AliventiAsylum's Full Review: Kodak Easyshare M1033 Digital Camera
Last Christmas, the three teens all wanted the same thing - a digital camera. My first choice on Black Friday sold out before I even got to the store, and I ended up buying them the Kodak M1033 Digital Camera instead.
The camera appealed to me as a good value for the money, plus I know from past experience that Kodak EasyShare Software makes it easy to get pictures off of the camera and on the computer. With a 10.0 megapixel resolution, I felt the pictures would be clear and crisp. The 3x optical zoom and 5x digital zoom together would give the kids many options for taking their pictures.
The cameras were a hit, and the three kids have been using them ever since. A couple of things they bought on their own were memory cards as the memory in the Kodak M1033 Digital Camera didn’t allow for much. The other were rechargeable batteries. The camera uses two AA batteries and will go through them quickly if you don’t invest in rechargeable batteries.
Compared to my old Kodak Digital Camera, there are many improvements. The LCD viewing screen is bigger than my old one at 3 inches. It works pretty well either indoors or out. Especially for the kids, I like the menu prompts that help them use the settings to get better pictures. It’s also easy to review the pictures right on the camera, meaning the kids can flip through and delete the ones they decide they don’t want before downloading them.
Pictures outside came out fantastic. The main complaint from the kids was that it seems to take a while to write the pictures to the memory card. It isn’t easy to just take picture after picture - there’s a bit of a lag time for sure. The kids took pictures of all types at Disney, including fireworks and the Castle at night. They actually came out pretty good and surprised me. The white fireworks came out better than the ones with color, and the detail of the Castle wasn’t evident in the night sky with the purple light on it, but they still were better pictures than I’ve seen from many other cameras.
Pictures inside generally need a flash. After a few instances where the flash didn’t go off, I told them to switch it on inside all the time. (They had to manually switch it off for the night shots discussed above). Others have solved the problem by taking off the Kodak Smart Capture mode that the camera comes with. I like it for the kids as there isn’t too much they really have to do to take a great picture. It’s only in certain circumstances that it doesn’t seem to work as it should, and most novice users won’t encounter these on a regular basis anyway.
The quality of the pictures is excellent. Standard pictures taken in the sunlight capture all of the details of the situation. Even when taking a picture of a face when someone is wearing a hat, the camera seems to capture details of the face with no problem. When using the zoom, I do notice a decline in quality. Pictures using the zoom taken of animals at Animal Kingdom, for instance, didn’t seem to have the same crispness to them that other pictures have. Low-level indoor light taken with a flash are noticeably lower quality, but not bad overall. The flash works well for about 15 feet or so and will light up the area being photographed with no problem.
After we came home and I played with the camera a bit more, we learned that there are some manual modes the camera can be set for, including fireworks, but these aren’t easy to find. The macro and panoramic modes are easy to find, but the other settings are a bit more difficult. The documentation that comes with the Kodak M1033 Digital Camera isn’t all that great.
Setting up the software was easy on the two different computers, one running Windows XP and the other running Windows 2000. The Kodak EasyShare software will get the pictures off the camera with the touch of a button, or you can make sure it prompts you when transferring. Either way, once the software was loaded and I went through the process with the kids once, they were fine to do it from then on by themselves.
Video quality is also good. I can’t say that it’s as good as I’ve seen from most of the digital video cameras, but it’s more than adequate for the casual user who just doesn’t want to lug around two cameras. The kids tried it on a couple of rides at Disney World and it turned out fun, but not all that clear. On the slow rides it was fine, but any fast action, such as Test Track, the video quality is a bit lacking.
One of my main reservations was the issue of durability. I had issues with the durability of my first digital camera which was a Kodak. This one seems to hold up fine to life’s little knocks and bounces as all three cameras are still working fine and teenagers are not generally all that careful.
The size is small enough to fit into a purse or even a pocket, and lightweight enough to carry as well. It’s no heavier than most cell phones.
While some people might not like the way the Kodak Smart Capture operates this camera, it’s excellent for the teen or novice user who basically wants to just point and click. If you want something beyond that, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. This has been a perfect camera for the teenagers, giving them everything they were looking for and doing so in a manner that was pretty easy. That’s a good thing, too, since Kodak needs to work a bit on the documentation.
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