Kodak Easyshare Z8612IS 8.1 MP Digital Camera with 12xOptical Image Stabilized Zoom

by Kodak

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.2 x 4.3 inches ; 10.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00127Y4A2
• Item model number: 1585462
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,258 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 2, 2007

Product Description

Manufacturer Description

Powerful zoom, remarkable clarity. Whether you’re zooming in on fast action shots or taking a picture of your grand surroundings, the Z8612 IS is the camera that can handle it. And it’s surprisingly simple to use.

EasyShare Z8612IS Highlights

12x zoom with optical image stabilization The all-glass 12x Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon optical zoom lens (36-432mm) zooms in fast to deliver extraordinary creative performance, features fast f/2.8-f/4.8, and captures sharp, steady shots when shooting at long zoom ranges with optical image stabilization.

Amazing quality prints with 8.1 megapixels 8.1-megapixel resolution means you can make stunning prints up to 30 x 40 inches and, however you choose to print -- at home, at retail, or online -- trust Kodak for picture quality that’s truly exceptional and for memories that will last.

HD picture capture Capture beautiful HD pictures in 16:9 format, and view your pictures in high definition on an HDTV or other HD devices.

On-camera picture-enhancing features Capture consistently great shots by utilizing features such as on-camera cropping, capture gridline display, and histogram. Get exceptional results using Smart Scene mode, Kodak Perfect Touch technology, High ISO, and others.

2.5-inch LCD color display View pictures with brilliance and clarity on the indoor/outdoor, 2.5-inch color display. Whether you shoot your pictures vertically or horizontally, view them right-side-up with the orientation sensor.

Shoot video with ease Record continuous VGA video (640 x 480) at 15 fps with sound and on-camera editing -- video print options include 1, 4, 9 and 16-up prints, and you can even save single frames and e-mail to family and friends.

Exclusive Kodak Color Science Image Processing Chip The exclusive Kodak Color Science Chip provides vibrant, true-to-life colors in every picture. A new high-speed digital processor chip, advanced algorithms, and hardware acceleration features let the Z1285 make simultaneous, split-second decisions to produce rich, vibrant, true-to-life colors in almost any lighting situation. Every time you click the shutter, the Kodak Color Science Chip performs an instantaneous and advanced analysis of collected scene data to identify and adjust multiple factors that influence picture quality: scene light source is detected and adjustments are made to capture bright whites and true, vivid colors under difficult lighting conditions -- fluorescent, tungsten, or daylight. Scene content is analyzed for luminance, focal distance, subject matter orientation, and color to determine the correct exposure and capture the natural details, accurate flesh tones, and rich colors you see in your composition.

On-camera Share button

• Sharing starts right on the back of the camera.
• Have a picture you want to share? Tag it using the exclusive on-camera Share button and it will be ready to print or e-mail later.
• Use the Favorites feature to keep special pictures close without filling up your internal memory.

Kodak EasyShare Software (included) The simplest way to find, create, and share.

• The award-winning, elegant design makes your pictures the star of the show for a more enjoyable viewing experience
• English, French, and German photo card templates turn pictures into 4 x 6-inch (10 x 15 cm) announcements, invitations, holiday cards, and more, right at home
• Download new photo borders and photo cards for more creative choices
• Get more out of Kodak EasyShare Software with a variety of useful tips
• Use Kodak EasyShare Software to access your pictures at the Kodak EasyShare Gallery -- then view, edit, and save them to My Collection
• Automatically print better, brighter pictures, time after time, with Kodak Perfect Touch Technology and our award winning Kodak Printers and Printer Docks

Product Description

Whether you're zooming in on fast action shots or taking a picture of your grand surroundings, the Z8612 IS is the camera that can handle it. And it's surprisingly simple to use. Capture the details in low light and fast action situations. The Z8612 IS features a powerful, high ISO. The Z8612 IS is part of the Kodak EasyShare System, so sharing your pictures is amazingly simple. Just press Share. Unpack the Z8612 IS and you're ready to shoot. It's that simple.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Kodak Camera, June 24, 2008

By 

Alexis J. (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kodak Easyshare Z8612IS 8.1 MP Digital Camera with 12xOptical Image Stabilized Zoom (Electronics)

I have only had the camera for a couple of days and I'm already very pleased with it. Takes wonderful pictures right out of the box in the Auto mode, but there are many different features that I will have to play around with. The 12x zoom is perfect for catching objects from a distance and the Image Stabilizer works wonders. I have tried to shake the camer while taking the picture and it has still came out great.

