Kodak EasyShare Z980

Announced at CES 2009, the Kodak EasyShare Z980 was the first megazoom camera to boast a wide-angle 24x zoom lens. It seemed a bit bulky, but we were forgiving as it was a first of its kind and that is a big lens. Of course shortly after Kodak's announcement came the Olympus announcement of the considerably tighter-looking 26x zoom SP-590UZ, which confirmed our original opinion of the Z980 being bulky. Now having fully tested it that opinion is now firm: the Z980 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).

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 camera comes across as one of the company's compact cameras gussied up with an extra knob, dial, and buttons. The Mode dial on top makes sense. The dial next to it for selecting and adjusting shot settings does not, and should be on back where it would be in easy reach of your thumb. I have a preference for zoom toggles to be under thumb on back, but Kodak put it a little too far off to the left to make it easy to reach; it should've been a zoom ring around the shutter release.

While I'm on shutter releases, Kodak, in an attempt to make portrait photography a little more comfortable, added a secondary shutter release at the lower front edge of the handgrip. 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 (positioned conveniently next to the power switch mind you). Kodak 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. Thoughtful yes, but you have to take it on and off every time you want to access the easy-to-open, difficult-to-close SDHC card slot/battery combo compartment.

Thankfully, there are a few highlights. Menus are typical Kodak: 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 $149.95 add-on P20 Zoom Flash. Lastly, since the Z980 is powered by four AA batteries, Kodak includes rechargeables and a charger. They're precharged, too, so you can start shooting out of the box.

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. Again, using them is easy, too, but the location of the dial for making changes should really be on back of the camera and not on top. You also get exposure bracketing, color 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.

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

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