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  • Physical Tour

  • Components

  • Design / Layout

  • Modes

  • Control Options

  • Image Parameters

  • Connectivity / Extras

  • Overall Impressions

  • Conclusion

  • Physical Tour
  • Components
  • Design / Layout
  • Modes
  • Control Options
  • Image Parameters
  • Connectivity / Extras
  • Overall Impressions
  • Conclusion

Physical Tour

Front**

The EasyShare Z650 looks quite a bit like its series-mates. It's sheathed in silver-toned plastic with black rubber gripping surfaces. The lens assembly dominates the front of the camera, with a brushed-metal ring that's much larger than the glass. The EasyShare Z650 could fairly be called "SLR-like" in appearance with a viewfinder hump that looks as though it could hold a pentamirror. A Kodak logo adorns the front of the hump. The microphone holes nestle to the left of the hump and the autofocus assist light is on the right. Black rubber swathes the handgrip and wraps around the lens assembly.

**Back
**The back of the EasyShare Z650 has a 2-inch LCD at the lower left with an electronic viewfinder above it. There are two buttons between them: the "i" button changes the information displayed over the image on the screens, and the "EVF/LCD" button switches between the two displays. Only one can be on at a time.

To the upper right, there's a small rocker switch to control the zoom in Shooting mode and display magnification in Playback mode. Below that, there's a red "Share" button to flag shots for printing or emailing. The mode dial is below that. It's transparent plastic, and it surrounds the joystick controller that's used to navigate menus and onscreen controls. The Delete, Menu, and review buttons are below that.

Top

A pop-up flash is built into the viewfinder hump on the EasyShare Z650, and is decorated with a logo for the Kodak Color Science chip. The power switch is between the viewfinder hump and the grip, and has three positions: Off, camera, and favorites. The speaker grille is just behind the switch. The shutter release is a large chrome button at the front of the grip. Behind that, there are buttons for flash sync, close-up shooting, and burst mode.

Right

The right side of the EasyShare Z650 is notable for its combined media card and USB / A/V port door. The door closes flush with the surface of the camera, but doesn't latch securely. The rubber material that makes the front of the grip so secure to hold is missing from the side. There are a couple of screws and a few seams on the side of the camera as well. They all are neatly put together, indicating careful construction. The EasyShare Z650 sports lugs for a shoulder strap. The lugs are high on the side of the camera, so they aren't likely to get in the way.

**Left
**The left side of the EasyShare Z650 has a strap lug at the top, and a jack for an external power supply at the bottom. In between, the camera is labeled "6.1 Megapixels," referring to the CCD's total resolution, not the camera's effective resolution, which Kodak reports at 6.0 megapixels.

Bottom

The bottom of the EasyShare Z650 reveals the tripod socket, centered under the lens and CCD axis where it should be, and the battery compartment door. The door has to be slid to the right before it will swing open, so it seems unlikely to pop open accidentally. We still prefer doors with latches, because they close more positively.

Components

Viewfinder
The EasyShare Z650's electronic viewfinder is the higher-resolution display of the two on the camera, at 201,000 pixels. The viewfinder is surrounded in dark rubber. It does not have a diopter adjustment, which may make it difficult for some users, though we didn't have a problem with it. The display looks smooth and detailed. It's a good viewer for judging sharpness in playback mode.

While in shooting mode, the viewfinder can be set to show pretty much complete shooting data: focus mode, flash mode, image size, images remaining, autofocus mode, autofocus area, exposure metering mode, white balance, ISO, battery status, shooting mode, exposure, exposure compensation, zoom setting, histogram and album setting, as well as the autofocus brackets. In low light, the camera displays a message reminding the shooter to let the flash pop up. In automatic modes, many users will probably prefer a more plain interface and turn off the data display.

LCD

The 2-inch 110,000 pixel LCD is a little disappointing in comparison with the viewfinder. A 2-inch display qualifies as small on compact cameras and its resolution is fairly low as well. Functionally, it is also inferior to the viewfinder display. It's a little harder to check sharpness on the LCD, and it's less pleasant to look at. On the other hand, its color and contrast are just as good as the viewfinder. It displays all the same information as the viewfinder, in the same format.

