Kodak EasyShare M590: Video and Image Quality

Video Quality
Videos shot by the M590 had good color and sound but were a bit choppy. I noticed a problem when using the optical zoom, as the camera at times seemed to lose focus. This is demonstrated in the video below:

HD video can be recorded for a maximum of 29 minutes or until the file size reaches 4GB.

Image Quality
I found most of the images produced by the M590 to be pleasing, especially when high contrast areas showing chromatic aberration were not involved. I did not notice excessive overexposure, which is often a problem with cameras with small sensors. Kodak cameras are known to have strong colors, and the M590 is no exception, but I rarely felt the colors were overdone. The M590 gives the user some additional control over the images when shooting in program mode. Sharpness can be set to sharp, normal and soft. Color intensity can be set to Vivid Color, Full Color, Basic Color, Black and White and Sepia.

Vivid	Full
Basic	Black and white
Sepia

The auto white balance setting of the M590 worked well. White balance can also be manually set, in program mode, to daylight, tungsten, fluorescent and open shade. The image below shows auto white balance using the fluorescent setting:

Auto White Balance, 5500k fluorescent light

The M590's flash can be set to Auto flash; Auto, Fill, Red Eye and Off. Kodak claims a flash range, at ISO 400, of 2.6 meters (8.5 feet) at wide angle and 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) at maximum telephoto. However, the flash seemed underpowered and often failed to produce sufficient light to obtain a pleasing indoor image. Also, as previously mentioned, the flash usually required 10 seconds to recharge.

As shown by the ISO table below, the M590 produces its best looking images at ISO 100, but even at ISO 800 its images are fairly detailed, with good color, and not excessively noisy. Image quality declines greatly at higher ISO's, but they can still be used in an emergency. Overall the M590's low light image quality is surprisingly good for a 14 megapixel camera with its modest price-tag.

ISO 64	ISO 64, 100% crop
ISO 100	ISO 100, 100% crop
ISO 200	ISO 200, 100% crop
ISO 400	ISO 400, 100% crop
ISO 800	ISO 800, 100% crop
ISO 1600	ISO 1600, 100% crop
ISO 3200	ISO 3200, 100% crop

Additional Sample Images