Bourgt this last time, nice camera, but read the fine print or not whats there. You do not get any strap for the camera, even though the instructions show one. I was told it wasn't listed so you don't get it

lichme wrote:The zoom is what interests me in this camera. I have had other 20x+ cameras, but the camera can be very shaky at that much zoom. Anybody know if this camera is stable with that much zoom without using a tripod?

I have always had some pretty good luck with Kodak, they are a good name to stand behind.

There are many strategies to help you keep your camera stable when shooting. (without a tripod)Something that will help a lot is making sure your stance is stable. Try kneeling and putting an elbow on your thigh. Also use the camera strap to add tension and keep the camera stable.

loramae35 wrote:I have found that a tripod works best if you want to take the picture. I was trying to take pictures of birds the other day and everytime I snapped the picture, it came out blurry, so yes, I now need to buy a tripod. But hey...they're cheap! Otherwise it's a great camera and I love it!

In my book, I explain that when a lens has a smallish lens opening, less light comes in, which means the camera uses a slower shutter speed to compensate. That's why the shots are "blurry" which is really camera shake or subject movement or both. Also, long tele lenses magnify the shake as they magnify the image. (See the fine print below for what book I am talking about.)

indy4349 wrote:Bourgt this last time, nice camera, but read the fine print or not whats there. You do not get any strap for the camera, even though the instructions show one. I was told it wasn't listed so you don't get it

I bought one last time too.
the missing strap really surprised me.I stole one from an old dead camera in the drawer. The zoom and the image stability of this camera are pretty good, but one thing I noticed was the amount of time it takes for the camera to autofocus on your subject. It is slow to do so, but once focused, it takes great pictures. If you want faster autofocus, spend four times as much and get a Nikon or Canon dSLR. If you like inexpensive zoom, this one's for you.

The $140 is for the refurb camera only. On Amazon for $168 you get:
•    Ni-MH Pre-charged Rechargeable Batteries
•    KODAK USB AC adapter for in-camera charging
•    Charging solution
•    Wrist strap
•    USB cable
•    Lens cap with strap
•    Neck strap

Not sure how much those extras would cost separately, so maybe it's a wash.

gak0090 wrote:The Z990 is better:
http://snapsort.com/compare/Kodak-Z5120-vs-Kodak-Z990-MAX

Here is a link for a Z990 for $140
http://bensoutlet.com/products/kodak-easyshare-max-12mp-digital-camera-w-slash-30x

seancool wrote:There are many strategies to help you keep your camera stable when shooting. (without a tripod)Something that will help a lot is making sure your stance is stable. Try kneeling and putting an elbow on your thigh. Also use the camera strap to add tension and keep the camera stable.

I teach digital photography, tutor and wrote a book on the subject. Here's the bottom line: There are tons of people who "hope" they will be able take super INDOOR action shots of their kids doing basketball, etc. with this $149.95 camera. The answer is "no." At f/5.6 or less indoors, no amount of holding the camera steady will do a thing to stop subject motion when the camera sets a shutter speed of 1/20th of a second to make up for the lack of light entering the lens. Try cranking up the ISO as high as possible to see if that can help, and maybe, maybe, you might get lucky. But there's a reason why pros spend a LOT more money (as in $2,000+) just for the LENS they use. OUTSIDE your chances improve, but the responsiveness of the camera will not match the ones the pro use. You still may get lucky once in a while. But this is a very nice amateur camera for other uses. "Get the right tool for the job."

Hey Folks,

I bought this for the wife about 2 years ago. At the time the price was good ($200 on Amazon) and optical zoom was amazing for the price (26x).

No real complaints with the unit. People have complained in their reviews that the battery door can be tough to close. This has not been an issue for us. I have also read in reviews that the placement of the on/off switch is in a bad place - again, not an issue with us.

For the money, it is a very good camera - worth the purchase. If I didn't have 3 other cameras lying around, I would buy a second one.

Have a good one.

I bought this camera a few weeks ago the last time it was offered on Woot and I LOVE it... if you're looking for a great point and shoot camera, this is it. The video function is always ready, too, you just push the video button and it starts recording. So it's easy to go back and forth from snaps to video and back. Also it has a quick ready feature that allows you to take consecutive pictures faster. Can't beat the 26x optical zoom either and it's an excellent deal. It also has some pretty cool sharing capabilities. And of course, it doesn't hurt that it comes in pretty colors! ;)

I bought this about a month ago on woot. Had immediate buyers remorse, but then when it came it turned out to be a great little camera. Zoom is great, stabilization is great, picture quality is great. It makes me look like a decent photographer haha.

The Kodak Easyshare 16mp camera is amazing. I love the wide angle 26mm feature almost as much as the 26x zoom. The video capability is also great. I have an expensive Nikon, but would rather use this Kodak instead.

