Rating (out of 10)

Build: 7.5
Ease of use: 9.0
Image quality: 7.5
Value for money: 8.0

[ia] Kodak's EasyShare Z700 combines a medium-range Retinar all-glass zoom lens (35-175mm equivalent) with a 4-megapixel CCD and 1.6-inch indoor/outdoor monitor. Straightforward to use, its body has the 'boxy' shape Kodak favours for its 'high-zoom' models, plus a built-in flash. A rotating mode dial switches the camera on and engages the main shooting modes.

These include Program AE plus aperture and shutter priority settings as well as the full auto mode, although the former are clustered together in one setting, so actually accessing individual settings is tricky. Six aperture settings are provided, along with 27 shutter speeds, with a change of colour when a tripod is advisable. There are also 17 scene modes, which are selected via icons, with details of what the chosen setting does displayed upon selection. The mode dial also has icons for close-up, landscape and sports modes as well as movie capture (VGA at 13fps) and a Favourites album where users can 'park' shots they wish to share with others. These images are quickly tagged and accessed by pressing the Share button.

Unusually for an EasyShare camera, the Z700's optical viewfinder is diopter-adjustable, which is handy as its eyepoint is zero and it's very small. A spring-loaded hatch cover on the side panel conceals the SD card slot, while the two AA batteries slot into a compartment in the camera's base. No card is supplied with the camera, which has a 16MB internal memory (enough for nine high-resolution shots).

The test camera produced reasonably sharp pictures with bright, saturated colours and relatively high contrast. White balance performance was generally good, despite the lack of a manual control. Capture lag ranged from over two seconds when focusing was required to 0.2 seconds when shots were pro-focused. The burst mode recorded up to six shots at 0.3 second intervals. Noise could be seen in low light shots at ISO 400 but was not obvious in prints from such shots. The flash required at least ISO 200 sensitivity to illuminate an average-sized room.The Z700 will be sold with the EasyShare Printer Dock Series 3 snapshot printer dock. [23]

IMATEST RESULTS

Image resolution is reasonably good. This camera should produce high-quality prints at sizes up to A4.

Chromatic aberration is low - but may be detectable at high image magnifications.

Colour saturation is slightly elevanted but normal for a compact digicam. The colour errors shown shoudl be correctable with image editing software.

Colour reproduction is very good on the whole, despite some drifts in luminance accuracy. The granularity in the Exaggerated White Balance Error section shows noise may be an issue at ISO 400.

Image sensor: 5.34 x 4.01mm CCD with 4,230,000 photosites (4.0 megapixels effective)
Lens: Kodak Retinar f2.8-4.8 lens (equivalent to 35-175mm in 35mm format)
Zoom ratio: 5x optical, 4x digital
Dimensions (wxhxd): 96.8 x 72.4 x 55.6mm
Weight: 219g (without batteries)
Image formats: Stills - JPEG (EXIF v 2.21); Movies - QuickTime MOV (MPEG-4) with audio (VGA at 13 fps)
Shutter speed range: 8-1/1600 sec.
Focus system/range: TTL-AF with multi-zone, center spot modes; range 60 cm to infinity; macro 25-70 cm
Exposure metering/control: TTL-AE with multi-pattern, center-weighted, center spot; Program AE plus A and S modes; 15 scene modes, 3 colour settings
White balance: auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent
Flash modes/range (ISO auto): auto, red-eye, fill, off; range 0.6-3.8 m
ISO range: Auto (ISO 80-160), ISO 80,100, 200, 400
Sequence shooting: 3 fps, maximum 6 images in any quality mode
Storage Media: 16 MB internal memory SD/MMC card expansion slot; holds 9 high-resolution images or 28 1.1 MP shots
Viewfinder: real image optical
LCD monitor: 1.6-inch hybrid (transmissive/reflective) TFD indoor/outdoor display (72,000 pixels)
Power supply: 2x AA batteries or 1 CRV3 lithium battery or EasyShare Dock with Ni-MH rechargeable battery pack