Kodak EasyShare Z980

Opinion: For reaching out for wildlife or distant landscape shots you can't go wrong with the Z980. It has the great Kodak
color and it so easy to use. All the controls are in a perfect position to get your best shots. I highly recomend
the Z980.

Opinion: poor,grainy,over-saturated image quality; it produces maximum 5/6 mp on its higher resolution(12 mp) snaps;above iso100 images are noticeably noisy & above iso200 it is useless.

Opinion: I bought it for a jungle safari & it returned me amaizing memories.....
Construction : looks flimsy but infact it is sturdy. Lens barrel is very loose. Must be kept in a rigid pouch for protection.
Features : like stitching 3 snaps horizontally, External Flash hot shoe, super macro are much required.
Image quality : Extremely good. Colours are very live & vivid. Even muscles on the bison far away (looking like a black spot) are also visible.
Ease to use : very easy even for kids. The wheel makes it easier.
Value for money : 1001 %. Really good compared to all its near competitors.

I needed remote for capturing stars. only tripod is not sufficient. Time lapse recording would be desirable.

Opinion: This camera seems poor in construction and ease of use
but the lens and image quality is very good.
In my album at community.webshots.com/user/btbill
at the end (lesvos) you can see some sample photos

Opinion: Image qualities are surprisingly good. I guess the Schneider name does mean a difference. At maximum zoom the images are very sharp.

Some people complained about image processing time, but actually all you have to do is press the shutter button and the camera will be immediately ready for the next shot. I tried it and it worked. It's really just that the camera does not let you know it's ready when it actually is. All Kodak needs to do is to improve the user inter-face.

One of the greatest features of Kodak cameras is the very helpful screen messages. I found them extremely useful. I'm really surprised that this has not been mentioned more often.

Many people mentioned the lightness of the weight and the flimsy feel of the body. Through use, I found that the body is actually very rigid and I suspect advanced materials have been used. But old impressions are hard to shake off and so one would naturally feel a bit insecure with such a light camera. I felt the same initially, but now that I have gotten used to it I found my other cameras too heavy. Getting spoiled real fast!

Opinion: I just received this camera from Kodak last week. I purchased it when they had the 20% off sale. I was really excited about this camera and couldn't wait to give it a trial run. I was very very disappointed. As an owner of a Z712IS (a great little camera by the way), I had high expectations. The images are very soft and "smeary" even at ISO 64 and ISO 100. Also, the camera is having a very hard time focusing indoors. It seems to "hunt" for a long time and then does not achieve a good focus. I've tried it on every setting and still cannot get a good image. I will be sending the camera back next week for a refund. I don't know if I got a bad copy but I know I will not be keeping this one - it is a shame because the colors are fanastic. (nothing wrong with Kodak colors)

Opinion: Very versatile camera!! Strong points are Macro/Macro+, portrait and moderate tele. Also excelent picture quality in Smart Capture mode. And ofcourse there is RAW!!
Despite anti-shake, on maximum zoom you'll still need some form of support. If you do, you'll get good quality pictures! (On film nobody would ever dream of taking pictures with 624 mm handheld ;-)).
There is CA visible in some area's of the pictures, but can easily be removed.
Pity they didn't put the SD cardslot on the side of the body.
Battery life is very good.
You have to be a bit carefull when reviewing pictures, because the lens comes out. There's no separate review mode :-(
Some users seem to have problems with the lenscap falling off; not me! Hasn't happend yet....
Update:
After some experience with this camera, I mainly use the Aperture priority mode. This helps to control the DOF.
Also, it helps diminishing the inevitable corner unsharpness, when in full WA with f 2.8.
You'll have to stop it down a bit (few stops) to reach an acceptible sharpness.

Opinion: Almost everything I like about Kodak z980. Good image quality, has RAW option, can use external flash. But it's two important things avay from be the best in it's class.
1/ Very long time to process/save images to the memory - even to fastest memory card. To save JPEG image even in 6Mpix mode takes not less than 5 sec. To save the RAW image takes about 20 seconds!!!
2/ The lens doesn't have a thread to put filters. But up to me it's a minor issue from two.
If Kodak would improve that image processing time I would recomend the camera as the best in it's class

Opinion: Quality
Clear sharp image
Zoom excellent
Macro excellent
Powerful flash
Battery life good

Overall excellent camera – very highly recommended.

Previous camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 no comparison (chalk and cheese)