**Flash
**The EasyShare Z650's flash is small and boxy, and it flips up from the viewfinder hump directly over the lens, which is a good position for minimizing shadows. The flip mechanism seems durable, compared to the ones on competing cameras. In part, that's because it doesn't flip very far up, which is a disadvantage – the further away the flash is from the lens, the less likely it is to

produce red-eye. The EasyShare Z650 offers a red-eye reduction mode, popping the flash off slightly before the main exposure, to cause subjects' irises to close and thereby reduce red-eye.

Kodak rates the flash to 16 feet for wide angle shots and 12 feet for telephoto. In informal testing, those figures appeared fair. During our initial evaluation, our flash exposures within those distance limits looked very good. The EasyShare Z650 also offers a separate flash exposure compensation of plus or minus 1 EV, in 1/3-EV steps, a feature that's useful for pictures that combine flash and available light.

The flash cast pretty even light, even for wide angle shots. The EasyShare Z650 does not accept accessory flashes.

**Lens
**The Schneider-Krueznach 10x zoom lens has a focal range from a 38mm equivalent to 380mm equivalent, with a maximum aperture that runs from f/2.8 at wide angle to f/3.7 at telephoto. It's typical for long zooms to have slower maximum apertures at telephoto settings. One appealing thing about this lens is that over a 10x range, the aperture drops less than a full stop, allowing a longer flash range and more importantly, keeping the shutter speed fast at telephoto.

Kodak saved money on the EasyShare Z650 by not including image stabilization, a feature that facilitates using a long telephoto – anything over a 200mm equivalent. Without stabilization, we'd urge using some kind of camera support for telephoto shots. The conventional rule for handheld shots indicates that steady shots are best attained when a shutter speed is used that roughly correlates with the focal length (e.g. for a 200mm shot, users should ideally shoot with a shutter speed of 1/200).

Again, our shots suggest that this is a very sharp lens, with some barrel distortion at the wide angle setting, and color fringing throughout its range. The distortion is more likely to be noticeable in everyday shooting and printing than the color problem.

Design / Layout

Model Design / Appearance

The EasyShare Z650 takes its layout from SLR cameras – and some people might actually assume that it is a DSLR, given the shape. It's far smaller than any DSLR, though. Most of the EasyShare Z650 is finished in a very reflective metallic plastic, with metal and black rubber accents. We found the camera a bit more solid than its small size might suggest. Its looks seem designed to appeal to users who would like a more serious camera, but might be intimidated by a true DSLR.
**

Size / Portability**

At 3.8 x 3.1 x 2.9 inches, the EasyShare Z650 is taller and deeper than most compact cameras, but also smaller than the higher-priced super zooms that cost more, zoom further, and typically include image stabilization. At a bit more than 10 ounces without batteries – it takes 2 AA cells, so it doesn't weigh much more with the batteries – the EasyShare Z650 won't be much of a burden on a shoulder strap or in a bag.

Given its irregular shape, and its relatively poor seals against dust and moisture, the EasyShare Z650 should travel in a camera bag, rather than loose in a backpack or large purse. The gaps around the telescoping lens mount aren't sealed, and could let dust into the camera. The same goes for the battery compartment and memory card doors – they don't have gaskets or seals, and dirt could get in through their gaps, too.

**Handling Ability
**The diminutive EasyShare Z650 is not too much for small hands. A woman handling it during our evaluation noted how much more comfortable it was for her than the entry level DSLRs she had recently picked up in stores. Fortunately for users with larger hands, Kodak did not scale down everything – the controls remain well-sized. Kodak's use of rubber grips for both the left and right hands should make for steadier hand-held shots and fewer cameras dropped.

**

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size**

The EasyShare Z650's controls are spread apart enough to appeal to users with large fingers, who sometimes have problems on smaller cameras. The shutter release could be improved – it doesn't give as much tactile response as it should. There should be more resistance when the user presses halfway down. As it is, we took some shots accidentally.