A few things to know before buying: The camera does not have an electronic viewfinder, so sometimes in direct light(sun)it may be hard to view the LCD screen. It also uses 3 different types of batteries KLIC-8000 (rechargeable Li Ion), CRV3 (Non rechargeable Li Ion), and it also takes 2 AA litium Ion batteries. If you buy the KLIC-8000 battery you have to purchase a separate charger, you cannot charge the battery in the camera. If you are looking for a big zoom camera that will fit in your pocket this is not the camera for you.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly Surprised, February 16, 2009

By 

T. BOND (Columbia, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kodak Easyshare Z8612IS 8.1 MP Digital Camera with 12xOptical Image Stabilized Zoom (Electronics)

I orginally wrote this review after using the camera for only a few hours because I found that I liked it a lot. Several weeks later I still stand by the review. They've tried to pack as much basic camera into as few dollars as possible and IMHO they've done a good job. They've also included enough old-school professional grade features to let someone who understands f-stops, shutter speeds and depth-of-field to play with that a little.

Megapixels don't mean much anymore without the glass to support a good image and the glass on this one seems pretty good (Schneider-KRUEZNACH). The glass doesn't fill up the whole width of the lens barrel you see in the picture. Some of that width is probably for the optics of the zoom and possibly appearance. There's more and better glass however, than your typical point-and-shoot. I'm surprised how clear a picture I can get with 8.1 mega pixels. I just blew my best picture up on a 46 inch 1080p big screen TV and, even at this size, I can zoom in quite a bit before it breaks down. For me it's worth having a boxy shape that won't fit in my pocket to get a good zoom and good glass. The zoom is surprisingly variable too. It doesn't confine you to half-dozen or so preset stages, so you can frame the image as you'd like. Without preset stages, however, it wants to refocus each time you change the zoom, so it's not a continuous image and you have to be willing to put up with a moment of blur.

The focusing system itself is great. It works on some kind of grid system and it decides which part of the picture is relevant, outlines the parts of the grid it's using to focus and sets the lens. I love it! It does a pretty good job of picking the relevant detail, and you can aim it elsewhere and hold down the button if you want to tell it to focus on something else.

If you like pushing the limits of what can be done with ambient light, this camera is better than a typical pocket point and shoot. (Due to the extra glass) Even in a dark living room lit by a 60-watt incadescent light bulb and two north windows, I was able to get a super dense/detailed picture of my kid, which I'm very happy with, using no flash. (The camera picked a 1/40 shutter speed.) In the same room, with no light on, I zoomed in on my dog from 9 feet away and the camera took an awfully good picture at 1/6 of a sec. Again, I was leaning against something, but -- at a sixth -- the image stabilization had to be working overtime to preserve the sharpness it did. Zooming in all the way, showed it wasn't quite as sharp as my second picture with a flash, but it was easily good enough to blow-up on 1080p TV. And it was better, of course, because it didn't have that "flat" look that comes with using a flash. For a camera under $700 I thought it did extremely well with low light ... and I suppose one could always use the flash.

One aspect of photography is the fleeting nature of any image you might try to capture. At this price I can't get a rapid refresh between pictures, but what I did get with the Z8612 is a camera that captures the image immediately - the image or facial expression I actually saw - without the digital pause. I've not found this before in consumer-grade digital cameras and for me that was really important. Some have objected to the automatic lens cap release, but I really like the "ready to shoot" concept in that design. You hit the power button and "bing" the lens cap pops off, the lens shoots forward and the flash (if you want it) is ready to go.

