Kodak EasyShare Z8612 IS review

The Z8612 stands apart from the other cameras in this group.

Its 8 megapixel resolution is the lowest, and its 12x optical zoom is the shortest. But it still qualifies as a superzoom, and it's less than half the price of most of the others. At 370g with two AA batteries, it's also impressively light for this class of camera.

A few features have inevitably been trimmed to keep the price down. The lack of a viewfinder will be a deal-breaker for some people, but won't bother those who tend to use the screen anyway. One feature we were surprised to see at this price was a manual exposure option, along with shutter and aperture priority modes and automatic exposure bracketing. Manual focus is absent, though, and the 12cm minimum macro is disappointing. Another casualty is manual white balance, which can help get natural colour under artificial light.

The Z8612 IS's weakest area was its speed. We had to wait over four seconds for it to switch on and shoot. The next three pictures arrived every 1.5 seconds, but after that the memory buffer was full and we had to wait a nail-biting eight seconds between shots. Speed isn't crucial to everyone, but this is so slow that it can feel infuriating.

Kodak's website shows an HD logo next to the Z8612, but this refers to the ability to capture a 2 megapixel still photo with the same 1920x1080 pixel resolution as HDTV, in the unlikely event that you wanted to. Video is captured at a basic 640x480, but picture and sound quality were fine.

Photos weren't as sharp as the 9 and 10 megapixel images from the other cameras, and this was down to more than just the number of dots. Images appeared to have been heavily sharpened in camera to give the impression of detail, but subtle textures were missing, especially with zoom. Image stabilisation wasn't as effective as others at avoiding blur at slow shutter speeds.

Still, this is an amazing price, and image quality is quite respectable. On a budget, it's worth a look.