Get Kodak EasyShare Z885

Kodak leaves style on the road and trying to find the right balance between features and price in its Easy Share Z885. This 8-megapixel camera can be found for around $ 200, and although not the prettiest Kodak on the market that offers some surprisingly robust and objective than the average.

The Z885 is clearly more oriented towards practical-minded way. The thick 1.2-inch-thick camera weighs 7.3 ounces heavier with an SD card and two AA batteries installed. Its controls are rather simple, centered around a mode dial atop the camera, and a large square navigation button on the back. Menu buttons around the navigation button feel a little small but otherwise the camera interface works well. Blocks Z885, direct design highlights its main physical characteristic: his goal. The camera contains a lens of 36mm to 180mm equivalent 5x optical zoom in a bit more telephoto power for most compact cameras, lenses '3. There is no mechanical image stabilization of the Easy Share Z712 IS, but it is wider to 12x either.

As part of the Z series of Kodak Easy Share, Z885 is designed primarily for camera users more experienced than their Snap Shoot average. Besides the common types of automatic and preset scene exists in all EASYSHARE cameras, Z885 is a complete program and manual shooting modes. Manual mode allows you to modify each parameter from the opening exhibition at the shutter speed and even manually focus the camera. In such a little cheap shot, they are welcome options. Unfortunately, if you want to adjust exposure, adjust them all individually, the camera has no Shutter priority modes and transparency.

Kodak actually pumps the ISO sensitivity in the Z885. At full resolution the camera can shoot between ISO 80 and ISO 3200 sensitivity, an impressive number. By ratcheting the camera at 2.2 mega pixels or lower, the Z885 can achieve ISO 6400 and ISO 8000 sensitivity, the highest settings we've seen in a point-and-shoot. Unfortunately, this feature only looks good on paper, and when you take the parameters of super-high ISO, noise involves both the images that you can actually see the grain on the camera's 2.5 inch LCD screen. You may not use high ISO shooting for something bigger than a postage stamp or a computer icon, and always pushing.

In our lab tests, Z855 would be pretty slow. After waiting 2.8 seconds from power on to capture its first shot, you can shoot a new one every 2.2 seconds with the flash integrated with disabilities. Curiously, we anticipate that 2.2 seconds with flash enabled, although they often flash increases for at least half a second. The shutter was only 0.5 seconds with our high-contrast target and a second with our low-contrast target, which simulate the conditions for admission of daylight and darkness, respectively. Burst mode was surprisingly fast, take five pictures in full resolution with 2 seconds for a speed of 2.5 frames per second.

The Z885 can make beautiful images, especially at lower ISOs, but we did see some pictures artifacts that make some diagonal and / or curved lines are jagged. In addition, the lens of the sample slightly out of alignment, making the lower left corner, slightly weaker than the rest of the plot. Although it sounds bad, not at all uncommon to see lower prices on compact cameras and can be regarded as "within acceptable manufacturing tolerances" for some manufacturers. White Balance Automatic camera tends to create images of yellow bulbs, so you should try the tungsten setting if you do not look so hot. Otherwise the colors are not precise enough, and there are plenty of sharp detail for a camera in this price range.

On the surface, Z885 produces some image noise is surprisingly low, but higher than the ISO images are at the expense of sharpness and shadow detail. At ISO 80 and ISO 100, we saw almost no ISO noise. At ISO 200, which began to slip, but it takes a lot of image quality. Noise measurements at a slightly lower at ISO 400, and we saw only a reduction of sharpness usually small, with shadow detail remains unchanged. At ISO 800, take pictures of a grain, of course, but still very useful, but may waive a substantial portion of sharpness and a much lower level of detail in the shadows at this point. ISO 1600, Kodak has undertaken a large blur filter to soften the noise, resulting in a loss of sharpness and a general decrease in dynamic range. When you get to ISO 3200 noise takes over, adding a layer of grain on the results of confusion, as we saw in the previous level of sensitivity scale. We recommend staying below ISO 1600 in total and below ISO 800 if possible.

With plenty of manual controls and a nice 5x objective, offers Kodak EasyShare Z885 a remarkable performance for its relatively low price. His shooting high ISO is very poor, but the flexibility and functionality make this shooter a very attractive camera that can be compared with satisfaction Samsung S850.