Home > Consumer Reviews > Kodak Z700 Digital Camera [4MP, 5 x Optical Zoom]

I've just got this camera for my 21st birthday. It is my first 'proper' digital camera - and I love it! I was a little worried when the batteries supplied with the camera ran out after taking a around 20 pictures, but I got myself a set of 4 rechargeable Ni-MH 2100mAh batteries that charge it about 1 hr, and they last for a lot longer. I love the detail possible with this camera, and I have been using the 'close up' setting a lot. The camera itself is very compact, and fairly small considering what it is capable of.

I bought this as a Christmas present for my husband, and we are novices when it comes to digital cameras. We found this to be very easy to use, and the clarity of the pictures is excellent. One tip, make sure you buy the best battery available as it lasts for ages- and NEVER use AA alkaline, they only last for approx 10 pictures!!

Colours and sharpness of the images are excellent. A big plus is that you can fine tune almost everything by hand, which was nice for me as I switched only recently to fully automatic cameras and still do not trust the built in programs completely.
The only negative point I found is that it consumes batteries extremely fast. You should always carry some spare ones.

Great little camera, loads of features, I was especially impressed with the digital zoom available on the mini screen of the camera after you have taken the photo, it allows you to zoom in 3 or 4 times with amazing clarity. So if you think you caught a ghost on film you have a better chance of seeing it. It also comes with a great program for your PC, it allows you to change the appearance of the photos you've taken and even order prints online. I used it on holiday with my laptop, each day I filled up my memory with as many pics as humanly possible then uploaded them to my laptop, this way it pretty much gives you unlimited memory so you don't have to be so careful at how many pics your taking. Then when you get home you can find the best pics to have printed. I also bought the memory card which allows you to save photos in order to print them at a special shop's printing station.

Trust me when I say this. This is not a good buy, well it is, it's a goodbye to a hundred and eighty quid...
The picture quality is poor, unless you constantly run the camera at full 4Mb, high resolution mode. The "auto" flash seems to think that even in bright daylight your subject requires more light and you can't even switch it off without it turning itself back on next time you try and take a picture. If that wasn't bad enough, I tried this camera with Sony high-power batteries, it wouldn't even switch on. I went and bought the most powerfull rechargeable AA batteries on the market, charged them up and put them in the camera, turned it on, two pictures later low-battery light came on and it switched itself off, so I went and bought Duracell ULTRA, allegedly the best batteries you can buy and put those in. To their credit, they lasted about a dozen shots before they too gave up and the camera powered itself down. If you want my advice, and as you're reading this I can only assume you do, buy a Fuji Finepix or an equivalent spec Olympus. The picture quality will be better and the batteries will last more than 2 minutes...