Kodak EasyShare C875 8 megapixel digital camera

Easy to use and fairly inexpensive too

By John Virata

With consumer point and shoot digital cameras reaching the 8 megapixel range and beyond, it can be safe to say that 8 megapixel cameras, which can output huge 30 x 40 inch prints, are the new upper range in terms of what is offered. There are 10 megapixel cameras, but the question is, do you really need an 8 or 10 megapixel digital camera? Well, if you are going to print 2.5 ft long by 3 ft tall images, then yes, you'd probably want one, and there is a market for it. A lot of people like to print huge poster size images, especially for the holidays, and the Kodak EasyShare C875 will enable you to do just that and more. There are a several notable features that make the camera a pretty compelling model.

The Specs
In addition to the 8 megapixel imaging capability, the Kodak EasyShare C875 features a 5X (5X digital for 25X total zoom), 37-185mm equivalent Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon optical zoom lens with a f/2.8-4.4 focal length, a 2.5-inch indoor/outdoor color LCD display. There is no optical viewfinder. The focusing range in normal mode is 2 ft to infinity while in macro mode the range is 4.0 in. to 2.3 ft wide angle, and 2.3 ft. to 3.3 ft telephoto. Shutter speeds are rated at 8 seconds to 1/600 second depending on the shooting  mode, of which include smart scene, custom, video, and PASM mode, which enables you to tweak the camera's aperture, shutter speed, or both aperture and shutter speed, just like an adjustable manual camera.

Front view

Scene modes help users to shoot better images. The camera optimizes the settings for specific situations.

The camera also features 22 preprogrammed scene modes designed to take the guesswork out of your imaging. These scene modes include portrait, Panorama left right and right left, sport (anti-blur enabled), landscape, close up, night, portrait, night landscape, snow, beach, text, fireworks, flower, manner museum, self portrait, party, children (anti-blur enabled), backlight, panning shot, candlelight, and sunset. These scene modes automatically changes the camera's setting based on the scene mode the user chooses, making it easier to focus on the subject matter and not the camera. ISO sensitivity includes 64-200 automatic as well as the following manual settings; 64, 100, 200, 400, and 800. Metering modes include TTL-AE, multi-pattern AE, center weighted AE, center spot AE, while compensation settings include ±2.0 EV with 0.3 EV steps with flash compensation. A histogram display is available, and white balance settings include auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, open shade. the camera also features 3 image selectable ±0.3, 0.7, 1.0 step bracketing. The C875's flash has a range of 2.0-13.5 ft (0.6-4.1 m) at wide, ISO 200, and 2.0-8.5 ft (0.6-2.6 m) at tele, ISO 200. Your mileage varies when you change the ISO setting.

wide angle. Click for full view.

5X optical zoom. Click for full view.

25X digital zoom

The camera captures in the JPEG/EXIF v2.21 file format as well as QuickTime MOV (VGA (640 × 480) at 30 fps, QVGA (320 × 240) at 30 fps) video format. RAW file format is not supported. The camera can capture 8 megapixel, 7.1 megapixel, 5 megapixel, 3.1 megapixel, and 1.1 megapixel images, with print capabilities ranging from 30 x 40 inches at 8 megapixels to 8 x 10 inches at 3.1 megapixel. images are capture to either the 32MB built in memory or via optional SD/MMC media cards.