Some reviews have commented the battery that shipped with the camera didn't last long at all, and I found that to be the case as well. The AA lithiums I replaced it with have lasted fairly well and it took a while to go through the first pair. I may upgrade to the official rechargeable unit, but these are pretty cheap.

I only bought this camera because I lost a Samsung 10 mpix NV11 but I'm glad I did. That was a nice (more expensive) consumer camera, with good reviews, and the array of buttons was neat, but the Kodak just seems to be designed better. The wider glass handles low light better; the images are as good or better even though it has fewer pixels, the image is truer to what I saw because the electronic delay kicks in AFTER the camera captures the shot, the zoom is more versatile and more powerful - again better glass - it's easier to learn, the color handling is good, the focus is more responsive and informative, and I can load images on my computer without installing any software. With the Kodak, I also get the sense of something designed by camera people and, for me, that difference has turned out to mean a lot. For instance, there are fewer buttons yet I can easily dial the EV (darkness/lightness bias) up or down a few stops in the midst of shooting, which is great.

It's kind of a gimick I guess, but they throw in a camera mode that intelligently stitches together several pictures into one panoramic view. I've not had that before and I was kind of "blown away" at first. With your help, it seems to sense how to line up appropriate edges when it can. You have to admire the software team that pulled that off.

Note that this camera does NOT have a range finder (i.e. a look-through port at the top of the camera). For me the design and lens quality took the sting out of that, but if that doesn't work for you, you may want to look at the Kodak Z1015 IS for an extra $90. I haven't tried that camera.

This is, by no means, the $1,200 EOS SLR I'm currently drooling over but, for me, it captures enough of the SLR experience to ease those cravings for now. Carrying this simple, boxy-looking camera around is an exercise in humility but, on the other hand, it doesn't shout "steal me" when you set it down somewhere. It does seem to capture enough of the things a photographer needs that I don't feel like I have to sacrifice something to go from film to digital even though I'm buying a budget camera. At the time I bought it, retailers were dropping like flies and the camera was going for something over $150 and I felt very, very fortunate to get this much camera for the price I paid, as I still do today. Apparently others agree as the demand has grown and the price has risen quite a bit.

111 of 139 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy this camera!, November 25, 2008

By 

Keith "Keith" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kodak Easyshare Z8612IS 8.1 MP Digital Camera with 12xOptical Image Stabilized Zoom (Electronics)

I made the mistake of buying this camera sight unseen and without reading the reviews.

First, the good: takes wonderful pictures. I had an olympus 3.2mp 10x optical zoom camera. this one beats it in all modes I've tried including the super macro setting for ultra close ups.

Having said that, the engineers who designed this screwed the pooch so badly they need to be shot, hung, drawn and quartered, and their heads put on a pike. Same goes for the marketing morons who specified this product.

It takes 2 AA batteries. It eats them. Nope, rechargeable Nimh won't work. Not even the high capacity ones; too much power draw. You MUST use the lithium ion ones. Yeah, the $2 each AA lithium battery. Stupid engineers.

The reason it eats them is the large LCD display on the back is the ONLY way to take a picture; there is no viewfinder. Stupid marketing people. The LCD washes out easily if you're taking a picture in sunlight.

Second, the delay time to store the picture is ridiculous. I've tried faster SD cards to no avail. If you want to take more than 3 pictures within 10 seconds (count to 10; it's a long time...), this is not your camera.

And the lens cap always comes off. WTF?? I've owned a number of cameras; expensive, cheap, and moderate, and never been so disgusted with their inability to execute on this simple thing. It's like they put their worst guys on this camera. Really, how hard is it to make a camera with a lens cap that stays on? If Boeing designed things this poorly, planes wouldn't even be getting off the ground. The lens is one of the most important parts of the camera and it's at high risk of getting scratched with no lens cap.. Stupid engineers.

There are other issues with this camera, but those are the biggies.

Don't buy this camera. There are other cameras out there where you don't have to make the tradeoffs this one requires of you.