Kodak Z740 Zoom

[Mat Hillman]

Well I've been lurking in this forum for a while now, and enjoying everyones photos, and am now suitably motivated to get myself a camera thats a little beyond point and click ;-)

 

Wondered if anyone had an experience of this camera, as it's at a good price on amazon (I have vouchers to use up so would like to buy from them)

 

Looking for something both as a general familly snapshot camera, as well as sometihng for me to experiment with, and so I'm attracted by the high zoom and manual controls, although I suspect a tripod would be needed to get the most out of the zoom!

 

I've read a few online reviews, all of which sound ok, but theres nothing like a reccomendation from someone you trust is there?

 

 

Details here http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jht...GB&pq-path=6547

 

Price I plan to pay here http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...0804383-0892435

 

Mat

[Steve Randles]

Its very difficult to reccommend a camera that is not known, moreover its difficult to reccommend one that falls short of ones own camera, spec wise.

 

On paper, the specifications are quite good and are along the lines of many point and shoot cameras and at £150 I think anyone would struggle to find a camera with similar flexibility. I've always had suspicions myself with cameras with different modes "children, party, beach, flower, fireworks, snow etc etc" when for instance a party could be a bbq in twilight or a kiddies afternoon tea, surely camera settings for both would be different.

 

Having said that, it does have manual control to a degree that allows some user input and at £150 and to see if you want to continue and become more involved in photography, I would say its a good introduction at a reasonable price. It allows you to learn to use manually whilst the various modes will still allow you to take "nice" shots for the family album. I'm not knocking camera presets, just appluading the users of cameras who take such wonderfull shots without the various modes.

 

I would be bold and say buy it Mat, at £150 you could do an awfull lot worse.

 

Steve

[Mat Hillman]

Thanks for replying Steve, look out for some test shots, and maybe even a challenge entry from me in the near future!

 

Mat

[Cameraman]

I purchsed at considerably more, a similar model from Oylmpus for my wife(same sort of settings) used sensibly it provides excellent results, and removes the need for thought about apature and speed settings. Used as a basic point and shoot, it gives well above average results, and many photos I'd have been proud to take. Like all digitals if you don't like the results - shoot again.

[rabster]

Thanks for replying Steve, look out for some test shots, and maybe even a challenge entry from me in the near future!

 

Mat

 

So you got one then Mat.

 

I don't know anything about the model you've bought, but reckon the 10x optical zoom is an excellent feature for the price & 5M pixels is more than adequate.

 

Fingers crossed it turns out to be a good 'un & I shall look forward to you getting some pics posted.

 

Cheers

 

Cliff

[Mat Hillman]

So you got one then Mat.

 

 

I've ordered one, as I used amazons free delivery I'm expecting it to arrive end of week/early next week.

 

What sort of size memory card is recomended for a 5MP camera ?

[jeepster]

get the biggest card you can afford matt, simple as that.

 

you can never have too much space

[Ollie Jay]

Id say just get the biggest one you can afford.....at the moment I'm using a small card of 64 but i have two which means i have to take two with me if i go out for the day. keep meaning to get a bigger one as they ain't that expensive but not got round to it yet.

 

Ollie.

[Steve Randles]

My Camera is a 6megapixel and one a 1gb card at top quality jpeg I'll get approx 314 highest quality JPEGs, I always have it set as the highest quality, regardless of what I'm shooting. You can always reduce file size but you cant add it.

 

Incidentally, when I do start to shoot in RAW in the summer, I'll get 139, 7mb shots from the 1GB card.

 

Steve

[Guest CJS2]

My Camera is a 6megapixel and one a 1gb card at top quality jpeg I'll get approx 314 highest quality JPEGs, I always have it set as the highest quality, regardless of what I'm shooting. You can always reduce file size but you cant add it.

 

Incidentally, when I do start to shoot in RAW in the summer, I'll get 139, 7mb shots from the 1GB card.

 

Steve

 

The other side of the couine is to have two smaller cards, I use 2 half gb cards, on my Nikon D100. The idea is that cards can fail, not often but it does happen. You have a fall back on the second card, or, you dont loose every thing if you are on the second card and it fails. It has to be said this is a ploy that profesionals use, and we, as amaters, dont have so much riding on loosing a few shots. Some sort of back up is always a good idea.

 

An important factor, is the speed of the card, when I last bought a couple of years ago, there was a wide range of speeds, cheaper cards were slow to down load, caused me a lot of grief at the time. The assistance in the shop were about as usefull as a 'chocolate teapot', reputable retailer as well! Once I had sorted what was what, they did change (order) 'what I told then to get'. Dont know what the status-quo is these days on card speed, as I say, not puchased any for a couple of years and things change so rapidly?