Kodak has produced a very cool and very slim (their thinnest yet) digital camera dressed in a tough black, silver and chrome metal case. The exterior glows when its powered up with blue lights through its stylised buttons on the top & back of the camera and is ready to use in less than a couple of seconds.

The EasyShare V550 digital camera has a 5 mega-pixel capture with a large, bright and vibrant coloured 2½ inch LCD display. It also has the ability to attach easily to the Kodak print dock for on-demand photo printing utilising all the ‘Share’ facilities Kodak has work hard on developing.

The camera’s image quality is sharp, clear and mostly colour accurate which can be credited to the Schneider – Kreuznach 3x optical 36-108mm (35mm equivalent) zoom lens. The camera also has digital image stabilisation technology for low light and maximum zoom situations which otherwise would require a steady hand.
The speed settings on the camera range from 80 to 800asa producing great results at 80, 100 and 200, with a little more grain at 400 and more again at 800. The flash was quite responsive in almost every situation automatically varying the power output avoiding blowing out whites and avoiding ghost like faces on close up head shots.

Navigation on the camera is quite easy, with the main features of the camera given a dedicated button on the back or top with the remainder under the scrolling menu button. This layout of simplified features makes the camera not only easy to use but more appealing to a wider audience which would include the older aged population and ‘non-techie’ people.

On a final note, it was also good to see Kodak had the environment in mind when printing up the user manual as the pages have been printed on recycled paper. Nice touch.

Overall, my experience with this camera was enjoyable, as I would recommend to new digital camera buyers in the 5 mega-pixel category to check this model out.

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