Kodak EasyShare Z612 [6 MP, 12x Optical Zoom] User Reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Great when it worked but didn't last long!
Comment: Bought this camera 14 months ago from Amazon, was a great camera for an amateur like me, good quality photos and easy to use. Just taken it in to repair and have been told the exposure has gone, will be £120 to repair so its not worth doing. The guy in the shop also told me this was the third one in with the same problem in the last month or so....with only a one year guarantee was an expensive mistake.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good camera for the interested amateur
Comment: I bought this camera because I was interested in getting a bit further into photography and the standard compact cameras weren't able to do what I wanted. For that purpose it has turned out for be ideal. The 12x zoom has revolutionised the way I take photographs. Pictures of birds are no longer a tiny dot in the middle of a huge space, and a telescopic zoom allows techniques such as blurring the background of a picture to get crisp pictures of close up objects e.g. when taking pictures of flowers. It's obviously not something you could take on a night out to the pub, but for a wander round your local park or nature reserve it's ideal. The image stabilisation is good, and I have found that even handheld at full zoom it is possible to get quite sharp pictures.
The response time is pretty quick (no pressing the button and finding your target was moved out of frame by the time the picture is taken) and the rear screen is detailed enough to get a good idea of what your picture looks like, though the refresh rate isn't great for tracking very fast moving objects. I've been happy with the battery life, but haven't used the flash particularly intensively. There is of course an option to use the viewfinder - saving on battery life and making it easier to take pictures in bright light when the LCD screen looks faded. The viewfinder image is also digital and still allows you to see all the settings. I have not used the video capture at all so cannot comment on this feature.
The reason I'm giving it 4 stars is that I've reached the limits now of what can be done with this camera. The auto-focus can be annoying (there's no way to manual focus), and unlike a full SLR there's no option to change lenses or add filters. Despite what the product description says, the camera doesn't allow saving into RAW format (which is something of an industry standard for photo editing) or TIFF format - this camera is JPEG only. On a personal level, I find the pop-up flash irritating, and the noise of the flash popping out has been known to scare off small animals while I'm trying to pre-focus on them. There is a button to switch off the flash, but on auto-mode the camera defaults to 'flash on' if it thinks it's too dark and when you're pulling it out for a quick picture it's easy to forget.
All in all, this is a good camera for someone new to SLR; who is looking to play with arpeture size, shutter speeds etc. for the first time, but also wants a camera which can take a decent picture if necessary without having to worry about all that stuff. It's taken me a year or two to reach a point where there camera's limitations become a problem, and even were I to buy a 'proper' SLR I've no doubt this camera would still get a regular airing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great camera...but buyer beware!!
Comment: I bought this camera back in February last year only 16 months ago. I was upgrading from my old compact. It was a gem, straight out of the box, super photos, excellent zoom and image stabalisation. It worked in every condition indoors, outdoors, low light, bright light, sports and action photos.
I was well impressed with how it performed but one day whilst shooting photos at a wedding it just shut off. The electronics just powered off, none of my batteries on full power could not turn it back on.
I took it to be repaired and was told that the electronics inside had just burnt out - the repair would be £100 to send to Kodak.
BEWARE if you buy, it might just stop working on you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good value for your money
Comment: I bought this camera in £130 from Amazon. It was a real bargain. I am impress with the quality of picture. The camera is easy to handle. The video is also good. The battery can run a day if fully charged. Overall very impressive camera from Kodak.
Customer Rating:
Summary: OK for the Money
Comment: Ok pictures on good sunny days. At dusk it struggles and the zoom is disappointing. But for the money you can not expect a great deal more. I am saving for a higher spec model now!
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![Kodak EasyShare Z612 [6 MP, 12x Optical Zoom]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41j6sG-Eh9L._SL160_.jpg)