Kodak has started using a joystick as a navigational controller on many of its cameras, including the EasyShare Z650. Video game veterans will have a fine time with the control, but others may find themselves making more false moves with the joystick than with the more typical four-way controllers.

Users of recent Kodak compacts will find the layout and style of buttons on the EasyShare Z650 very familiar.

Menu

The EasyShare Z650's menus show Kodak's enthusiastic commitment to beginners and other users looking for an uncomplicated photographic experience. When the EasyShare Z650 is in its more manual modes, its menus cover ISO, metering pattern, autofocus pattern, autofocus mode, and other shooting parameters. When the camera is in automated modes, those options disappear, leaving options for file size and other basic parameters.

The EasyShare Z650's menus follow Kodak's standard format, with clean, large, attractive type on a screen layout that includes simple icons and explanatory text. Kodak menus typically show only four entries at a time, leaving the screen much less crowded than other manufacturers’ menus do.

Ease of Use

The EasyShare Z650 is easy to use. Kodak's efforts to avoid intimidating their customers pays off throughout the entire EasyShare line. It's not surprising that the Z650 sticks to that strategy. The EasyShare Z650's automatic modes are very user-friendly, assuming almost no expertise from the operator.

The same can't really be said of the camera's manual modes, because manual photography inherently demands some camera knowledge. The EasyShare Z650 is still relatively easy to use in manual mode, though, because Kodak has made the manual controls easy to find. Exposure mode, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO are controlled via the viewfinder or LCD and the joystick, and all the parameters are visible onscreen. Dedicated controls, such as the ones typically found on DSLRs, are definitely faster to use, but they aren't more obvious. The EasyShare Z650 also has a live histogram. It's small, and not easy to read.

The EasyShare Z650 has a help system for its scene modes, with text to explain how each should be used. Basic mechanical operations like changing batteries and memory cards are straightforward – the doors open wide enough to offer easy access, and so on.

Modes

**Auto Mode
**The EasyShare Z650 offers a full auto mode that controls nearly every setting that could possibly influence a picture except image size, zoom, and the actual shutter depression. The auto mode controls exposure, ISO, white balance, and autofocus. The EasyShare Z650 also offers a Program mode, which controls both aperture and shutter speed. In combination with auto ISO and auto white balance, Program mode enables users to create a highly automated setup. When the ISO is set to automatic, the EasyShare Z650 chooses between settings of 80 and 160.

The EasyShare Z650 also offers shutter priority and aperture priority modes in which the user sets the shutter and the camera adjusts the aperture, or vice-versa.

The EasyShare Z650 pops up its flash automatically when the camera is turned on, but if the user pushes the flash down, the camera won't pop it up again. In dim lighting, the EasyShare Z650 will, however, display a message in large red type, imploring the user to "Open Flash."

The EasyShare Z650 consistently delivered pleasing exposures and color in auto mode, handling backlighting and high-contrast scenes well enough to produce usable results.

Movie Mode

The movie mode on the EasyShare Z650 is a minor step back from the already lackluster movie performance of last year's Z740. The camera manages only 11 frames per second at VGA resolution (640 x 480). That goes up to 20 fps at 320 x 240, but neither will show smooth motion. The Z740 was specified to yield 13 fps at VGA resolution. Optical zoom is not available in movie mode, but color modes do apply to movies.

**Burst Mode
**The EasyShare Z650 offers two burst modes: First Burst takes up to 4 frames at 2.5 frames per second, and last burst takes images at 2 frames per second, but only saves the last three shots. It takes several seconds for the EasyShare Z650 to save the images after a burst. The burst mode button also controls the self-timer, which offers three modes: a 2-second delay, a 10-second delay, or 2 shots, one after 10 seconds and another at 18 seconds.

**Playback Mode
**The EasyShare Z650's Playback mode allows the user to review images on either the viewfinder or the LCD. Offering a thumbnail mode and magnification, the Playback mode shows a series of icons along the top of the view to indicate whether the image has been tagged for printing, emailing, as a favorite, or been protected. Its frame number shows up as well. Pressing the "i" button shows shooting information which includes a histogram. Printing options are also available through the playback mode.

