We were recently impressed with the Kodak EasyShare V570, which combines two lenses to give the effect of a 5x optical zoom.

With the launch of the 6.1 megapixel V610 Kodak has raised its game further.

This sleek snapper, the top of the range model in Kodak’s ‘V’ series, uses the same dual lens technology as the V570, but boasts a massive 10x optical zoom range that really sets it apart from other compact digital cameras.

Even with the steadiest of hands, taking blur-free shots using a zoom this powerful is tricky but the V610 uses image stabilisation technology to counter this.

You’ll get the best results from the zoom at its highest level of magnification using a tripod but the hand-held shots we took were perfectly acceptable. A useful hand-shake icon will appear on the 2.8in screen if there’s any danger of taking a blurry shot.

As you would expect from an EasyShare camera, the V610 is incredibly easy to use with easy-to-navigate menus and a large range of dedicated menu and settings buttons on the camera’s sleek black metal body that make the V610 instantly accessible.

There’s not much in the way of manual settings on offer but you’ll find 22 easily-accessible automated scene modes to optimise point-and-shoot pictures. These include two modes for composing panoramic shots.

Choose one of these and a section of the last image taken is displayed on the left or right-hand side of the display to help line up the next shot.

Once three photos have been taken side-by-side, the camera automatically stitches them together, giving up to 180 degrees of wide-angle coverage. Image resolution is limited to 3.1 megapixels in this mode, though.

Using movie mode you can record up to 80 minutes of footage at a time, providing you have enough space on the memory card. This video can then be edited from the camera itself.

The V610 has 32Mb of internal memory so you can start snapping straight out of the box once the battery is fully charged. There’s also an SD/MMC memory card slot to supplement this.

In Review mode you’ll find options to crop images and remove red eye and a there’s a Kodak Perfect Touch tool to brighten dark photos and make colours more vivid.

Image quality was good overall, although on occasion detail in the corners of our test images was not well captured.

Pictures also tended to suffer from image noise, which gives areas of solid colour, in particular, a speckled appearance and fringes of colour were visible around the edges of extremely backlit subjects. These two problems are very common in compact digital cameras, however.

With built-in Bluetooth to transfer and share photos wirelessly to compatible devices, the feature-packed V610 offers good value for money, considering what’s on offer.

Related reviews 
Kodak EasyShare V570  
The Kodak EasyShare V570 is a versatile compact digital camera that, despite being a bit of a concept product, is actually very easy to use. Plus, images are colourful too.
Rating: 4
Price: £270