Kodak EasyShare Z980

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/digitalcameras/0,39030233,49302561,00.htm

Reviewed 10 June 2009

Reviewed by Joshua Goldman

Announced at CES 2009, the 12-megapixel Kodak EasyShare Z980 was the first superzoom camera to boast a wideangle 24x zoom lens. At the time, it seemed bulky, but we were forgiving, as it was a first of its kind and that is a big lens. But, shortly after Kodak's announcement came Olympus' announcement of the considerably tighter-looking 26x zoom SP-590 UZ. Now, having fully tested the Z980, we're firmly of the opinion that it is a clunky, unwieldy camera. The camera isn't without its benefits, though, and photo quality and performance are fairly good for its class -- just not at high-ISO sensitivities.

The Z980 is available for around £320.

Design
Kodak had its heart in the right place with the design of the Z980, and certainly knows its target users well enough. It's an inexpensive way for advanced amateurs or hobbyists to get their hands on a very flexible lens and plenty of control options to experiment with. Unfortunately, the Z980 comes across as one of the company's compact cameras dressed up with an extra knob, dial and buttons.

Despite other design quirks, the Z980's menus are attractive and easy to navigate

The mode dial on top makes sense. The dial next to it, for selecting and adjusting shot settings, does not, and should be on the back where it would be in easy reach of your thumb. We have a preference for zoom toggles to be under the thumb on the back, but Kodak has put it slightly too far off to the left to make it easy to reach -- it should have been a zoom ring around the shutter release.

While we're on the subject of shutter releases, Kodak, in an attempt to make portrait photography more comfortable, has added a secondary shutter release at the lower front edge of the hand grip. A switch on top activates the button as well as changing the directional pad into a zoom toggle. Sadly, it doesn't shift the shooting information on the screen. If you want to go back and forth between using the two shutter releases, you'll have to keep flipping the switch.

Kodak has also included a plastic grip that screws into the bottom of the camera so there's more to hold on to when you're shooting vertically. That's certainly thoughtful, but you have to screw it on and off every time you want to access the easy-to-open, difficult-to-close compartment for an SDHC card and the battery.

This photo shows just how close you can get with the 24x zoom lens on the Z980. On the left is a shot of the Empire State Building at the camera's widest setting. At the right is not a crop, but a shot of the building's top part from the same location, but with the zoom fully extended (click image to enlarge)

Thankfully, there are a few plus points to the design. Menus are typical Kodak fare: attractive and easy to navigate. The LCD and electronic viewfinder are good quality and, on top of the EVF, is a hot shoe for use with Kodak's £100 add-on P20 Zoom Flash. Lastly, since the Z980 is powered by four AA batteries, Kodak includes rechargeable batteries and a charger. They're precharged, too, so you can start shooting out of the box.

Features
The Z980 comes close to an entry-level digital SLR in terms of its shooting controls. Except for white balance, it gives full manual control, as well as shutter-speed and aperture-priority modes. Using them is easy, but the location of the dial for making changes should really be on the back and not on the top. You also get exposure bracketing, colour effects and sharpness adjustments. There are two burst modes: one at full resolution for six consecutive shots and a 3-megapixel high-speed burst for nine frames in a row at 5fps.

Of course, you can use the Z980 as a standard point-and-shoot camera too, thanks to 16 scene modes and Kodak's 'smart capture' mode that combines its intelligent scene detection, intelligent capture control and intelligent image processing. It's a reliable mode if you don't trust yourself -- or others -- to get a good shot. On the other hand, because of this camera's poor high-ISO performance, you may want to opt for the 'program auto' mode most of the time, so you can at least control the ISO.

Performance
Although it's far from speedy, the Z980 is on a par with other superzoom cameras. The time to first shot is a reasonable 2.4 seconds. Shutter lag is at the tail end of acceptable, at 0.5 seconds in bright conditions and 0.9 seconds in dim light. Its shot-to-shot time is good, though, at 1.1 seconds without the flash and 2.3 seconds with it on. Shooting in raw extends the time up to 6.7 seconds, however. As for shooting in a burst, the Kodak's full-resolution continuous shooting is capable of 1.4fps for up to six photos.

The zoom range doesn't much matter if the photos don't look good, and those produced by the Z980 are rather mixed. Even shooting at its lowest sensitivity of ISO 64, noise is present, giving photos a certain graininess. Shooting below ISO 200 is your best bet, as, over that, noise and noise suppression kicks in heavily and starts destroying detail. You get usable results at ISO 400, but photos taken at higher sensitivities are fairly smeary. If you're looking for something to shoot with in low light without a flash, you probably don't want this camera.

Also, other than macro shots, photos tend to be fairly soft. The Z980 handles colour well, however -- it's pleasingly vibrant. Exposure is very good, too, as is white balance. Even auto white balance is decent, avoiding the overly yellow results you often see with other manufacturers' cameras.

The Z980 captures video at a high-definition resolution of 720p. The quality is generally very good and you get full use of the optical zoom, which is a definite plus. You just have to be patient, as it's unsurprisingly slow to focus. 

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Typical shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim)

Shutter lag (typical)

Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD

2.8 

2.4 

0.8 

0.5 

Casio Exilim Pro EX-FH20

3.6 

1.8 

0.8 

0.5 

Canon PowerShot SX10 IS

1.5 

2.1 

0.8 

0.6 

Kodak EasyShare Z980

2.4 

1.1 

0.9 

0.5 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50

2.3 

1.8 

1.3 

0.7 

Typical continuous-shooting speed (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50

1.6 

Kodak EasyShare Z980

1.4 

Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD

1.3 

Canon PowerShot SX10 IS

1 

Conclusion
Marred by a wonky design and photo quality that drops off significantly above ISO 400, the Kodak EasyShare Z980 isn't easy to recommend. There's no doubt that the wideangle superzoom lens provides a great deal of fun and flexibility, as does the camera's ability to be fully automatic, fully manual and everything in between. But it seems like Kodak needs more time to work out some of the design kinks.

Additional editing by Charles Kloet