REVIEWS / POINT AND SHOOT

Kodak Easyshare Z980

11 Jul, 2009, 1:15 pm IST | by Nikhil Singh | Point and Shoot Point and Shoot



Features and Performance

The Z980 has a CCD sensor that takes shots of up to 12 megapixels, and zooms up to 24x. The lens is also capable of a respectable 26mm wide shots. Another great thing is that it allows you to save pictures in RAW format, other than JPG! But, it seems like a feature to compensate for the dissatisfactory picture quality. The camera's sensor doesn't pick up details too well, and sharpness goes for a toss sometimes even in shots that are in focus.

Auto-white balance was spot on though, and I love the vivid color reproduction of the camera. There a few tweaks made to the interface too, making it easier to navigate than before.

If you're one for manual functionality, you'll be glad to know that Z980 has plenty of that too. You have fully functional Manual, Shutter priority, Aperture Priority and Programmed Auto modes, which give you complete control over your shots. There are plenty of scene modes too, in fact one for almost every kind of shot you'd want to take. The only thing I don't like about the auto-functionality, is that the camera tends to overshoot the ISO settings when set to auto-ISO, making images grainy even when not required.

Speaking of which, the camera's ISO performance was decent, and images stayed relatively noise-free at ISO 200. Night shots too were pretty decent, but the camera tends to keep the shutter open for too long in the Night Scene mode, making some areas burn out a little at times.

Macro performance was about average too, and the camera focused on objects as close as 1.5-inches.

Moving to the other extreme of the spectrum, the camera's 24x zoom is decent, but you need a tripod to use it since its image stabilization isn't that great. 

Conclusion

Unless you're the type of person who doesn't mind sacrificing quality for many useless features, there's no reason compelling enough to buy this camera. It's available for Rs. 20,499, which is quite cheap, but as I said before, so is the build and picture quality.

Tags: Kodak , Easyshare , Z980 , 12 Megapixel

Would you buy it?




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