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Kodak Easyshare LS443 4 MP Digital Camera w/3x Optical Zoom (Includes Dock)

Kodak Easyshare LS443 4 MP Digital Camera w/3x Optical Zoom (Includes Dock)

List Price: $550.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: my reveiw
Review: um. well i just bought this camera, and it was a damn sweet deal.
it came pretty quick and it was exactly the camera i set out to get. uh i dont really know what else to right.....so yeah...use amazon to buy stuff.

peace and carrots

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The warrantee is almost up...
Review: I agree with all of the good things that have been said about this camera. It is a great device for taking pictures and transferring them to the computer.
My LS443 is in the shop, however, for the second time this year. The lens travel mechanism has failed (again). Why?

Kodak made the remarkably bad decision to have the mode ring switch also turn on the camera. No separate on/off button. The mode ring switch is very easy to turn accidentally, and even has a tab that sticks out beyond the back plane of the camera. Switching modes in use is an inconvenience, but no big deal, right?

Problem is, the tab will catch when the camera is in a case, a pack, a pocket, and turn the camera on. The lens tries to come out, but is foiled. After a second of trying, the camera stops and shuts down. After a certain number of times, the lens travel mechanism gets stripped, and stops working.

I don't mistreat this camera, but I'm not going to carry it around in bubble wrap, as the folks at Kodak kindly suggested. If I had know about this problem, I certainly would have bought the extended warrantee.
Unless this problem were fixed, I would not buy this camera again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Easy and Intuitive to Use
Review: I bought this camera for school and it is so easy to use I took it on vacation to get used to its features. It has produced some truly beautiful shots and I am now considering another for use at home. It replaced my 35mm Minolta,which I gave to my daughter when I decided even I could go digital with the help of this camera. Wonderful entry into the world of digital photography. Quick and easy to learn.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bought it - TWICE
Review: I was robbed of my first - immediately went back to Amazon for another. I love the camera - prints are awesome, screen shots are awesome. I love the macro capabilities - I photographed a rare insect in amazing and clear detail. I must also add that I priced cameras for a long period of time before deciding on this one, and Amazon has excellent prices. I could not find a 4.0 MP camera under $400 anyplace (though these things change quickly - might be a cheap antique next month, haha).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy to use, great results
Review: This camera is easy to use and produces fabulous results. It is our first digital camera. The software is a little funky to use and could use some changes, but the camera itself is a piece of cake. The kids love that they can see themselves right away on the built-in screen, and the ability to have the pictures the same day you take them is very cool. Actually the camera I bought was just stolen out of my car, so I am buying another one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's Great!
Review: For all the things that this little camera can do the cost was really good. I would recommend it to EVERYONE I know. It charges fast and if you get a 256 MB card for it you can take about 700 pictures on it. Thats amazing! If you are looking for a nice little camera that can do lots of things, this one is for you. The software is really easy to use also.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I was a little worried about getting a digital camera I must admit!! But I am SOOOOOOOOO glad that I did. This camera is GREAT!! The pictures turn out great and so clear. It is VERY easy to use, even for someone like me not a teckie by any means. The docking station is great push of the button and the pictures are on the screen and ready to print or email.

As far as the action shots are concerned, with the other reviews, I have been able to get some great action shots it just takes a little time in between the shots for the picture to appear. So I love it even for that because you can see right away if the picture is what you thought you took..

The only cons is the screen is really hard to see in direct sunlight. I would also recommend purchasing an extra memory card the 16mb that comes with the camera only lets you take up to 15 pictures in the best choice setting. I am going to get the 128mb one so that when on vacation I will not have to worry about how many pictures I can take.

I would buy this camera again. It is great. The software is also very easy to use....

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nice Camera - Learn to use it
Review: The key to taking good photographs with this camera is to master the 'half press and hold'. This lets the camera set up for the picture. If you do not 'half press and hold' long enough, the photo will be blurry.

I am a technology driven person at work, but at home, I don't want to troubleshoot computers/software etc. Lucky for me, I didn't have to do a thing to get the software working perfectly.

If you are a real photography nut, this camera is probably not for you (of course you should already know that based on the price). I love the 'good' quality rather than 'best'.

For the average Joe, this camera is well worth the money and is a wonderful replacement for a 35mm. Buy a good sized memory stick (128 MB SD card holds over 300 pictures on low quality)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy to use, great pictures !
Review: Very easy to use camera !! The ultimate first digital camera ! As clear as my Minolta Maxxum SLR. Not a huge zoom. You can blow your pictures up to 20 x 30 and it's still really clear. The only thing is, don't try to use this for action shots. Will not caputure much motion. I am very happy with is purchase !

