KODAK

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Steve's Conclusion It does what they say it does; it plays MP3 songs, it captures motion video and still images. But as the old saying goes, "do one thing and do it well," these multi-function devices rarely do everything well. The mc3 is a great little pocket-size MP3 song player and it works good as a webcam. It's a so-so motion video capture device and as the sample photos above prove, it's a rather poor excuse for a still image capture device. One of the most limiting factors in its use as a still camera is the fact that it lacks an optical viewfinder. There is more than enough room to put even a rudimentary "peep" sight on the top somewhere. To aim and frame still images or movies requires the LCD. This wouldn't normally be a problem except that Kodak used a reflective display instead of a backlit one. This type of LCD requires a high amount of ambient light or else you can't see anything being displayed on it. This plus the fact that it has no flash (undoubtedly another power saving issue) makes it next to useless for picture taking indoors unless it is really bright. As for outdoor picture quality, well see the samples above. Color balance and exposure is often way off the mark. The mc3's fixed-focus lens and CMOS imager produce a less than detailed image that exhibits chromatic aberration all over the place. These pictures are barely useable for email and then only if they're scaled down to 320x240 first. I wouldn't want to try to make photo-quality prints any bigger than wallet-size. Since my job is reviewing digital still cameras I'm afraid that I have to give the Kodak mc3 the kiss of death and say - look elsewhere. The Fujifilm FinePix 40i costs considerably more but its still image quality is lightyears beyond the mc3 and it has both an optical viewfinder and a standard backlit LCD display.

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