After having a look at a very low-end camera two weeks ago, I've stepped a bit up in the range to have a look at a 5 megapixel model, a Kodak CX7530, which can currently be bought a Geeks.com for $175. Just like I found that the CX7220 was able to produce good 4x6 prints, I was surprised to see that CX7530 is capable of very good letter-size prints.As a preamble, let me pre-emptively answer one question: why is this article on OSNews? The answer is simple: because the previous one generated some interest and raised a few questions. If you're not interested in digital cameras, reading further will be a waste of your time, please stop here. Besides, OSNews is a generic tech site, not an OS-only news site.
Picking digital photography equipment is a tricky issue. Check the inventory of a major online retailer today and you'll have a choice between about 300 different current models, from more than a dozen different manufacturers. In the hottest segments of the market, new cameras are released every year by every major player, so that if you're willing to widen your shopping choices to models that have been discontinued reasonably recently you'll be facing a choice of 500 different cameras.
I bought my first digital camera in 1999, after not really taking any pictures for years, and at that time it took a pretty hefty budget to get any digital camera. Even with a somewhat heavy investment, the results were disappointing. I gave up photography for a few years, got back to it with a film SLR in 2002, and was able to get satisfactory results with that equipment, even though the workflow of shooting film then scanning it to process it and print it digitally felt awkward. In late 2003 I moved to a digital SLR, and the move was a revelation: digital photography was a viable option, but it seemed to require large image sensors.
Having a DSLR made me painfully realize that carrying such a camera with me all the time wasn't practical. Since my cameras stay on their shelf most of the time except when I explicitly go shooting or when I'm travelling. Even when travelling I don't always feel at ease with big expensive equipment, and on a recent trip to Las Vegas the DSLR stayed in my hotel room the entire time while I shot several rolls of film with a good 35mm point-and-shoot, while on a ski trip last year the camera in my backpack was a sturdy medium-format TLR.
I had quite a few opportunities to play with a 3MP Canon A75, which is capable of producing files that would print very fine at 4x6 even with a bit of cropping, but is a tiny bit too bulky and heavy to carry everywhere all the time. I got my hands on a Kodak CX7220, graciously provided by Geeks.com, and was pleasantly surprised by the image quality, being able to get some perfectly acceptable 4x6 prints from its 2MP files. When Geeks.com asked me if I wanted to review a camera slightly higher in the range, I went for it, and they sent me a Kodak CX7530. A quick check showed that it would be able to print 8x10 with essentially the same pixel count as my workhorse DSLR, and I was eager to see if the idea of printing 8x10 from a digital camera that I can keep all day clipped at my belt was a crazy idea, or if technology has finally reached a point where the promises of large prints mentioned in the camera marketing materials are real.
After that long introduction, I feel that I need to include a disclaimer: I am not looking at this camera as a substitute for expensive and bulky DSLR equipment, but rather as a complement. There are certain photography applications where no amount of technology can compensate for the limitations of a small-size camera, and I consciously decided to not venture in those applications during my review (I already have a DSLR for those applications). Therefore, you will not see any night pictures (the lens and the sensor are too small to effectively catch light at night), and you will not see any indoor flash pictures (the flash is too close to the lens to provide a natural look, and not powerful enough to light an entire room). I'm not claiming that those applications are entirely impossible, and in a pinch you'll probably still be able to take pictures in those extreme situations, but you'd clearly not be using the right tool for the job. I wanted to explicitly evaluate the camera in favorable situations, to see whether a $175 camera could sometimes rival my usual DSLR that had cost me 10 times as much.
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