Review: Kodak Z712IS Digital Camera

Kodak has hit the nail on the head with this camera. I have been taking pictures for years (with several different cameras) and I have yet to see anything like this. Let's start out with some specifics.

This camera is a 7.1 MP camera with an auto-focus as well as "face recognition" which automatically focuses on what the camera thinks you're taking a picture of. That sounds kind of useless, but when you have a lot of things going on in the background, this will be greatly appreciated. This camera is in between a "pocket camera" and a DSLR camera (the ones with the really long zoom), so it takes great pictures, while still being small enough to carry around. You might want to get a case for it if you plan to carry it a lot. A neck strap is included, but it is very uncomfortable. The quality of the pictures are unprecedented. You really can get professional photos with this camera. If you are a halfway decent photographer, this will not do miracles, but it will provide you with very high quality photos. This could either make you look good, or make your mistakes a lot more noticeable. More of the actual specs can be found here www.kodak.com.

The pros of this camera are as follows: easy to use, an automatic setting that puts the camera in an easy to use point and shoot setting, light, great image quality, great stock zoom, there is even a pretty good quality video camera that will get you by when you don't have a camcorder handy. For those of you that know more about cameras and photography than I do there are plenty of manual settings on the camera that will keep you occupied for hours.

The cons of this camera are very few: It is a little pricey, but for what you get it is well worth it. I actually purchased mine from Kodak off of Ebay as a refurbished product and it has not missed a beat. I had my camera at my door for $150 which is well in the range of lower quality cameras. The camera comes with very weak AA batteries that should quickly be replaced with higher quality rechargeable or lithium ion batteries. There is only 32MB of internal storage which will get you a few pictures, but as with any other camera you should probably go ahead and buy a SD memory card. I personally use a 2GB which is good for about 900 pictures with the camera taking the best pictures it can. I am completely satisfied with this camera, and the only think that I can think that would make this camera better would be me taking a photography class.