Kodak EasyShare Z712 IS

Manual Control Options
The Kodak Z712 IS offers a full manual mode, enabling users to set shutter speed and aperture. There are also priority modes for each. Z712 IS users can also set ISO and focus manually, though unfortunately, there is no way to manually set a white balance.

Focus
Auto Focus
The Z712 has three options for selecting the zone of focus—Multi-zone, Center-zone, and Selectable zone—and two options for rate, continuous, or single. The default option is Multi-zone and this functioned well on the show floor. It responded well when focusing in close on an object, but it did have some problems with low light conditions.

Manual Focus
The manual focus option is controlled by entering the focus mode via the top focus button, then controlling focus with the 4-way wheel, which was slow and awkward. Focus jerked forward or back a little after releasing the button.

Exposure
There are many options to control exposure modes on the EasyShare Z712 IS, accessible in Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual modes. Manual mode lets you control all of them—aperture, shutter, exposure compensation, flash compensation, and ISO. Aperture and shutter priority modes let you control shutter and aperture, respectively, and program modes only allow settings of ISO, exposure and flash compensation.

Metering
The Z712 has three metering modes, multi-pattern, center-weighted, and spot. The multi-pattern is the default mode, and this performed well for most scenes, but bright images appeared somewhat washed out.

White Balance
The five available settings for white balance on the Z712 include auto, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, and open shade. Unfortunately, no manual white balance settings were included. This will be a problem in mixed lighting conditions, though our initial impressions of the camera’s auto and fluorescent settings under the convention center lights were favorable.

ISO
ISO settings, like other exposure parameters, are set via the jog dial in the modes where it’s selectable. Settings start at 80, stopping at 100, and then progresses in full stops up to 3200, which is only available at a small, 1.2-megapixel image size. The auto setting appeared to read the lighting in the Convention Center correctly, while the High ISO mode on the mode dial engaged the 3200 speed ISO and was able to freeze the motion of passersby at the Kodak booth.

Shutter Speed
Shutter-speed ranges from 1/2 to 1/1000 second in 1/3-stop increments, which seems like a very narrow range for a camera in this class. There are even many compact cameras with a greater range.

Aperture
The aperture range on the Kodak Z712 IS extends from f/2.8 to f/4.8. This is a pretty limited range, particularly for models with decent wide-angle capabilities. It’s clear that this camera is meant for portrait or other close shooting.