Kodak V530

Reviewed May 2006

Introduction

The Kodak EasyShare V530 is clearly a revised and more economical version of last year's V550. Metallic red, the V530 carries on the basic rectangular design of the V550, but with less elaborate external controls, and a smaller 2-inch monitor.

The top right side of the V530 has three buttons, the 2-stage shutter release being the biggest and placed at the far right. To its left is the Flash Mode button, which cycles through Auto Flash, Fill Flash, Red-eye Reduction, and Off.

To the right of the Flash Mode button, the Power Switch has a small recessed area in the middle to make it easier to distinguish it from the other buttons on top of the camera, but regrettably when the camera is still a bit unfamiliar, it is often confused with the Flash Mode button. Worth noting, the V530 is intended for easy use, and whenever the camera is turned on, it sets the flash mode to Auto.

The left side of the camera's top also supports three buttons, all shaped exactly the same, each of which can be used to turn on the camera, but not turn it off. The upper left side of the camera's back echoes each of their icons, and uses a small LED above it to indicate the mode in use. Starting on the right, the first button, Auto/Scene, controls the shooting mode. Pressing the button once starts the Auto mode:

Auto is intended for everyday use, providing not only a fully automatic shooting mode, but a number of user-controls over the way the camera captures the image, which are accessible through the menu.

Pressing the button a second time superimposes the Scene mode selection screen. The screen presents 20 icons, each representing a specific shooting situation which is identified at the top of the screen, followed by a brief description of its use:

	Portrait		Landscape
	Sport		Close-up

	Panning Shot		Sunset
	Candlelight		Custom

The last of these modes, Custom is able to retain specific settings made in the menu, including sensitivity and flash mode, restoring them whenever it is selected. Nevertheless, when the camera is turned off, it starts by default in the Auto mode and the Auto/Scene button must be pressed once to return to the last used Scene mode.

The next button on the top left side of the V530 turns on the Video mode:

The V530 captures videos at 30 frames per second and at either one of two frame sizes: 640 x 480 pixels (VGA), or 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA). The recording time is limited to the available space on the memory card or the internal memory, or can be preset to 5, 15 or 30 seconds. During the recording, the optical zoom remains useable and white balance and exposure are adjusted as required. If desired, an electronic image stabilization system can be used, and is enabled in the capture menu. Along with the video, the camera records an Index image, much like a contact sheet, that shows 9 frames selected from the entire video recording, making it easier to identify the contents of the recording.

The third button, at the far left of the top and labelled with , starts the camera directly in the Playback Mode, displaying only images that have been previously tagged as Favourites.

The other external controls of the V530 are arranged on both sides of the 2-inch, 230,000 pixel monitor.

The Zoom Control is positioned directly below the Shutter Release, on the right side of the V530's back, where it is easily reached with the thumb. As is almost the norm nowadays, the control not only serves to adjust the zoom's focal length, it also serves to zoom in and out of images when the camera is in Playback mode. Any portion of an image can be magnified up 8X or the image returned to full screen.

Below the zoom control, a small but clear speaker is provided to play back the sound captured by the camera.

Still on the right side of the monitor, two buttons are stacked near the bottom of the camera:

The next button, share, highlighted with a coloured insert, displays a short menu when pressed, as long as there are images in memory, or on a memory card.

• Print serves to select images for printing, and the number of copies to make of any particular image. The V530 is PictBridge compatible.

• E-Mail allows selecting image for e-mailing, and if an e-mail address book (up to 32 names) has been uploaded to the camera via Kodak's EasyShare software which is supplied with the V530.
• Favourites serves to select images as "Favourites" which, once they have been transferred to a computer running Kodak's software, will be re-uploaded back to the camera at a smaller size, and available for viewing when the Favourites button is pressed.
• Print All selects all images in memory, internal and/or card, for printing.
• Cancel Prints cancels all print order settings.

The left side of the camera's back also supports a trio of controls, starting at the top with the 4-direction control that is used to navigate the camera's menus, or move from one image in playback, or even adjust the sound volume of videos with the up and down arrows during playback. At the centre of the 4-direction control a small blue tinted button marked OK serves to confirm menu selections.

In addition, when the camera is set to a capture mode, the right and left arrows serve to adjust the exposure compensation. An exposure compensation range of ± 2EV is available, set in 1/3 EV increments, and the monitor reflects the adjustment by becoming brighter or dimmer.

Similarly, the up and down arrows provide control over other functions:

With the camera in a capture mode, the up arrow cycles from the default display that superimposes the flash mode, the image resolution, the number of images that can be captured, the memory storage (card or internal), the current exposure setting, and the capture mode around the periphery of the image, while at the centre the AF brackets show the focus zone. Pressing the up arrow once clears the monitor of all information with the exception of the exposure compensation and the AF brackets. Pressing the up arrow a second time returns the monitor to the default display but adds a real-time histogram that graphically shows the distribution of brightness in the frame.

The down arrow serves to select either of two other shooting modes while the camera is in a capture mode:

	Pressing the button once engages the Macro Mode, allowing the V530 to focus on a subject that is between 5 and 70 cm (2 to 27.6 inches) from the front element of the lens when the zoom is set to the wide angle end, and from 40 to 70 cm (15.6 to 27.6 inches) when it is at the telephoto end.
	A second press of the button switches to Landscape Mode, which sets the focus to infinity so as to capture a distant subject.

Finally, with the V530 set to the Playback mode, the down arrow also serves to display index screens (9 thumbnails per screen) of the images that have been captured.

The last two external controls of the V530 are two buttons below the 4-direction control. The first serves to delete images, either while they are being recorded or when the camera is set to the Playback mode.

The second calls up the menu that corresponds to the current camera mode: still image, video or playback.

The Kodak V530 is very compact — almost too small — and while extremely well-finished and obviously sturdy, the small size of its external controls makes it a bit awkward for anyone with largish hands. Buttons tightly placed between others such as the flash mode button, the video mode button, or the OK button are difficult to press with accuracy. And more specifically, the 4-direction control is so flat that attempts at using it often have unexpected results.