Usage

Using the camera is very easy to get used to. With a numerous amount of picture taking modes it can be confusing where to start. For the simple picture taker you can use the auto-adjust selection which is the green camera on the selection wheel found on the top of the camera.

The person who has a little more skill can adjust their camera settings for specific scenes, found on the SCN button. You can choose from any of the scene modes: Portrait, sports, landscape, close-up, night portrait, night landscape, snow, beach, text/document, fireworks, flower, manner/museum, self-portrait, children, backlight, panning, candlelight, sunset, panorama stitch.

The more advanced photographer can further adjust the settings of the camera with the P/M selection on the selection wheel. This photographer can also adjust the exposure control through the ISO selection with ISO sensitivities of the following: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200.

The remaining selections are for video taking, image stabilization and favorites. In the favorites section you can view and add any pictures you want to view quickly. The image stabilization setting helps get better pictures if you have a shaky hand. The video mode allows you to shoot in HD quality (1280×720) at 30fps in addition to VGA (640 x 480) at 30 fps and QVGA (320 x 240) at 30 fps.

Flash options include Auto, red eye reduction, fill, off, which is pretty standard for any digital camera. In addition to the flash you can select one of the following drive modes: Single shot, first burst (1.7 fps, 3 frames), last burst (1.7 fps, last 3 frames), self timer (10 sec.), delay shutter, 2 sec. two-shots self-timer. Single shot and auto flash are set as defaults.

The menu is fairly straightforward and easy to use. You can quickly adjust the video or picture size by hitting the menu button. There are not a whole lot of options in the menu, which makes it fairly easy to use. The 720P HD quality is a nice feature for any digital camera. While it’s not the greatest quality as a standalone video camera, but I think it makes an owner happier of the bad quality most digital cameras typically output.

I first started taking pictures with the internal 64MB of memory, but quickly found myself to putting in my 2GB SD card. I found it to be relatively slow; probably because it as only a Class 4 card and not even SDHC. I ended up buying an 8GB Class 6 SDHC card and found the response time much quicker than a slower SD card.

Final Thoughts

Overall the Kodak EasyShare Z1285 12.1MP Camera is an all around great camera. While it, of course, doesn’t compete up to DSLR cameras, I think the high MP does put out a decent quality for the price. A nice benefit to this camera is certainly the HD (720p) video capture, which are now becoming more prevalent on the market. I’m in no sense a professional photographer or even a great photographer, but I found this camera to be very easy to use and provide quality pictures that I’m happy with. The compact size helps for people on trips or always on the go. Overall Think Computers would like to award the Kodak EasyShare Z1285 12.1MP Digital Camera from Geeks.com a 9 out of 10 score.

Pros:

- HD quality video
- Compact size
- Easy to use
- Takes great pictures
- Affordable

Cons:

- Not recommended to use with slow SD cards

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