserts easily into a slot in the side of the camera.

A friend had an extra memory card, so it was time to take my fancier outdoor shots of loudspeakers I'm selling, as well as portraits of the kids I work with. Everything worked fine until the battery went dead after only about 20 shots. Take home message: The batteries that come with the camera are designed for cost-efficiency, not longevity. Have some back-up AAs ready to go.

Once I had a bunch of pictures stored on my memory card, it was time to see what the editing program was really all about.

The editing package:

In some ways this was the most pleasant surprise about the Kodak EasyShare C533 camera. When I plugged the camera in to my computer using the provided USB cable, my computer (a fairly recent Dell) read that a camera was connected and asked whether I wanted to download some or all of the pictures from the camera to the editing program.

I have since done both, and either is easy.

Once in the editing program, you can click on a picture, click on edit, and have several features ready for you. I tend to crop my pictures down, and the editing program made this a snap.

You are given the choice of editing into a 4 x 6 photograph size or free style edit. I generally choose free style edit, and then drag the borders to where I want them. It's quite similar to other editing programs I've used.

The enhance feature brightens up a shot taken with not quite enough light.

And the red-eye reduction feature is really cool. You can zero in on a subject with read eye, and darken the red areas one click at a time.

The time to fix up a single photograph is between 30 seconds and a couple of minutes, depending on how much work you do. Everything I've tried to do has worked flawlessly so far.

Quality of photographs:

The quality of photographs is quite good, comparable to what I've gotten from other small digital cameras, including some costing three times as much as the Kodak EasyShare C533. The outside shots of vintage stereo speakers I've taken show the wood really nicely, as do the inside shots (the flash goes off as needed). Kid pictures have also had a remarkable degree of clarity, with accurate colors, and good, but not overly etched, detail. Both outdoor and inside shots blow up well (I suppose that means resolution is pretty high). I have not taken what I would call "action" shots, so I can't comment on how the camera fares if you're going to be using it at NASCAR races or track meets.

But:

After about 40 shots, and a few transfers from the camera to my computer, the little chirping sound and green light were replaced with a flashing red light. The battery was going dead again. Take home message: Like many digital cameras (I'm told), this one gobbles up batteries. Always have a few extras ready to insert. In an emergency, you can drop your almost-dead batteries in fairly hot water, dry them off thoroughly, and get a couple of bonus shots out of them.

Conclusion:

I've had this camera for a couple of months now, and it has done exactly what I hoped it would do. It has taken high quality photographs both indoors and out, and allowed me to transfer those photographs to my computer and edit them, yielding images that rival those that I get from my beloved Olympus OM-1.

The camera appears to be made of some kind of plastic, but it is of high enough quality that nothing has gone wrong as I remove and insert batteries, remove or insert the memory card, and hook the thing up to my computer. I haven't dropped it or otherwise abused it, so I can't comment on its durability in the face of really rough handling.

Nor have I tried the "video" function or even the "close-up" function. I'll update this review when I do.

If you're looking for a basic, inexpensive digital camera to take photographs for Ebay, or of family, or of your dog, or whatever, I can think of no reason not to recommend the Kodak EasyShare C533 Digital Camera.

Just make sure you buy (or borrow) a memory card, and have plenty of extra AA batteries on hand.

Note: I'm going to let one of my kids be a "model" for a couple of days. I'm older than 17 mos, but I took (and edited) my profile picture with the Kodak camera reviewed here.