I bought this camera the last time it was up for sale and really like it. It's pretty much the higher-end point and shoot I've been looking for. That said, it does have its foibles. From what I've found, the auto-focus sometimes just isn't paying much attention in full auto mode, so often, it's better to select the portrait or landscape modes than to let the camera choose. Related to this, taking zoomed-in video without a tripod can be difficult. It was virtually impossible on a highway I was traveling on, although I would consider that a worst case scenario with the bumps in the road and such.

lichme wrote:The zoom is what interests me in this camera. I have had other 20x+ cameras, but the camera can be very shaky at that much zoom. Anybody know if this camera is stable with that much zoom without using a tripod?

I have always had some pretty good luck with Kodak, they are a good name to stand behind.

The camera part is pretty good at that zoom level, actually. My only complaint with it is that the video side has difficulty maintaining focus when fully zoomed, but for stills, it does pretty darn well.

We got one last time around a few weeks ago, it arrived within record setting time, I think 5 days! WE LOVE IT!!! No it did not come with a camra strap, but hey Best Buys sell's em for about 20 dollars...Don't even thinking about buying a camera if your looking for one just GET THIS ONE, it's very idiout friendly, really GOOD Pics great movies & also dowloading of your pics as soon as you get home is so cool, needed to get an eye-fi card but still well worth it....

The best megazoom out there right now is probably the Panasonic DMC-FZ150. It's 3x the price of this unit, though, and probably doesn't take 3x better photos. You have to ask yourself how picky you are.

Strap? EZ. Plenty of choices on Amazon, for instance.

Purchased last go around...great pictures but if you want to remove the card to download opening/closing door a pain. Also does not include a strap which is almost a must for the camera. Good deal for the money.

How does this perform under low light? I have found that the Fuji line does great in low light, wondering about this one since it's such a good price....

$120 on Amazon.

No one has mentioned that this camera uses AA batteries. How is the battery life with this thing? I am assuming that you will just throw out the regular alkaline batteries that come with it and use rechargeables, but I don't want to have to carry around 5 sets of batteries, either.

What? No mention of the this camera being Eye-Fi ready? Yep, buy the eye-fi memory card and wirelessly transmit your latest photos to your computer, to Shutterfly, your iPad or friends or all of the above.
And if you don't have a eye-fi card in the camera, it will share photos with a list of places like Facebook or email photos directly to a list of friends when the camera is attached to your computer with the USB cable.
Pretty damn clever.
Complete info at www.kodak.com/go/Z5120manuals

Can no longer open the discussions page from my work place. Whatever the change was it killed my capabilities at work. Nice job Woot. Phone blog only? I think not.

elisabethhunt wrote:$120 on Amazon.

Nope...not the same camera. That's a 5010, not a Z5120 .

In an effort to keep prices low, makers are removing secondary optical or small electronic viewfinders. I recently left my DSLR at home and went to a parade with a camera with only the screen on the back. Outside, I couldn't see a darn thing. With a super-zoom camera like this, holding the camera away from your body so you can see the screen while zooming way out is not "ergonomic" and not the best way to keep the camera steady. I'd pass on this one, even though the image quality is probably quite good.

If you are concerned about composing the photo, not simply "point and guess," I'd strongly suggest a viewfinder you can actually see.

hoosiergirl65 wrote:How does this perform under low light? I have found that the Fuji line does great in low light, wondering about this one since it's such a good price....

If you are getting good results with your Fuji, you MIGHT get lucky with this one. But the usual answer is: No! No! No! The laws of physics are against you! You can't shoot at a high shutter speed in low light with a lens that does not let in a LOT of light, unless the ISO (sensitivity) of the camera is about 5 times better than today's cameras. You get what you pay for, and you are NOT going to get action-stopping shots of you kid inside a gym making the game-scoring shot with this camera...or almost any camera with a lens that is f/5.6 when zoomed. It will also not be as responsive as a pro camera. Outdoors, great, indoors, forget about it.

I like the camera but it didn't include the strap so there is nothing to attach the lens cover to. Strap not listed as an accessory on Kokak.com.

mbrickell wrote:The best megazoom out there right now is probably the Panasonic DMC-FZ150. It's 3x the price of this unit, though, and probably doesn't take 3x better photos. You have to ask yourself how picky you are.

Strap? EZ. Plenty of choices on Amazon, for instance.

I like my Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX100V, The Panasonic is better for people that actually know what they are doing photography wise, the Sony is a little more gadgety and has great automated settings. I wasn't concerned with RAW,or hooking up extra mics- I just wanted something really simple to use , great zoom , 60FPS and 30FPS 1080P video that would rival a camcorder (so I don't have to have a separate camcorder). The Kodak Z990 is a nice camera at a good price, I like it better than the Z5120 here today. The Sony and the Panasonic are in a better league, but your paying significantly more $$ for them.

kimchikandy wrote:The $140 is for the refurb camera only. On Amazon for $168 you get:
•    Ni-MH Pre-charged Rechargeable Batteries
•    KODAK USB AC adapter for in-camera charging
•    Charging solution
•    Wrist strap
•    USB cable
•    Lens cap with strap
•    Neck strap

Not sure how much those extras would cost separately, so maybe it's a wash.

Your right, I like your deal better!

