5 Frames with a Kodak Easyshare DX7630

I’ve had a tumultuous, and possibly longer than I’d like, experience with my Kodak Easyshare DX7630. On one hand, the colors out of the Kodak CCD sensor can be beautiful, while other times the camera refuses to work at all. Aside from its tendency to believe it’s much warmer (temperature, and not color temperature wise!) than it actually is, (not allowing you to shoot,) the colors also can shift at a moment’s notice. One minute the landscape is a beautiful warm green, then seconds later everything has shifted to purple for no apparent reason. Nonetheless, when the colors are nice, they are some of my favorite colors from a digital camera. With the colors that are possible SOOC, as well as the camera’s low-value (I got mine for free,) it ended up being my camera of choice for a short ATV trip with some friends this summer.

I wasn’t too worried about damaging the poor plasticky thing, so it often sat rattling in the glove box of a mud-covered ATV as we ripped through gravel paths, and pinged around on rocks. Oddly enough, despite how I treated it, the diminutive Easyshare treated me better throughout this trip than anywhere else I’ve brought it. The strange “overheating” issue didn’t happen to me once the whole time, however as I took more and more photos the power-on time got less and less snappy as it slowly tried to read the 1 gigabyte memory card. I tend to try to take good care of my gear (despite the condition I buy it in,) but with the Easyshare it was nice to just toss around and not stress about. The light, plastic build, which normally I’ve hated, also likely kept the camera damage-free as there was not enough mass to sustain a meaningful impact.

The conditions throughout the trip were not as nice as we’d hoped, but we were luckily spared of any major rain during our time up in rural Maine. This less harsh light also made life easy on the sensor as the dynamic range was actually pleasant for once. As the camera and I made our way around the woods and various lakes I got more and more excited to see the photos back at home on a screen larger than the tiny, low-res one on the back of it. Sometimes photos have a deceiving way of looking much better at that smaller size, but I was actually very happy when I saw the photos at a meaningful size.

While some photos absolutely did not turn out how I wanted, (or expected.) Some photos, like the scene below, turned out very pleasant. It may not be my highest artistic achievement, but I love the, maybe inaccurate, but very well rendered colors. I also felt more than comfortable with the roughly 40mm equivalent the camera takes on at its widest view. This 40mm-ish focal length is something I’ve learned to love more and more as I’ve continued to grow with photography. I’ve also, for better or worse, continued to grow into this camera. While it’s not my daily carry for a variety of reasons, it’s absolutely got a place for specific times.

If you’re interested in seeing more photos I’ve taken with the camera, such as my experimentation with using it with a diffusion filter for car photography, let me know. It’s always nice to remember how far you can get with 6 megapixels and some JPEGs. If you’d like to check out more of my photography, check out my Instagram! 

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