KODAK EASYSHARE MAX Pro Reviews

The huge zoom, comfy grip and attractive price tag will be enough to win the Kodak Z990 Max many fans, but if you want the advantages of an SLR-like camera then you’ll find a much better camera in the gimmick-free Fujifilm HS20.

A great choice if your budget is limited, the Z990 is easy to use and produces great photos. With full manual control and RAW capture, it would be churlish to come down too hard on these shortcomings, as the Z990 is undoubtedly good value.

The Kodak EasyShare Max Z990 is a good ultrazoom that could have been a great ultrazoom. Its build quality is solid and its ergonomics are good (with a couple of minor exceptions). It has a wide array of features, including an ultra-quick continuous shooting mode. It includes a high quality lens and provides quick and accurate focusing. It offers very good image quality with especially nice looking colors and its low light image quality is impressive. It has an excellent flash. But the EasyShare Max falls short in few significant ways. One is that its shot-to-shot speed is much too slow, especially after the flash has been fired. Another is that actual battery life is much shorter than the 500 shots claimed by Kodak. Finally, the camera's auto panorama mode is virtually useless because it's not possible to predict what part of the scene will be in the final image.

There's lots of features packed into the Z990 and the long zoom just adds to it. The image stabiliser seems to work well and the range is enough to contend with the latest 30x optical megazoom cameras. For the price, you get a lot of camera. It would be nice to see past innovations such as the vertical grip, but it's not detrimental to the camera. The Z990 certainly has enough going on it to keep a photographer interested. This camera would suit a keen photographer who likes to enjoy nature without the tediousness of having to walk everywhere, especially one who isn't in a rush to get the job done. If that's you, I think you'll really like the Kodak EasyShare Z990.

The Kodak Easyshare Max Z990 has some great features, and I really wanted to like this camera, but a lot of the time its sluggish responsiveness and delays writing photos to the card makes it awkward to use. The menu system and controls could definitely do with some improvement, as these were often quite awkward and seemed delayed. The full HD video, high speed shooting, long telephoto reach, and excellent macro modes make this an interesting camera, especially with some very good image quality and low noise, it's worth considering if you don't mind the sluggish and sometimes awkward controls, or recommended if you simply want to point and shoot.

The Kodak Easyshare Max Z990 is Kodak's latest ultra zoom camera, building on the success of the Z980, and Z981, the new camera features Kodak's own Back-lit CMOS sensor, and high speed shooting.