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I wanted this to be the dream camera. Having burned through many small digitals since my first one in 2000, I am ready to buy a camera with a bit more size, a better zoom and a few more features. The price was right on this one, I liked the way it felt, it has a big lens and a burst mode for photographing my son's sports, and the controls were simple to understand and work. There are several solid reviews from good sources for this camera, as well as a couple mediocre ones--but the camera offers so many features at such a reasonable price that I hoped the so-so reviews were from camera snobs and that we would be pleased enough.
No such luck. Unfortunately, the picture quality for this camera is often not as good as that of some of the cheap little pocket size digitals we've had previously. Pictures taken outside seem to be quite good, but pictures in lower light when using some zoom tend to be very fuzzy. By lower light, I mean inside the house with indoor lighting in the evening--I'm not trying to take pictures in a bat cave or dark museum, just the standard pictures any of us might want to snap in our kitchen or family room.
I read reviews that said a drawback of this camera was its lack of image stablization. I thought, "no big deal, I'm very stable when I take pictures." Well, surprise, when a camera takes as long to focus in lower light as this one does (especially when using some zoom)we ALL shake. A good percentage of indoor pictures have been blurry because of this. And even the clear ones don't seem to be "knock your socks off" sharp.
At the time I bought this, I was also looking at a Canon A610. This camera felt so much nicer. The Canon controls were totally inexplicable, making this Kodak look like a design marvel. Those are big pluses. But the bottom line is, a camera needs to take clear, clean pictures and in that area, this one is not living up to expectations
ADDENDUM, added later: I've been outdoors taking pictures of a variety of plants, flowers and scenery and comparing them to the same pics taken on a decent little Nikon Coolpix. Wow, is there a difference! Outside, this camera takes oustanding photos. I feel compelled to raise it up a star but the edit later feature doesn't let me. Give it a 4, not a 3. Definitely has its good points.
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