SiliconBeat

Kodak EasyShare Z980 Digital Camera

Over the weekend, I started playing with Kodak’s new EasyShare Z980 camera. Although I’m not entirely sold on it, I enjoyed my first test run with it. 

The Z980 is a high-end consumer camera. Kodak is positioning it between the light-weight point-and-shoot cameras and the heavier, but more versatile Digital SLRs with interchangeable lenses. 

The first thing I noticed — and liked about the Z980 — is its large (3-inch) LCD screen on its back. I’m used to using a point-and-shoot camera with a much smaller screen. With the larger images displayed on the Z980s, it was much easier to compose and review pictures. Also, I was impressed with the relative speed of the Z980, particularly compared with my older point-and-shoot. Although there was still a noticeable delay between pressing the shutter button and the Z980 capturing a picture, it was relatively short, meaning that I was much more likely to be able to catch the “moments” I wanted. For instance, I got a cool picture of my son in mid-air in the middle of a jump, something that I don’t think I’ve ever been able to catch with my point-and shoot.

The Z980 is shaped much like an SLR, with a barrel-lens and handgrip. As such, it’s considerably bulkier than a point-and-shoot; you won’t be carrying it around in your shirt pocket.  But given its bulk, the Z980 was surprisingly light. (According to the specs on Digital Photography Review, the Z980 weighs 15.7 oz; i.e., just less than a pound.) My wife and I carried the Z980 around all day at the San Francisco Zoo without ever wanting to put it down or stow it away in our car or stroller.

And the big advantage of having a camera shaped like the Z980 is the potential optics. The Z980 includes a 24X optical zoom, which allows you to shoot amazing close-ups without getting a pixelated picture. It also gives you a more flexible lens — when shooting on shutter or aperture priority you have a wider variety of choices than you have on a point-and-shoot with the same shooting modes.

I wasn’t impressed with the camera when using it to review pictures. There’s a noticeable lag when you try to delete pictures; if you have to delete a lot at once, it can take a while. And I couldn’t figure out how to get the camera to display basic information about the pictures I was reviewing, so it was hard to know when I shot them, for instance.