Middle ground gives firm footing for digital camera

The P880 can film video clips too

From a digital camera manufacturer's point of view, the hardest skill level to design for must be the intermediate user. Such cameras need to be significantly more involved than simple point-and-shoots but still easy enough to use.

The Kodak EasyShare P880 straddles that line well, offering users a wealth of options that they can choose to implement or not, which means the camera's abilities can be upgraded as the users' comfort with it develops.

The P880 is about halfway between being a point-and-shoot and a single lens reflex (SLR) camera. The key difference between intermediate cameras like this one and an SLR is that it has a single lens that cannot be removed, whereas with an SLR users can change lenses as they choose.

As such, the P880 features a 24mm wide-angle Schneider-Kreuznach lens, with 5.8 times optical zoom up to 140mm. It also has additional digital zoom, if needed, of up to two times.

The camera features 8.0 megapixels of resolution, which is more than enough for just about any needs - even high-quality 11x14 inch prints.

It also functions on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

Some of the P880's features will be familiar to beginners schooled on point-and-shoots. Many beginners choose to use their camera's display rather than the viewfinder to compose their pictures, and the P880 offers that option with a large 2.5-inch screen.

Alternatively, users can switch to the viewfinder, although this option is somewhat pointless as you don't actually see through the camera's lens, but rather a tiny video screen. In fact, the viewfinder is less desirable than the screen, given its annoying flickering.

The P880 also offers, like many point-and-shoots but unlike most SLRs, the ability to film video. The video clips can be trimmed, cut, spliced and merged on the camera, and users can also pull still images.

After that, the similarities with point-and-shoots stop and the P880 becomes more like an SLR. Its control dial has 11 shooting modes, including some of the traditional preset exposure settings: portrait, landscape and flower. The useful "scene" mode actually has eight submodes, with preset exposures for situations ranging from high-speed sports, dark candle-lit rooms and even photography of text documents (ideal for spies).

Users can also move into proper SLR modes - shutter and aperture priority, as well as manual, program and custom settings.

From there, the sky's the limit in terms of how far the user wants to go, as the P880 features all the technical goodies found in an SLR, including the ability to set the camera's sensitivity to light (ISO), white balance, manual focus, bracketing settings, and so on.

But the P880 is not without faults. One of the things I hate about many point-and-shoots, which is carried over here, is that the photo taken is not actually proper photo size. Rather, you get a squarish photo that must be cropped down in the imaging software in order to print.

The software is easy to use, but it would have been nice if the P880 captured photos in standard rectangular size and saved the user the hassle of that extra step.

Another gripe is that despite its aim at simplicity, the P880 has far too many controls. All told, there are 16 buttons, three dials and one directional pad to control its many features. The P880 is thus more complicated than it needs to be.

When it comes to cameras, the bottom line is always: Does it takes good pictures?

The answer to that is simple: It's not the instrument that makes the music, it's the musician.

So to answer the question in a roundabout way, the P880 can be a solid instrument - in the hands of a virtuoso. 


Kodak Easyshare P880

* Price: $1199
* Pros: Lots of features that can be incorporated as the user's skill level increases.
* Cons: Doesn't shoot proper photos size; too many buttons.
* Herald Rating: 7/10.

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