Kodak DX6340 – A Day With a 2003 Digicam for Jankuary

I mentioned in my last post that I am a compulsive collector of Kodak cameras and have a number that I have never used. The current Jankuary January strand prompted me to look for something suitable to use and perhaps review. To the top of the list came an EasyShare DX6340 from 2003. Original list price $329. With a maximum resolution of 2032 x 1536, effectively 3.1 megapixels, perhaps I should not expect too much. On the other hand, it has everything I look for in a camera: viewfinder with diopter adjustment; playback screen; a 36mm – 144mm equivalent zoom; dry-cell battery capability and it takes SD cards. What’s not to like?

There’s a full write-up on DPREVIEW here

The first thing I notice is that the Kodak DX6340 is quite a chunky thing not dissimilar in feel to a compact 35mm camera. The viewfinder is tiny but I can see to the edge of the frame even with spectacles on. Ok, time for some batteries. Having downloaded the 122-page instruction manual I note that for acceptable battery life alkaline cells are not recommended but as that’s all I have they will have to do. It seems to fire up anyway, the lens shutter slides away and the lens extends by a few centimetres. I press the review button and discover that I took two pictures in 2016, presumably when I first bought it. That’s interesting, it must have some internal memory. Page 10, Internal Memory: 16MB. Let’s put an SD card in anyway as I don’t think I have a suitable cable for image transfer. The first card I tried was 32GB which was rejected. Of course, in 2003 cards would max out at less than 1GB I think. A deep dive in the accessories box produces a 512MB card good for over 300 pictures. At this point, having set the time and date, checked that we are on the highest quality and delved through the menus I’ve nearly killed the first set of cells. They weren’t kidding about the battery life, this thing must take some current.

The weather is not great today, gloves necessary but it’s not actually raining so let’s go for a walk and see what we can shoot.

I have to say I’m quite impressed with the Kodak DX6340. Everything was taken on full automatic apart from the indoor picture of some flowers when I used the flowers setting. Everything is in focus, there’s texture in the sky so it seems to have handled exposure well. Obviously there’s not a fabulous amount of detail but plenty for a 7” x 5” print and the colour rendering is excellent. I’ve always liked the look of CCD sensors.

Would I use it again? Probably not. It’s neither small enough for a jeans pocket nor capable enough for a main camera but I certainly enjoyed using it until I dropped it. The down side of gloves. I’m off to eBay now to look for another one for the collection.

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