You can buy this same camera on Amazon.com for 120.99

1110SPRINGER wrote:I hate this new web format. It is so wide that even with my 22 in widescreen monitor, I have to continuously scroll right and left to find info. It just isn't user friendly. Why fix what ain't broke?I hope Woot reads these comments. Perhaps my days with Woot are over. It has gone downhill ever since it was sold to Amazon.

Is it just me, or do others agree???

I agree - I don't like it either - it was much easier the old way to navigate - as mentioned above - don't fix what ain't broke. Thanks for letting us state our opinion.

jdpman wrote:26x zoom... nice... heres a video of it in action

I have the Panasonic Lumix from Woot and it's a better camera. 16X zoom lens but it stays focused when taking higher quality 1080i video. Higher zoom lenses are useless as the picture degrades from humidity distortion

moonutdad wrote:I have the Panasonic Lumix from Woot and it's a better camera. 16X zoom lens but it stays focused when taking higher quality 1080i video. Higher zoom lenses are useless as the picture degrades from humidity distortion

After viewing that clip I don't agree with your statement. At 16X the quality may be better, but at 26X the video is still decent. I would rather have the option of seeing something closer with mild distortion (if needed) than not being able to zoom up to that at all.

We bought this last time to upgrade from our older olympus and were so disappointed in the picture quality. The video, in the living room in lowish light, made our mini schnauzer a black blob. Our older flip doesn't do great in low light, but does better than this camera.

There is a red/orange saturation that makes people look like they are blushing. The one place this camera gave stellar pictures was bright sunlight. Our olympus viewfinder is almost impossible to use in bright sunlight, the kodak is easy to see, the picture quality, color, and hue were great.

If you do a lot of outdoor, natural light photography and want the zoom lens to catch birds or flowers this might be okay, but I'd save my money for an investment into a better camera.

If we hadn't bought this from woot I would have returned it.

here is the video showing both the red issue and the low light issue

http://youtu.be/ymucE12Qqi8

Our living room is not a cave, we have a lot of light and other cameras and video devices did not have this issue.

to those concerned about low light remember this is a CCD sensor. they are not designed for great low light and you should consider the z990 for a few bucks more it uses a backlit cmos sensor and they do MUCH better in lower light i own the z990 as well as the 5010 kodak and many other superzooms from samsung, panasonic, fuji etc.. honestly other than the slight shutter lag i find the z990 to be nearly as good all around as much higher priced ones except at some of the highest iso settings.

haydesigner wrote:Here's a page that compares this camera to a bunch of others:
http://snapsort.com/cameras/Kodak-Z5120

Nice link, thanks for the share. After reading I've decided to pass on this deal. I'm still on the hunt for the camera for me.

I adore this camera. Best purchase I've made from Woot so far. Buy it!!!

I got this when it was on here last month, and it's definitely a decent camera for the money. I didn't need a camera, but I got it just because it was a good deal, and I know my 4 year old FujiFilm won't last forever.

I was surprised that there was no strap, but I picked one up on Amazon for a few dollars, no big deal. I also got an Eye-Fi card, which is nice to have.

I will say that I do still prefer my Fuji, but maybe I just need some time to get used to this one and where the settings can be changed, etc. I never had to do ANYthing to adjust my Fuji to take great pics other than the wheel on the top, so this is a huge change for me. I took some photos of a gorgeous red sunset the other evening, and there was NO red whatsoever in the photos. I'm told I need to adjust my white balance, which is something I never had to do before - the Fuji took excellent pics without adjusting anything. I guess I just have some learning to do, since my previous camera truly was a "point and shoot" and this seems to require a little more knowledge and work to get the desired shots.



This photo was of a blazing red sunset, and as you can see the Kodak Z5120 made everything that should have been red or pink into white or yellowish.

I failed to mention that I attempted that sunset shot on at least 4 different settings - the smart setting or whatever, scene/sunset, landscape, night landscape. I'm not sure if I tried any others, but they all seemed to be about the same.

Another issue I had was with taking a picture of children playing on swings at sunset (also never an issue with the Fuji) - I got this effect on the smart setting, similar on scene/children and scene/sunset.

When I changed to sports mode it make everything but the children pitch black and it was very grainy. Again, I probably just need to study up on how to take various types of photos with this camera, but I never had to do so with my previous camera and was rather disappointed.

Swwet. Wish I waited and saw this post, bought last time on woot. I still think this camera will be fine for how I plan to use it.

BigRedCheese wrote:You can buy this same camera on Amazon.com for 120.99

Links help!

lmarie6 wrote:I failed to mention that I attempted that sunset shot on at least 4 different settings - the smart setting or whatever, scene/sunset, landscape, night landscape. I'm not sure if I tried any others, but they all seemed to be about the same.

Another issue I had was with taking a picture of children playing on swings at sunset (also never an issue with the Fuji) - I got this effect on the smart setting, similar on scene/children and scene/sunset.

When I changed to sports mode it make everything but the children pitch black and it was very grainy. Again, I probably just need to study up on how to take various types of photos with this camera, but I never had to do so with my previous camera and was rather disappointed.

You seem rather calm for someone with a haunted backyard.