With the Photokina 2006 photo fair opening its gates for business, the big guns are rolling out new product announcements at a rate of knots, and Kodak has offered details of their budget-priced 7.1-megapixel EasyShare Z710 Zoom.
It’s unlikely to win any beauty competitions, but the Z710 has a reasonable feature set, sporting a beefy (but non-stabilised) 10x optical zoom and advanced manual controls including programme, aperture and shutter priority, as well as a full manual mode -a nice addition at this price point.
Point and shooters should feel suitably pampered with no less than 19 pre-programmed scene and colour modes to attend to their every photographic whim, including candlelight, fireworks, party and beach settings.
At the rear there’s a (now) rather miserly 2″ LCD, plus the standard array of controls and an optical viewfinder (we like them).
The display also features a live histogram and a capture grid line display helping punters keep their horizons level and their verticals upright.
Kodak are claiming that the 7.1 megapixel image sensor and ‘professional quality’ Schneider Kreuznach Variogon 10X optical zoom lens are capable of capturing high-quality prints up to 30 x 40 inches (76 x 102 cm), helped by their Kodak Color Science imaging processing chip.
Available this month, the Kodak Z710 camera is set to retail for £279 (RRP) ($530, €415).