Kodak EasyShare Z915 Digital Camera
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- HD Recording Format: 480p
- Resolution: 10 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 10x
- Features: Image Stabilization Red-eye Correction Face Detection
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Unrealized potential
Pros
plenty of megapixels, great zoom, lots of features
Cons
poor image quality, messed up button
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
Steer clear. If you just want a camera to snap photos with, you can get others cheaper. If you're looking for more, find it elsewhere. This is just a headache.
With all the great features that this camera has, I was very excited to find it in my relatively-low price range (under $150). however, once I received it I was very disappointed. I had done research on it before, and found that it did have some known issues, but I hoped that I would be one of the exceptions. I was not so fortunate.
I haven't printed any pictures from it yet, but I have printed some from other cameras which looked just like they did on the screen, so I am fairly confident that what I see on my computer is what I'll get.
That being said, what I see I don't like. Like many others who have bought this camera, many of my pictures turned out grainy. This occured most often indoors, but still sometimes happened outside as well.
Many of them were also yellowed. I tried every setting possible on the camera, and I still had about a 5th of the pictures I took indoors turning out yellowed. Outdoors, the color seemed to be clear and bright.
The pictures were sharp, something I like about Kodak. However, this camera took it to an extreme and sometimes the tree limbs were so sharp the almost disappeared against the sky. There was some outlining (not sure of an official term for this) where when two things were highly contrasted, there was an unrealistic outline between them.
The shutter lag was decent, I've had better and worse.
The ergonomics were acceptable to me. It's not something that really matters much to me, but since it does to some people.... It felt comfortable in my hand. It also seemed fairly durable, not like it was going to fall apart.
I tried this camera out thoroughly in most settings. People it handled okish.... these were all indoors, so it had the issue of yellowing part of the time. I took many outdoor shots, both landscape and macro. It handles the landscapes the best, but it was pretty decent at the macros. The biggest problem was the focus button. It was continually cycling from auto focus to macro to landscape and back around again. It was extremely frustrating having to wait for it to come to the one I needed, and then take the picture before it moved on. Any amount of pressing (or lack thereof) did not seem to cure this.
It did handle fireworks decently, which is a good "under pressure" test for a camera. Many would have done far worse, but I got plenty good pictures out of it.
The optical image stabilization is disappointing. I have had several other digital cameras with the optical image stabilization before, and all of them (even the three years older Kodak) beat this one at it. I tried taking several action shots, both in action mode and otherwise, and it just didn't cut it. A dog moving at even slow speeds still came out blurred.
The battery life was ok. I've had better, and I've had worse.
The LCD screen was kind of weird. It made everything look grainy, even the pictures that weren't.
The Kodak software is lousy, so if you do end up with Kodak, get a memory card and a memory card reader so you can avoid using it. I'll just leave it at that.
For those who like to have manual controls on your camera (like me), this didn't have as many options as I would have liked. I was holed in to a very few options. The ISO was useless at 1600 like a lot of cameras, but also increased the likelihood of yellowing at 800 and the lowest as well. The shutterspeed didn't respond as well as I would have liked. I didn't try the aperture.
Overall, it was a camera with lots of potential and a lot of problems. With all those features, it could have been great. However, there were just so many problems that you would drive yourself crazy trying to use it.
I haven't printed any pictures from it yet, but I have printed some from other cameras which looked just like they did on the screen, so I am fairly confident that what I see on my computer is what I'll get.
That being said, what I see I don't like. Like many others who have bought this camera, many of my pictures turned out grainy. This occured most often indoors, but still sometimes happened outside as well.
Many of them were also yellowed. I tried every setting possible on the camera, and I still had about a 5th of the pictures I took indoors turning out yellowed. Outdoors, the color seemed to be clear and bright.
The pictures were sharp, something I like about Kodak. However, this camera took it to an extreme and sometimes the tree limbs were so sharp the almost disappeared against the sky. There was some outlining (not sure of an official term for this) where when two things were highly contrasted, there was an unrealistic outline between them.
The shutter lag was decent, I've had better and worse.
The ergonomics were acceptable to me. It's not something that really matters much to me, but since it does to some people.... It felt comfortable in my hand. It also seemed fairly durable, not like it was going to fall apart.
I tried this camera out thoroughly in most settings. People it handled okish.... these were all indoors, so it had the issue of yellowing part of the time. I took many outdoor shots, both landscape and macro. It handles the landscapes the best, but it was pretty decent at the macros. The biggest problem was the focus button. It was continually cycling from auto focus to macro to landscape and back around again. It was extremely frustrating having to wait for it to come to the one I needed, and then take the picture before it moved on. Any amount of pressing (or lack thereof) did not seem to cure this.
It did handle fireworks decently, which is a good "under pressure" test for a camera. Many would have done far worse, but I got plenty good pictures out of it.
The optical image stabilization is disappointing. I have had several other digital cameras with the optical image stabilization before, and all of them (even the three years older Kodak) beat this one at it. I tried taking several action shots, both in action mode and otherwise, and it just didn't cut it. A dog moving at even slow speeds still came out blurred.
The battery life was ok. I've had better, and I've had worse.
The LCD screen was kind of weird. It made everything look grainy, even the pictures that weren't.
The Kodak software is lousy, so if you do end up with Kodak, get a memory card and a memory card reader so you can avoid using it. I'll just leave it at that.
For those who like to have manual controls on your camera (like me), this didn't have as many options as I would have liked. I was holed in to a very few options. The ISO was useless at 1600 like a lot of cameras, but also increased the likelihood of yellowing at 800 and the lowest as well. The shutterspeed didn't respond as well as I would have liked. I didn't try the aperture.
Overall, it was a camera with lots of potential and a lot of problems. With all those features, it could have been great. However, there were just so many problems that you would drive yourself crazy trying to use it.
