Summary: Crap...bought two within a year both failed.

Comment: I bought two of these cheaply made camera's within one year and they are both dead. Very well taken care off, takes good pics but doesen't last, flash bulb starts to make crack noises and fails leaving you with ink blotches for pics even in daylight. Plus if you drop it even while sitting on grass and drop it from your neck to the ground say goodbye over priced cheap camera. I switched to Canon Powershot and Hp way more durable and it's been a year with no bulb problems.

Summary: fantastic bargain!

Comment: I found this camera on sale at Target (in store, Oct. 2008) for $99 and decided to take a chance. At that price, it can't hurt! And it has been performing like a champ. The video is great, I'm getting lots of great photos -- all without knowing too much about cameras. I'm a point-and-shoot photographer and this camera has definitely improved my game while not requiring me to make a true study of photography.

My only 'negative' comments are things that don't bother me, but might bother others: there is a noise associated with the zoom, even when using the "museum" setting, so factor that in if you're trying to be discreet. The auto focus on the video works great, but in low light, it is constantly refocusing so your videos may have a slight blur here and there. Again, for my purposes, I don't care about that stuff. A GOOD thing about the video is that the mic works really well and the sound is nicely balanced (videos of a live band in a small bar turned out great, where my previous camera would have sounded a little muffled) and you can use the zoom while recording [I think it says in the manual that you can't, but mine does].

I'm really happy with it. The external battery charger is almost required. When I recharge using the USB cable, it never seems to charge fully or last very long. But that is also expected (based on my past cameras). This is my first Kodak in a decade and I'm really happy with it.

Summary: Great pictures

Comment: This ais a very nice camera, very fast does a great job on pictures. Will go thru batteries fast but then again it does a lot so nothing I did not expect. Picture quality is very good camera takes pictures fast. It is a real good step between a regular camera and the slr at a much lower cost. I am very satisfied with this product.

Summary: Nice bridge camera

Comment: This is my second Kodak camera in the last six months (the previous one was a V803). Since a real DSLR is out of my budget at the moment I got this one as a transition step. Most of my experience has been from point a shot cameras so this is my first encounter with PASM modes. To be fair, the camera performs as expected. I do not like smart modes since they get the "Perfect Touch" automaticaly applied and also tends to select higher ISO values wich results in a bit noisy pictures. In the positive side, smart capture mode has a function to track your subject once it gets focused that is realy nice and handy. Scene modes are more than enough for casual, family and landscape photos. If you are looking for an affordable way to get yourself into the aperture/shutter speed concerns then this camera is a sure bet for learning it without losing the point and shot simplicity. What I really miss in this camera is the ability to save photos in raw format (Z1015 IS does it already, although I don't know how good it's at it), KODAK should consider to offer that functionality to Z1012 owners (even it they charge them for that I'd take it). Picture quality is very good, especialy in well lit conditions. I don't give it a five stars because of the annoying wasted time with the "proccesing" message that freeze the camera from time to time. I honest want to make clear that am not a professional so I might be not 100 percent accurate but I positively recommend this one to everyone.

Summary: Popup flash stops popping up

Comment: The popup flash is a big issue with camera like this. The popup flash stopped popping up for my camera and the camera is basically useless. The camera also shuts down every once in a while for no reason and I miss precious shots. I loved the camera initially because of all the features it has but now I hate it.