 "Kodak EasyShare ZD710")
Kodak has been on a comfortable pitch for a very long time as far as the Indian digital imaging market is concerned. In recent times though, it’s seen a lot of competitors gaining ground. The Kodak EasyShare ZD710 is a camera aimed at users who desperately want to upgrade from a simple point-and-shoot philosophy. If you can’t afford an SLR, a superzoom is the next best bet. But does the ZD710 deliver? Let’s see.
To the untrained eye, the ZD710 may appear to be very similar to the Z712 IS, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. The ZD710 offers 10x optical zoom and comes with a 7.1 MP image sensor. The Schneider-Kreuznach lens offers a range of 38–380 mm on a 35mm camera. As for build quality, there’s little scope for disappointment.
The ZD710 has a rubberized L-shaped grip, and judging by the fact that it weighs 360g, it makes for convenient one-hand use. Unless you have really tiny hands, all the operational buttons are easily reachable with your thumb.
As expected, the 2-inch screen shares space with the mode dial, zoom keys and a host of usual assortments such as the delete, menu and review buttons. On the top, apart from the shutter release button you will find the power on/off button, flash, macro, and burst shot.
Despite the 10x zoom lens, the camera fails to include any form of optical or mechanical image stabilization. Kodak has instead included digital image stabilization, which simply boosts the ISOs to prevent blurring caused by shaky hands. The downside is that pictures taken in relatively low light turn out rather grainy. Pictures taken indoors, during mid-afternoon, too looked quite grainy, and lacked detail.
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The ZD710 manages to get the colors right most of the times, and works well if you know your photography basics. What I mean is, if you leave it to the camera to handle the pictures you will never achieve good pictures in auto mode. Instead of allowing the camera to adjust the ISO, for instance, you can manually program the settings and reduce grain and patchiness in your pictures.
The pictures lacked clarity. Most of them taken indoors turned out quite patchy, like a watercolor painting blown up to actual size. This, I think, is due to the digital image stabilization engine that plays with ISO settings to get around shaky pictures, instead of the preferred optical one. If you click on the picture below you will see what I mean.
If you like to experiment, the Program, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority modes allow a little fun. Other innovative modes include Smart Scene (more like an auto mode), high ISO, and panorama.
Night shots are a hit-or-miss affair. If you’re traveling and want to get some landscape shots at night, I suggest you avoid the auto mode. Use the night scene mode instead. Better still, if you have a hang of exposure compensation and aperture, adjust your levels manually.
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If you are just starting off with a superzoom, scene modes are your best bet. The Kodak ZD710 has 16 scene modes that help you take pictures without having to bother about things like shutter speeds, apertures, color balance etc. A number of scene modes are provided: portrait, sports, landscape, candlelight, night portrait, night landscape, snow, beach, text, fireworks, flower, manner/museum, self-portrait, children, backlight and sunset.
The ZD710 calculates the exposure setting with a metering system that includes multi-pattern, center-weighted and spot modes, and offers 2.0EV of exposure compensation in 1/3EV increments. ISO sensitivity can be set to Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600, all at full resolution. A movie mode captures VGA (640x480) or QVGA (320x240) clips at 30 fps, both with audio. Movies are encoded in QuickTime Motion-JPEG format.
