DPInterface Kodak EasyShare V610 Review
Brad Soo - August 27th, 2006

Kodak's second dual lens camera is the V610. While the V570 specialized in ultra-wide shooting, the V610 is an ultra-zoom camera. Other features of this dual lens Kodak include 6 megapixels, a large 2.8 inch LCD and being Bluetooth enabled.

Size and Weight

Find out how small the V610 is using this handy but lengthy chart I compiled:

(167.3)  90.3 x 56.8 x 20.2 mm (145 g) - Canon PowerShot SD630 Digital ELPH
(166.0)  88.5 x 57.0 x 20.5 mm (112 g) - Casio Exilim Z600
(177.2)  92.7 x 56.7 x 27.8 mm (155 g) - Fujifilm FinePix F30
(163.6)  90.0 x 55.0 x 18.6 mm (130 g) - Fujifilm FinePix Z3
(177.0)  93.0 x 61.0 x 23.0 mm (130 g) - HP Photosmart R727
(171.2)  101.0 x 49.8 x 20.4 mm (125 g) - Kodak EasyShare V570
(189.7)  111.0 x 55.5 x 23.2 mm (160 g) - Kodak EasyShare V610
(181.5)  100.5 x 60.0 x 21.0 mm (140 g) - Nikon Coolpix S6
(171.1)  94.8 x 55.9 x 20.4 mm (103 g) - Olympus Stylus 710
(179.9)  97.7 x 57.1 x 25.1 mm (151 g) - Panasonic Lumix FX50
(210.3)  112.0 x 58.1 x 40.2 mm (264 g) - Panasonic Lumix TZ1
(166.0)  88.5 x 54.5 x 23.0 mm (125 g) - Pentax Optio A10
(174.0)  95.0 x 59.0 x 20.0 mm (135 g) - Pentax Optio T10
(175.3)  96.5 x 61.0 x 17.8 mm (130 g) - Samsung Digimax i6
(174.8)  95.0 x 56.5 x 23.3 mm (139 g) - Sony Cyber-shot T30
(169.0)  89.0 x 57.0 x 23.0 mm (127 g) - Sony Cyber-shot W50

As usual, I've included the "DPI measurement unit" (As opposed to volume) on the left for a more accurate impression of a camera's size.

The Kodak V610 is the smallest big zoom camera - tiny compared to things like the Panasonic FZ7, Sony H5 and even Kodak's own Z612. Among the compact cameras, the V610 looks big though it hosts a 10X zoom range versus 3X on its similar-sized peers. The V610 took the Panasonic TZ1's title of smallest 10X zoom camera, being smaller and a lot thinner than it.

Open up the Box

The V610 is bundled with quite a few things:

  • Rechargeable KLIC-7001 lithium-ion battery
  • AC adapter
  • Wrist strap
  • USB cable
  • A/V cable
  • Camera case
  • Inserts for Kodak EasyShare docks
  • CD-ROM
  • User's manual

Storage and Power

There's 32 MB of built-in memory with the Kodak EasyShare V610 and that's barely enough. I'd recommend getting at least a 512 MB Secure Digital card. The camera does not take advantage of high-speed cards, though it doesn't like the slow MMCs either based on my experience.

160 shots - Canon PowerShot SD630 Digital ELPH
240 shots - Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH
500 shots - Casio Exilim Z600
580 shots - Fujifilm FinePix F30
170 shots - Fujifilm FinePix Z3
270 shots - HP Photosmart R727
150 shots - Kodak EasyShare V570
135 shots - Kodak EasyShare V610
200 shots - Nikon Coolpix P3
180 shots - Olympus Stylus 710
300 shots - Panasonic Lumix FX50
250 shots - Panasonic Lumix TZ1
150 shots - Pentax Optio A10
130 shots - Pentax Optio T10
210 shots - Samsung Digimax i6
420 shots - Sony Cyber-shot T30
390 shots - Sony Cyber-shot W50

The Kodak EasyShare V610 delivers one of the worst battery life ratings among compact cameras and against "real" ultra-zooms, the V610 pales in comparison and fares even worse. The V610 gets about 135 shots per charge (CIPA Standard).

