Consumer Reports and digital cameras

Consumer Reports had nice things to say about the Kodak Z1012 IS digital camera. You can read a little bit about it here.

This 12x optical zoom camera is handy for those occasions when you're far away from your subject and there's plenty of daylight. Like when you're up in the bleachers at a football game, or trying to photograph a wild animal from a distance. Superzoom cameras like the Z1012 IS and Panasonic's FZ series are reasonable substitutes for a digital SLR, which can cost a few hundred dollars more.

One really good feature on this camera: it's got a very good digital HD video function. I've used a Kodak superzoom to record a concert in a college recital hall, and got very satisfying results. (The lights were on throughout the performance; I don't know how well it would work in a dark auditorium.)

All this said: Consumer Reports is like the Kmart of product reviews. They review toasters, dishwashers, Hyundais, and DVD players. If you find this particular camera intriguing, I'd suggest hunting up a few reviews on other websites, like Steve's Digicams or DPReview; they spend most of their time reviewing digital cameras and lenses, not toasters. So I tend to take their recommendations a bit more seriously.

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