Full Review

My 10-year old daughter wanted a digital camera for Christmas after taking a "Digital Photography for Kids" class on the weekend. Therefore, I was looking for a small, capable and durable camera.

She's not a "techno nerd," but she is clearly aware of the basic features of digital cameras and how to use them, but being a kid the cameras's "usability" still needed to be relatively straight forward -- in other words useable "out of the box" with minimal need for referring to the manual.

The camera's 12 megapixels, 5x optics, and sensitive sensor make the z1275 a "forgiving" product. The "auto" settings are adequate for 90% plus of photo/video shoot situations. Small areas of the 12 MP images can be enlarged without producing excessive graininess. This is handy for images shot shortly after power-up, or when the subject is moving and not posed.

The camera's firmware was v1.04 on arrival. It can be easily updated by downloading the latest version (currently v1.08) from Kodak. By doing this, perhaps I have avoided some of the problems mentioned by others.

Further, z1275's use of standard batteries, inexpensive SD memory, and standard USB interface instead of proprietary accessories is a definite plus, as well.