 

Extras

There are no accessories for the V610 aside from a choice of a few camera docks.

Camera Tour

The Kodak EasyShare V610 is a rather compact 10X zoom camera. Versus the V570, the V610 is larger in size but looks very similar as this picture shows:

The body is made mostly from metal. The camera has buttons almost everywhere which makes one-hand shooting impossible.

To reach that 10X zoom range, the Kodak V610 splits the load among its two lenses. The top lens is equivalent to 130 - 380 mm and has a constant aperture of f4.8. The smaller lens below is your average 38 - 114 mm lens with an aperture range of f3.9 - f4.4. Since both lenses have their own CCDs, the zoom is constant and that allows optical zoom while recording video - though the jump between the lenses won't be fun.

Between the lenses is an AF-assist/self-timer lamp and a light sensor. To the upper right, there's a flash unit which has a range of 60 cm to 3.4 m at wide-angle and up to 3.3 m at telephoto. That's below average for a camera this size. There's a microphone across the camera, on the left.

The Kodak EasyShare V610 has a large 2.8 inch LCD on the back with 230,000 pixels though it seemed like it was half that resolution. The LCD has good visibility in both bright and dark conditions. There's no optical viewfinder on the V610 and I'd prefer a larger LCD to that. Viewfinders on fixed-lens cameras are practically extinct, in my opinion, as LCDs are getting larger on compacts and bigger cameras use EVFs due to the zoom range.

Next to the V570, the V610 has about the same buttons but the back is not silver anymore.

On the left side, there's 5 buttons which are:

  • Scene selection (panorama, sport, landscape, close-up, night portrait, night landscape, snow, beach, text, fireworks, flower, museum, self-portrait, party, children, backlight, panning shot, candlelight, sunset, custom)
  • Delete photo
  • Menu
  • Review
  • Share (When connected to a computer)

The custom setting under scene modes saves your set settings which makes me think why program mode can't do that automatically?

Going to the other side is a zoom controller and 5-way pad. The directional buttons do these:

  • Up - Info/Display
  • Down - Macro/Landscape
  • Left and right - Exposure compensation

Over here, there are 3 mode buttons in the middle, namely:

  • Favorites
  • Movie mode
  • Still shooting

Nearer to the right is a shutter button, flash mode button and power button.

 

On one side of the V610, there's a DC-IN port to charge the camera (since Kodak doesn't include an external charger while the other side is left blank.

Over here is a memory/battery slot with a fairly sturdy door. Next to it is the dock connector port (partially covered by the open door. On the far other side is the tripod mount.

Shooting

Kodak EasyShare V610 is strictly point-and-shoot with no manual exposure control though you can change:

  • White balance (4 presets, no custom)
  • ISO (80 - 800)
  • Color modes (High, natural, low, monochrome, sepia)
  • Metering method (Multi, center, spot)
  • Autofocus (Multi, center)
  • Sharpness

The camera has a 5 cm macro mode.

Recording

The Kodak EasyShare V610 has one of the best movie modes in its class. It takes VGA movies with sound at 30 FPS till the memory card fills up. You can choose either high or low compression so you end up with about 30 minutes or 1 hour for those settings respectively.

If that doesn't satisfy you, you can lower the resolution down to QVGA (320 x 240) at 30 FPS for even longer movies! Exposure is automatically adjusted and the zoom lenses can be used while recording. The lenses are silent moving though there's a small jump from 114 to 130 mm between lenses. With the 10X zoom range you can cover with the V610, Kodak has thrown in a digital image stabilization to reduce shake while recording.

Audio and video quality were generally quite good.

