Do you ever wonder, what kind of people buy the truly bad digital cameras? Well, nine times out of ten, it's the person that spends ten minutes in their local camera store, tells the salesperson they have X amount to spend, and walks out the door with the first camera the salesperson recommends. Spending some time learning about the strengths, and more importantly the imperfections of the Kodak Easyshare Z812IS will help you decide if it's the right camera for your needs. With that in mind, let's shine some light on what's wrong with buying a Kodak Easyshare Z812IS digital camera.

Batteries have got to be the biggest deterrent to using any digital camera. Kodak hasn't really help make things any better with the Easyshare Z812IS. Between the mega-zoom lens on this camera, large LCD screen, and image stabilization, the Z812IS eats disposable batteries for breakfast, lunch and supper. It will of course run off disposable AA lithium batteries, or one CRV3 rechargeable batter pack. Unfortunately the CRV3 and the recharger required for it don't come bundled with the camera. So, be sure to include that extra expense in your budget, if rechargeables are important to you.

If you intend to shoot video with the Z812IS, be sure to stock up on HD cards. Being a high definition camera, this Kodak Easyshare will of course consume vast quantities of memory storage for videos. I'd recommend at least a 4Gb card (SD, SDHC or MMC), preferably a 8Gb, if your pocketbook is big enough. Another caveat to keep in mind is if your shooting video with lots of stops and pauses. Each stop or pause causes a separate video file to be written to the memory card. This could result in extra time in the editing room working with Z812IS videos files.

The Easyshares LCD is acceptable, but nothing spectacular. Kodak made the decision to go with a pretty slow refresh rate, which can result in jerky stuttering on the LCD if you move the camera around too much. The Z812IS LCD does try to compensate for the ambient light in your environment, but tends to lean towards too dark a display in the outdoors. You'll have to learn to make manual adjustments.

Those shortcomings on their own shouldn't be enough to stop someone from buying a Easyshare Z812IS, but here are a few more that might:

- no component cable connection for direct to HD TV viewing

- docking station not bundled with camera

- barrel distortion (bowing of image) is worse than it should be

- color fringing is still visible with vibrant color transitions

- image stabilization can't compare to competitors cameras

- JPEG file saves only, no RAW option mode

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