Kodak EasyShare Z650

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.