The EasyShare Z650's slide show mode is limited. It offers no transitions, and shows all the images in memory, not just selected ones, or ones from a specific date or group. The interval for images defaults to 5 seconds but can be set anywhere from 3 to 60 seconds. The show, which can be set to loop continuously, is also viewable on a television.

Users can delete images and movies in playback mode either one at a time or all together. There is no option, however, for deleting several images at once. Images can also be cropped or copied to the camera's internal memory.

Kodak's desktop photo software handles images in groups called albums, and the EasyShare Z650 can be set to tag images for inclusion into those albums as they are shot. Images may also be tagged after they're shot while in Playback mode.

Custom Image Presets

The EasyShare Z650 has 14 presets available via Scene mode, and 3 more through the mode dial. They are: Sport, Portrait, Night, Children, Party, Beach, Flower, Fireworks, Snow, Backlight, Close-up, Night Portrait, Landscape, Night Landscape, Manner/Museum, Text, and Self-Portrait. The settings adjust exposure, white balance, ISO, flash mode, metering pattern, and even the camera's beep volume.

Most of the presets combine the proper settings for shooting snapshots in the settings they describe. The EasyShare Z650 does not offer the option of saving a custom preset, a feature that some other compact cameras do have.

Control Options

Manual Control Options

The EasyShare Z650 offers a level of manual control that's unusual in small, inexpensive cameras. Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, and white balance can all be set manually, though there is no provision for custom white balance. There are also settings for saturation and sharpening, metering controls, and autofocus controls, but no manual focus option.

**Focus
***Autofocus*

The EasyShare Z650's autofocus system performed well in a relatively bright indoor setting. With limited opportunities to test its low-light capability, it struck us as an accurate but slow system. Autofocus can be set for either continuous or one-time focusing, and can be set to focus on either a wide area across the middle of the frame, or just on the middle. We didn't notice a change in focusing speed as we played with those variables.

*Manual Focus
*The EasyShare Z650 does not offer manual focus. Again, this is an unfortunate feature to lack since the viewfinder on the EasyShare Z650 is probably good enough to evaluate focus live. Typically, focus-by-wire systems in compact cameras have failed as features because the viewfinder is of poor resolution or the manual control over the lens is slow and unresponsive, or both. Still, manual focus is a creative option that users interested in experimenting should be able to have.

**Metering
**The EasyShare Z650 can be set to use one of three metering patterns: Multi-pattern takes several readings across the frame and compares them to establish an exposure; Center-weight takes a single reading that emphasizes the center of the frame, and Center-spot takes a reading of a small area at the center of the frame. Multi-pattern gives good results in automatic modes as well as manual mode, while the other two can be useful in manual shooting. We found that Multi-pattern handled backlighting well, though a too-bright background could defeat it.

**Exposure
**The EasyShare Z650 offers 2 stops of exposure compensation above and below the metered value, adjustable in 1/2-stop steps. While a 1/3-stop is a more common and more precise increment for compensation, Kodak generally goes with 1/2-stops; so this is typical of an EasyShare model.

Aperture priority, shutter priority, and full manual exposure modes are offered as well. However, it lacks a bracketing feature to vary exposure over a few images and find the best setting for a given scene.

White Balance

The EasyShare Z650 offers automatic white balance and 4 manual presets. They are: Daylight, Open shade, Tungsten and Fluorescent. In a big omission, Kodak left out the option of taking a light reading to set a custom white balance. In many situations, that's the only way to get good neutral color balance. In mixed tungsten lighting, the EasyShare Z650 delivered very good color, and its auto white balance mode works well. Though we feel saddened at the omission of a manual option, the full auto mode appears to be the best option on the camera, in many situations.

**ISO
**The EasyShare Z650's ISO range is 80, 100, 200 and 400, with an extended setting of 800 at reduced resolution. When ISO is set to auto, the rating is set from 80 to 160. Setting the ISO manually is just like setting the aperture or shutter speed – the ISO appears on the screen, and can be changed with the joystick.

