Kodak EasyShare M580: Good Pictures, Ho-Hum Features

If you want a camera that takes great photos and has a larger-than-normal optical zoom range, the 8X-optical-zoom Kodak EasyShare M580 ($170 as of September 20, 2010) fits the bill. It's one of the best point-and-shoot cameras  we've tested this year in terms of exposure quality, and it's incredibly easy to use. Its ease of use and sub-$200 price, however, come at the expense of manual controls and exciting in-camera features.

The lens of the 14-megapixel M580 starts at 28mm for wide-angle and zooms all the way up to 224mm at full telephoto. The M580 is completely built for automation, and the camera does a good job of it. The Smart Capture mode identifies the scene automatically and adjusts the camera's settings for the situation. When you attempt to shoot a macro, it automatically turns to the macro scene mode, and in general it's smart enough to choose the best scene mode to handle your shot.

You have 20 scene modes to choose from; they also correspond to the presets that the camera selects from in Smart Capture mode. It's a good thing that the scene-mode selections are so extensive, because you don't get manual control over the aperture or shutter; in Smart Capture mode, shutter speeds range from 8 seconds to 1/1400 of a second. In Program mode, you can manually select ISO settings (from 80 to 1600), exposure compensation steps, and white-balance presets.

One notable in-camera extra is the EasyShare M580's Share button, which tags photos or video for immediate transfer to Facebook, Flickr, Kodak Gallery, YouTube, or an e-mail address as soon as you connect the camera to a computer. It's well implemented for what it is, and it's a nice convenience for snapshooters who like to organize photos for sharing while they're still on the camera. That said, since you still need to connect the camera to your computer in order to make the Share function happen, it won't save much time for most users. Don't expect an immediate wireless upload to the sharing sites of your choice.