Kodak Z612 Review

The Kodak EasyShare Z612's body is styled somewhat like a miniature SLR camera, and contains both a six megapixel CCD imager and a Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon-branded 12x optical zoom lens with a powerful 35 - 420mm equivalent focal range. For framing images, the Z612 offers both a 202,000 pixel electronic viewfinder, and a large 2.5" LCD display with 230,000 pixels. Images are stored on Secure Digital / MultiMediaCards, or in 28MB of internal memory. The Kodak Z612 has a generous 16 scene modes to help beginners achieve the results they're looking for without the need to understand subtleties like shutter speeds, apertures and the like. If you want even more control though, then aperture- and shutter priority modes are available, as well as a fully manual mode.

By default the Z612 determines exposures with a multi-pattern TTL metering system with center-weighted and spot options available, and the ability to track the metering spot to match the five autofocus points. It also offers 2.0EV of exposure compensation in 1/3EV increments. Five white balance settings are available including an auto mode, and ISO sensitivity is controlled automatically or manually, ranging from 80 to 400, with the ability to trade off some resolution for extra sensitivity - ISO 800 at 1.1 megapixel resolution. The EasyShare Z612 also offers a movie mode, capturing VGA or QVGA clips with audio, at a framerate of 30 fps using MPEG4 compression - which offers higher quality and better compression than the MotionJPEG compression used in most cameras.

Images and movies captured on the Kodak Z612 are transferred to your computer over a USB 2.0 Full Speed connection, rather slower than the USB 2.0 High Speed connections offered on many cameras these days. NTSC / PAL switcheable video output is also available, letting you share images on a TV. Power comes from a proprietary Lithium Ion rechargeable battery. List pricing for the Kodak EasyShare Z612 is set at $399.