Performance

The Kodak EasyShare V610 starts up in just 1.5 seconds. Focus using the normal lens takes typically 1/2 to 2/3 second while the tele lens takes 2/3 second in normal conditions. Low-light focusing was sluggish with both lenses, especially the telephoto lens which can take up to 2 seconds and not lock focus at all.

Shutter lag is a little obvious at telephoto in low-light conditions but is otherwise not noticeable. Shot-to-shot speed was a nice 1 shot every 1.2 seconds, longer if the flash is used, until the buffer fills. Flash recharge time using a fully charged battery took a quick 4 seconds. The camera zooms silently though both lenses from wide-angle to telephoto in 5 seconds with the mechanism on the unresponsive side when swapping lenses.

In continuous shooting, the V610 shoots at 1.9 FPS up to 8 shots. Using a fast memory card did not make a difference in any areas of the V610's performance. The V610 shuts down instantly since there's no lens to retract.

Image Quality

Time to take a look to see how the Kodak EasyShare V610 fares in image quality:


ISO 64 (f4.4, 1/8 sec)


ISO 100 (f4.4, 1/10 sec)


ISO 200 (f4.4, 1/20 sec)


ISO 400 (f4.4, 1/40 sec)


ISO 800 (f4.4, 1/60 sec)

At ISO 80 thru 200, things are not very noisy and quite smooth. Noise starts to appear at ISO 400 and 800 but they are still useable. Chromatic aberration levels were fairly low. Color accuracy was good with most colors except the reds.

Overall image quality was just okay.

Photo gallery

It's the Kodak EasyShare V610 photo gallery! Take a look.

Playback

In playback, the Kodak EasyShare V610 can playback stills and movies (With sound) as well as do all this: Protect image, print marking, crop, slideshow and simple movie editing. You can also magnify still photosand take a look around using the 4 arrow buttons. Kodak's new Perfect Touch technology brightens and sharpens your photos.

The Kodak EasyShare V610 is a camera which shows the least info I've ever seen - no exposure info, no shooting info - but at least there's a histogram.

Conclusion

The Kodak EasyShare V610 is a compact camera with a 10X zoom range and big LCD. Despite being an "ultra-zoom" camera, the V610 has more in common with compact point-and-shoot cameras. The V610 is different from other cameras in some ways such as having Bluetooth and built-in panorama stitching.

Other than that are the standard point-and-shoot features like a heap of scene modes, standard performance, a good movie mode and image quality which is almost on-par with others.

Some things to ponder about when considering the V610 include its worst-in-class battery life, no manual controls, a little button clutter and having to live with very limited shooting information. Autofocus could be improved in many ways too.

The Kodak V610 just doesn't cut it to be recommended by me. The Panasonic Lumix TZ1 is better than the Kodak in many ways and has a single 10X lens which is faster and has optical image stabilization.

Camera rating upon 10 (more about this): [Category: Ultra-compact]

  • 8.0 - Body/Exterior
  • 7.0 - Bundle, batteries and memory
  • 7.5 - Lens
  • 6.0 - Feature set
  • 6.0 - Controls and operation
  • 6.0 - Performance
  • 6.5 - Image quality
  • 6.7 - Overall rating

What's hot:

  • Two lenses which cover a 10X zoom range
  • Large LCD with good visibility
  • Good performance except autofocus
  • Bluetooth-enabled
  • Built-in panorama stitch and Kodak Perfect Touch
  • Many scene modes
  • Nice VGA movie recording at 30 FPS with zoom
  • Good image quality with low noise

What's not:

  • Terrible battery life
  • No manual controls
  • No optical image stabilizer
  • Too many buttons
  • In-between lens gap and unresponsive zooming
  • No live histogram; very limited information during shooting and playback
  • Autofocus could be faster; very slow in low-light

Recommended Accessories

  • 512 MB Secure Digital card
  • 2 extra rechargeable KLIC-7001 lithium-ion batteries

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