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not for anyone except the TOTAL amateur
Review: I bought the Kodak EasyShare LS443 to take on my honeymoon. For those of you considering buying, I am an educational technology specialist, so while I am tech-savvy, I wasn't concerned about getting SUPER professional results. I'm an amateur photographer and I was looking for a camera with enough oomph to create quality 8x10' prints. This camera claims to be able to generate photos well beyond that size (as any 4MP camera would), so I thought I'd be fine.

Wrong. The camera compresses the images to the point where you see SIGNIFICANT 'artifacts' (blurry areas around objects where the camera has 'averaged' some of the data to conserve storage space). The unfortunate fact is that you need to make the image measurements smaller on your computer to mask the effects of the file compression. RESULT: You're not really getting the full power of the 4MP that you're paying for. We could only hope for decent 4x6' prints from this camera, and even then the compression artifacts are visible.

While the camera does have an 'image quality' feature, it really only changes the physical size (i.e. measurements) of the image; that is, you can force this camera to take photos at a lower resolution (e.g. 2 megapixels), but you can't do anything to make the camera use a higher-quality FILE to STORE the image in. The point here is that it wouldn't matter if this were a 6MP camera, the file storage reduces the quality of the photo to make the FILE SIZE smaller. There's no option to increase to a higher-quality JPEG, let alone something genuinely useful like a TIFF. By the way, there's no need to lower the image quality setting on this camera: The pictures it takes at '4MP' are already small enough that you won't run out of space on your memory card.

The camera itself is pretty easy to use. Point and shoot. On-screen directions are great to let you know what mode you're in and what you should use that mode for. On-screen menus are a little awkward at first, but are otherwise obvious. For anyone used to a standard 35MM camera with any features to speak of, you won't need to read the instruction manual for the LS443.

A note about zooming: The 3x optical zoom on this camera is good for normal family point-and-shoot. Digital zooming is a bad idea on ANY camera, especially if you want to print those photos. The LS443, for example, claims to have over 10x 'total' zoom, which is true in one sense: The combined optical (like a normal film camera would use) and digital do make 10x. However, what the camera's really doing is taking the picture as it appears at 3x zoom (the maximum optical zoom) and guessing to create a 'zoomed' image. The result is a very blurry picture, even at minimal digital zoom. Suggestion: Turn off the digital zoom on any camera you buy, or at least use it sparingly. The 3x optical zoom on the Kodak wasn't enough for us, and we're nowhere near professionals.

The auto-focus isn't altogether that great in slightly-less-than-optimal conditions. The shutter speed issue is only a problem if you're interested in taking REALLY high-speed photos'like at a sporting event'in which case I'd suggest a plain vanilla 35MM camera (the digital cameras that can do this are prohibitively expensive for most of us normal folk). Even the 'sport' mode on the LS443 yields some blurry pictures.

One of the reasons I bought this camera was the dock and rechargeable battery. Battery life was great for us. I put it on the charger at night, and it went all day without any problems, even with LCD use. I liked the convenience of the dock because I didn't have to deal with any cables'I just left them plugged into the computer. This is a feature that I didn't find with any other camera that I was looking for (it is an ADD-ON for other Kodak cameras). I'm going to miss the ease of recharging this camera.

The software to transfer the images to the computer (on PC) stinks'don't load it. It's unnecessary and, by default, FURTHER reduces the quality of your images when it transfers them to the computer. No thanks. My suggestion: Load the drivers for the camera and use Windows' built-in functionality. The My Pictures function of Windows (including a cool slide show and preview function) beats Kodak's software any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

At the end of the day, the quality is good enough for day-to-day point-and-shoot, ESPECIALLY if you don't plan on printing. The fact that the images are already quite small (in file size) means that they're readily posted to a website or sent via e-mail. I ended up with an Olympus 3.2MP. Yes, fewer megapixels'but it uses higher-quality JPEG files. The results are across-the-board better than the Kodak: no more compression artifacts, and my 8x10's look great. Professionals will undoubtedly want a camera that can create TIFF files.

This is a good camera to keep in the car or to have handy to take pictures of your kids being cute. If you're a first-timer and you're looking for something very quick, very easy, and very convenient, you should consider this camera. It's also a good camera to send with your kid to college. The media is also pretty cheap (and relatively fast), and the camera has some built-in memory (16MB, I believe), so you don't even *really* need a memory card to get started. If you do buy, you probably won't need anything more than a 128MB memory card because the camera compresses the image files so much.

For anything more, including pictures that you'd like to eventually print, get another camera. We're just a step above amateurs, and the Kodak LS443 didn't make the cut. You're not getting the 4 megapixel quality you're paying for.


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