Kodak EasyShare Z980

Opinion: Having been a diehard Canon fanboy for years, I took an interest in Kodak cameras again last year when the V1273 series came out with HD Video capabilities.
The results from that camera still suprise me, it's actually quite good.

I received a direct mail coupon from the Kodak store on-line, which led me to their webpage, and the investigation of the Z980. I ordered it and received it the second week of April, 2009.

So far, I've been really impressed with the capabilities, ease of use, and features incorporated in the Z980.

The 24X Zoom with image stabilization is of amazingly good quality and sharpness. A slight bit of barrel vignetting is noticable at full zoom, but not completely unmanageable with a bit of cropping. Shots at max zoom are very crisp and detailed.

Kodak's colors are impressive as well. Photos are quite usable out of the camera. As an experiment, I took a shot of a Desert Poppy (very vivid oranges) and post processed it with Photoshop CS3 and Fred Miranda's 'Velvia Vision' Compared to the original, you could hardly tell the difference.

Ability for manual control is also there, which is good for stop action photos of kids sporting events and for people who are ready to 'step up' from the preset and 'auto pilot' modes.

The inclusion of a hot shoe for the P20 flash is also something I give props to Kodak for, and also for keeping the Electronic Viewfinder!

As a photographer who grew up shooting film, I didnt realize how much I actually 'missed' a decent viewfinder, until I started playing around with the Z980.

Ability to zoom in/out while shooting video, along with silent motor operation. This is really nice, the v1273 makes noise and the focus is slow to react when shooting
HD video.

In all, this is a well rounded camera, and for the street price (between $300 - $350) it is a *very* *good* deal!

Do yourself a favor and check out the sample images on the Z980 Flickr Users Group. My Flickr user name is 'honemastert' and you can find more about me from my user profile (blog etc:)

Rgrds,

-tim

Opinion: I'm a DSLR user (Canon 5D), but always like to have a walkaround superzoom camera with me at all times. I've been using the Sony H9 for the past several years and knew I wanted to replace it with one of the latest "megazooms" just coming out.

This camera has a lot of versatility and good image quality. It's a keeper.

Link to some shots I've taken with it:

http://www.pbase.com/carlcrumley/kodak_z980

Photo Quality:
Macro: Excellent
Mid-range (75-200mm equiv.): Very Good
Max zoom range: Generally good handheld, probably would be better on a tripod with IS turned off but I haven't tried it yet.

Battery life: Outstanding (still on the original battery charge after two weeks of use)

Noise: Not bad at low ISOs, pretty rough above ISO400. What noise I've gotten was easily addressed by a noise reduction program in post processing.

UPDATE: After months of using this camera I'm getting more and more disappointed by the image quality it produces. I'm seeing very bad purple fringing on many shots, and most shots appear "mushy," perhaps from aggressive noise reduction. The autofocus accuracy is terrible and only about 15-20% of my shots at maximum zoom are in proper focus. When they're good they look pretty nice, but the vast majority look awful.

Still... not a bad camera for the money. Plan to take a LOT of shots to get a few that are good. If I'm shooting a hawk at maximum zoom I'll shoot 20+ exposures and perhaps get 1, 2 or 3 that are good.

Opinion: Specifications published here an elsewhere make absolutely no mention of the possibility to use sun cap and screw-on filters.

I fail to understand how come a near-professional type of camera issued by Kodak, misses a feature so important and appealing to the photographer.

The Z650, forebear of this one, and one of the cameras I owned, had all of it. This new member of the family crowd apparently not-- so why, why ?!...

Opinion: You have to remember that the cost of this camera is £300, as to some extent that dictates soem of the things I would of liked to see as well as the feature set offered, namely ae and af lock and also if that had been offered in video too, then this camera would be 5 stars for me. As it is I dock half a point for these missing features and conclude that video is not the prime rason for the camera but something I like to take as well for fun reasons, you aint going to make overly exciting/creative movies with this cam because its completly auto in movie mode.
Anyway as to the camera, shooting primarily in raw, which can be slow as the camera has a limited buffer, the results are generally outstanding for a p&s, yes there is ca (it covers 26-624mm!) but overal the colour/sharpness and detail for a micro sensor are sensational. If anything when compared with dslr output I am noticing over-shaprness, certainly it making my a350 look soft and generally that is a sharp aps sensor.

Overal I love the camera for flexibility, a few pics at 26mm one second then a full zoom 624 wildlife shot the next. In door I get mixed results soemtimes raw at iso800 is relatively noise free, which is amazing, other times its poor. I am loving experimenting with this camera and will be doing so for a while I'm sure,

Very Highly reccommended.