Kodak EasyShare Sport: Video and Image Quality

Video Quality
The EasyShare Sport takes VGA video at a 640x480 resolution, and really doesn’t offer much in the way of options or modes. Video can either be taken in normal mode or underwater mode, and both were acceptable. The above and underwater filming experience was uneventful and sufficient.

Image Quality
The EasyShare Sport performed well on the one sunny Boston day we've had over my review period. In low-light settings it had some trouble picking up colors, and in indoor situations some images came out grainy. I hate to harp on the subject, but the C123’s comparitively long close-focusing distance is really a big drawback. The Sport offers an acceptable flash, which had an auto mode, always on, always off, and red-eye pre-flash mode.

The camera offers several different color modes, including full color, basic color, vivid color, black and white, and sepia. The disappointing vibrancy of the basic color setting can be seen in sharp contrast to the vivid color setting, which was by no means amazing, but offered significantly richer pictures than the dull default settings of the camera.

Vivid Color

Basic Color

The Easy Sport offers, in addition to auto white balance, preset modes for open shade, fluorescent, daylight, and tungsten. Fluorescent and daylight made subtle changes, while open shade and tungsten yielded a markedly altered white balance. I used the Sport primarily on auto, and the results were generally consistent both indoors and out.

Auto White Balance, 5500k fluorescent light

Checking noise levels in the studio, we saw acceptable amounts of noise and artifacts at ISO 80 and 100 with more distortion creeping in at ISO 200. ISO 400 presents a noticeable loss of fine detail, though small web-friendly images are definitely usable.

ISO 80	ISO 80, 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 1250	ISO 1250, 100% crop

The ISO 800 and 1250 100% cropped images show very high levels of smudging and artifacts. Neither of those settings produce a good-looking image, even at reduced sizes, and the ISO 1250 images are borderline unusable. For the best results, keep ISO limited to 400.

Additional Sample Images