Kodak EasyShare M590: Performance

PERFORMANCE
Performance of the M590 can best be described as mixed. The menus work smoothly and menu selections take effect without delay. Its start-up and shut down time of about three seconds each are not bad. As shown below, it is a quick-focusing camera. However, there is a major problem with the M590's shot-to-shot time. It consistently ran five to seven seconds between shots without the flash and almost 10 seconds with the flash in operation. This was the case in both good and bad light.

Shooting Performance
As shown by the performance tables, the M590 is no slouch in when it comes to auto focus. Shutter lag, when pre-focused (when the shutter is pressed halfway down), was negligible at 0.03 seconds. Auto focus acquisition, the time it takes between pressing the shutter and taking the shot, was a very quick 0.30 seconds. Continuous shooting ability is not the M590's forte, at only 1.1 frames per second. This is slower than Kodak's specification of 1.5 frames per second for a three-shot burst.

Shutter Lag (press-to-capture, pre-focused)

AF Acquisition (press-to-capture, no pre-focus)

Continuous Shooting

*Note: Continuous shooting framerates are based on the camera's fastest full-resolution JPEG continuous shooting mode, using the fastest media type available (300x CF, SDHC, etc.). "Frames" notes the number of captures recorded per burst before the camera stops/slows to clear the buffer.

Although the M590's auto focus is reliable in good light, I often had a problem locking focus indoors, in dim light, despite the fact that the camera has a bright auto-focus assist lamp.

Kodak specifies a battery life of approximately 195 shots, which is not terribly long. This should be kept in mind when going out to shoot with the M590. It's probably a good idea to purchase a second battery.

Lens Performance
The M590 has a 5x zoom lens with a range of 35mm through 175mm (35mm film camera equivalent). While the wide end of the lens is not as wide as some, it has a reach that is quite long for a camera of the M590's small size.

Wide angle

Telephoto

An additional 5x zoom is available when using digital zoom, which can be useful since the camera's high resolution 14 megapixel images tend not to show pixelization with modest use of digital zoom.

While the lens is reasonably sharp in the center, I noticed some corner blur in several photos. I did not see any vignetting, but chromatic aberration was a problem in images with high contrast shots. For example in the image below, there is purple fringing on most of the tree branches and severe fringing on the left edge of the tree trunk on the right side of the frame.

I found minor barrel distortion at wide angle and no pin cushion distortion at maximum telephoto.

Wide angle

Telephoto