**Shutter Speed
**The EasyShare Z650's shutter speeds range from 1/8 to 1/1700 in most automatic modes, and from 8 seconds to 1/2000 in manual mode. Fireworks and Night Scene modes shoot multi-second exposures as well. Shutter speeds are stepped in 1/3 EV increments.

Aperture

The EasyShare Z650's lens has a maximum aperture of f/2.8 at wide angle and f/3.7 at telephoto. Its minimum aperture is f/8 throughout the zoom range. It is typical of cameras with such short focal lengths – this lens is about a 6 to 60mm optic – to keep apertures no smaller than f/8, as the tiny size of the aperture begins to degrade the lens's performance below that setting.

Image Parameters

**Picture Quality / Size Options
**The EasyShare Z650 offers 5 image sizes. They are 6.0, 5.3 (which is at a 3:2 image ratio), 4.0, 3.1, and 1.7 megapixels. The smallest size is still a little big for email and web use. The EasyShare Z650 does not offer a choice of quality settings to vary the level of compression. It does not offer a RAW format, either. All images are saved as JPEGs.

Picture Effects Mode

The EasyShare Z650 offers a "Color Mode" setting, which combines a saturation control with other effects. The choices are: High color, Natural Color, Low color, Black & white, and Sepia. Kodak's manual for the EasyShare Z650 notes that the included software for PCs can convert color images to black and white or sepia, which may be a better option than shooting such effects in the camera.

Connectivity / Extras

Software

The EasyShare Z650 ships with Easyshare software, Kodak's integrated software for downloading and managing images on a computer. The software is easy to use and dependable, offering options to organize photos into albums, print, email, upload, and share them in a range of ways. It's available for Windows and Mac OSX.

Jacks, Ports, Plugs
*

*The camera also has a combination USB 2.0 / Analog A/V port under the same access door as the SD card slot. On the left side of the camera, there is a jack for an external power supply. Most important is the docking jack on the bottom of the camera. The EasyShare Z650 fits on Kodak's optional docks and printer docks, allowing one-touch printing and simplified connection to a computer.

Direct Print Options

The easiest printing option is to use one of Kodak's EasyShare printer docks, which allow one-button printing. The EasyShare Z650 is also Imagelink and PictBridge compatible, allowing the user to print directly from a wide variety of compatible printers. The EasyShare Z650 will print one

image at a time, a set of tagged images, or an index print.

*Battery
*The EasyShare Z650 ships with a CRV3 lithium battery, which is not rechargeable. The EasyShare Z650 also accepts AA-sized batteries. Kodak recommends lithium or rechargeable NiMH cells.

*Memory
*

The camera accepts SD and MMC cards. They are the most popular format of memory media for small cameras, so they are widely available and relatively cheap. The camera also has 28MB of internal storage available for the user's favorite images.

Other Features
Sound Themes - The EasyShare Z650 user can choose from shutter sound only, default, classical, jazz, or sci-fi collections of camera sounds.

Print Warning - Digital zooms are terrible for image quality, and Kodak acknowledges that, in a way, with a warning on the digital zoom. A red warning pops up if the user zooms past the point at which the image won't make an acceptable 4 x 6-inch print.

Mode Description - In classic EasyShare fashion, the EasyShare Z650 can flash a description of each mode as the user turns the mode dial. Once users are familiar with the camera, they can turn the feature off.

Overall Impressions

**Performance Assessment
**We had the opportunity to shoot with the EasyShare Z650 at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Though shooting in a convention hall doesn't yield the precise data that controlled testing does, we can draw some reliable inferences from the shots of our fellow convention-goers at the Kodak booth.

First, the Schneider-Kreuznach lens is sharp throughout its zoom range, which runs the equivalent of a 38-380mm zoom on a 35mm camera. Like most long zooms, it shows significant barrel distortion at the wide angle end of its range. This distortion makes straight lines curve at the edges of the frame, and is strong enough to be noticeable in pictures of buildings or other square-cornered subject matter.

The distortion settles down at the less wide angle settings but we note color fringing throughout the range, giving objects toward the corners of the image both a red edge and a blue edge. The color won't always be noticeable in every shot, but in enlargements of images with contrasting objects toward the edges of the frame this will be clearly visible.

