Kodak Z740 - decent bang for your buck

Author's Rating:

Pros: Excellent photo quality
Lots of features for the price
Very easy to use

Cons: Not image stabilized
Stiff power switch
Processor lag

The Bottom Line: 
If you're looking for an entry level digital SLR camera but can't afford to shell out for image stabilized models, this is a very good camera to consider.

Author's Review
I must shamefully confess that before I purchased this camera, my last one was a 3.2mp emage (Dutch company I think) that I had purchased on sale at an office supply store. Granted, the camera took very good pictures considering the price I paid for it, but I was getting tired of having photos ruined due to no real autofocus, no way to adjust exposure, insanely slow shutter speed, etc. So my collection of 700mb worth of SD cards and I went camera hunting and this is the one we settled on.

Firstly, I really dislike the tiny little "wafer" digital cameras, regardless of functionality or price, so set my sights on a digital SLR for around or under the $500 range, and this one certainly fit the bill.

For $349 Canadian, the Z740 offers just about everything an amateur photographer could possibly want. Hardware wise, the camera is a 5.0mp unit featuring 10x optical zoom based on a Kodak Retinar lens (38-380mm equivalent), 5x digital zoom, 1.8" lcd, electronic viewfinder, sd or mmc card slot, data jack for either usb transfer or component output, and the Kodak easy share docking system for fast picture printing. The camera has 32mb onboard memory, though at 5mp, this gives you less than 20 shots, so getting a sd card is highly recommended.

There are a variety of user controllable options in the camera ranging from scene modes where the exposure, shutter speed and other variables such as ISO are bumped to specific presets, to PASM mode which allows you complete control over every aspect mentioned above. The camera also allows you to take photos in black and white, sepia, or high, low or natural colour saturation to compensate for the very highly saturated colours produced by the Kodak processing chip.

While taking pictures, there seems to be some processing lag based on the complexity and exposure of a given shot, and the mega pixels you're shooting at. However, there is a very handy burst mode that can compensate for this, though at the price of a very lengthly processing time afterwards. Generally speaking though, unless you're pretending to be a fashion photographer, one shot per 3 seconds or so should be more than enough.

Looking at the camera, the majority of the modes are controlled by a single dial wheel with a small joystick in the middle set on the back of the unit. This is easy enough to use, though can be somewhat distracting while trying to take a picture.

The camera comes with a single use lithium ion battery, and since these tend to not lose their charge over time, it's safely tucked away in my camera bag along with the 55mm lens adapter that came with the unit (which I'll likely never use). I went out and bought a set of Energizer 2500ma NiMH rechargables, and after more than 200 pictures, mostly with flash and using the lcd, they haven't shown any signs of needing changing.

This is not to say the z740 is perfect however. Starting with the little things, the flash pops up whenever you turn the camera on. This isn't so bad though, as you can just press it back down, and use the release catch on the side to open it again as needed. This unit is also one of the few so called mega zoom cameras that is not image stabilized. While you can compensate for this somewhat by raising the shutter speed, there is nevertheless a few blur problems at the far end of the telephoto spectrum that can only be remedied with a tripod, or by purchasing an image stabilized camera for hundreds of dollars more. Also, some of the modes on the camera are difficult to access properly. I still haven't figured out how to access the 1/1700 shutter speed or ISO 800 modes that the camera is advertised with, even after having played around in the PASM setting. Finally, one continual problem I notice with the camera is that the power switch is very stiff. Nothing the extended warranty I got won't cure in the even of a problem, but still something to be noted.