Kodak V603 Optics

Zoom
A typical 3x optical zoom range, with good performance.

The Kodak V603 zooms over the equivalent of a 36-108mm range, fairly typical for its class. Though a little soft at wide angle, with some noticeable coma distortion in the trees, the V603's lens still performs quite well at both telephoto and wide. The 4x digital zoom takes it out to 12x total with the loss of quality that digital zoom creates.

Macro
A small macro area with good detail and high resolution. Flash exposes fairly well, but flash illumination is uneven up close.

The Kodak V603's macro setting performs well, capturing a small minimum area of 2.11 x 1.58 inches (54 x 40 millimeters). Detail is strong and resolution high, with only a moderate amount of softening in the corners from the lens. Most cameras have some softening in the corners in macro mode. The flash throttles down pretty well, but its light doesn't reach the lower left corner of the frame. Plan on using external lighting for your closest macro shots with the V603.

Distortion
Average barrel distortion at wide angle, undetectable pincushion at telephoto.

This is the tendency for the lens to bend straight lines outward (like a barrel, usually at wide angle) or inward (like a pincushion, usually at telephoto). The V603's 0.7% barrel distortion at wide angle is average among the cameras we've tested, although obvious in most images. At the telephoto end, the V603's distortion is unmeasurable.

Chromatic aberration
Moderately high, small effect on images at edges.

Chromatic aberration is rather high at wide angle, showing about 6-7 pixels of moderately bright coloration on either side of the target lines, but decreases to very low levels at telephoto focal lengths. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)

Corner Sharpness
Some softening in the corners of the frame.

The V603 produced soft corners in a few shots, but equally so in each of the corners. For a camera this small, this performance is above average, fairly impressive.

Coverage
Very good accuracy from the LCD monitor. The V603 does not have an optical viewfinder.

The V603's LCD monitor showed close to about 102 percent frame accuracy at wide angle and 97 percent at telephoto.