*Speed / Timing
*The EasyShare Z650 is a slow camera. It takes a few seconds to start up, and in single-shot mode, it takes a couple of seconds between shots. Shutter lag for compact cameras is seldom great. With the EasyShare Z650, it's important to anticipate the action a bit, and press the shutter slightly before the moment to be captured.

*Noise
*We shot a few different subjects with the EasyShare Z650's manual ISO settings, and examined the images for noise. At the lowest settings, 80 and 100, the EasyShare Z650's images are very clean for a camera with a 1/2.5-inch CCD. As we bumped up to ISO 200 and 400, noise levels rose, but not above acceptable levels. We expect that an image shot at ISO 400 would make an attractive, clean-looking 8 x 10 print. Color noise will be noticeable in dark areas, but not as much in light and textured areas, however, these are only preliminary estimation - full testing will be conducted when we get a production and conduct our full review.

*Color
*We found the color rendition of the EasyShare Z650 pleasing. It may be over-saturated, but if it is, it seems relatively balanced – greens and blues have the same sort of punch that the reds and oranges do. It's typical of snapshot cameras to bias toward red, orange, and yellow, because those are vital to healthy skin tones. The EasyShare Z650 handles skin well, and even maintains detail in highlights on skin. We were impressed with the subtle variations in skin tone that the EasyShare Z650 captured.

*Sharpness
*Preliminary observations of the Z650's Schneider-Kreuznach Varigon lens showed good sharpness at both wide and telephoto settings. We noted very fine detail from center to edge. Without controlled testing this is a subjective report, but we note that the camera's noise control and JPEG compression are engineered well enough such that they don't seem to harm the camera's resolution. There's enough resolution to show individual eyelashes on a person photographed from the waist up.

Value

The EasyShare Z650 will be introduced at a suggested price of $350. At 6 megapixels, with a 10x zoom lens and appealing image quality, the Z650 should be a good value – we hesitate somewhat in this endorsement however, because we haven't yet run our controlled tests on the images.

The EasyShare Z650 lacks two important features for a camera with a long zoom and manual controls: image stabilization and custom white balance. The EasyShare Z650 would perform better in many common shooting situations if it had those features. From a competitive standpoint, the EasyShare Z650 suffers, because there are comparably-priced cameras with both features. The ones we've tested, however, had disappointing image quality.

As a value proposition, we expect the EasyShare Z650 to compare well with the competition, primarily because of its image quality and ease of use.

Who It’s For
Point-and-Shooters - The EasyShare Z650 is expressly designed for point-and-shooters who are looking for something extra. Eager beginners, and even those beginners who have no ambition to learn much about manual camera operation, will be satisfied with it.

Budget Consumers - The EasyShare Z650 makes less of a case for budget consumers, who could get most of what the camera offers for less money by settling for a shorter zoom.

Gadget Freak - This crowd will miss the appeal of the EasyShare Z650, which isn't nearly cutting edge enough for them.

Manual Control Freaks - The EasyShare Z650 would be a good bet for this group, if it had a custom white balance. This group would be more likely to do without manual focus, which is usually pretty unsuccessful on cameras in this range.

Pros / Serious Hobbyists - Again, we think the EasyShare Z650 gets almost everything right for this group – many pros like to have a little camera for casual shooting -- but the lack of custom white balance is a missing feature many of them won't tolerate.

Conclusion

Kodak apparently strained to hit its price point with the EasyShare Z650, leaving out image stabilization and skimping on the LCD in favor of the lavish electronic viewfinder. We think that the real problem with the camera is its lack of custom white balance – the only piece missing from a very good manual control implementation and a Kodak Color Science Chip.

Still, the fundamental impression we take away from the Kodak EasyShare Z650 is one of sharp, low noise images, good color, and a very straightforward user interface. So far it looks promising; check back to see if further testing results seal the deal.

Meet the tester

Patrick Singleton

Patrick Singleton

Editor

Patrick Singleton is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.

See all of Patrick Singleton's reviews

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