Kodak EasyShare Z7590 First Impressions Review

Auto Mode
The Kodak EasyShare Z7590 has a fully automatic mode located on the mode dial. A green camera with the word Auto under it indicates its location. There are several semi-automatic modes located on this same dial. The Programmed AE mode is labeled "P" and grants the user freedom to change the default settings. There are aperture and shutter priority modes to help ease budding photographers into more manual adjustments. There are also 16 preset scene modes. When users scroll through the scene options, they get a real-time display; lighting and exposure settings change instantly from scene to scene, so users can make a more informed decision about which one they want to use.

Movie Mode
The Z7590 has a mediocre MPEG-4 movie mode located on the main mode dial. It does have two resolution sizes: full VGA at 640 x 480 or QVGA at 320 x 240. However, the full resolution only captures 12 frames a second and the smaller size captures 20 frames per second. Audio can be recorded and there is in-camera playback, but the slow frame rate is hard to look past.

Drive/ Burst Mode
The Kodak Z7590 has new continuous shooting modes, including first and last burst modes. The first burst mode records 2 frames a second up to 5 images. The last burst mode shoots at the same rate, but can take up to 30 frames, however, it only saves the last 4 images taken. When the burst mode is not engaged, the camera takes a leisurely 1.6 seconds between shots.

Playback Mode
When still images are reviewed in single frames, they are automatically rotated to their proper orientation. Photos can also be viewed in a slide show or the multi-up thumbnail mode. Images can be protected and stored in albums or the Favorites folder. When images are viewed individually, histograms accompany them with the file information. Movies can also be played back with audio.

Custom Image Presets
The Kodak Z7590 has a total of 16 scene modes. Two of them, the sports and portrait modes, are located directly on the main mode dial. The remaining 14 are located within the "SCN" position on the dial. The following scene modes are available: Landscape, Closeup, Night Portrait, Night Landscape, Snow, Beach, Text, Fireworks, Flower, Manner/Museum, Self-Portrait, Party, Children, and Backlight. As users scroll through these presets, they get a live image of the lighting and exposure settings. This feature lets users preview settings before they even capture a picture.