Kodak Zi6 High Definition Pocket Video Camera – Black
Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at
4:12 am
- Kodak Pocket Video Camera ZI6 Black
• Kodak Z16 pocket video camera• Easy to use video camera with no lens cap, dials or settings• Simply switch on and hit record• Features HD recording at 60 fps with 16:9 aspect ratio and 2.4
ZI6 Digital Pocket CamcorderLife moves fast. Grab it in HD.FeaturesRecording TypeHD Memory Card Megapixel3 Megapixels Optical zoom2 xBattery technologyLithium Ion Internal memory128 MB Compatible memory cardsSD/ SDHC LCD Screen Size2.4 InterfaceUSB 2.0 Hi Speed Warranty1 Years Warranty … more >>
Rating: 
(out of 37 reviews)
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Tagged with: Black • Camera • Definition • easy use video cameras • High • Kodak • kodak z16 pocket video camera • Pocket • Video • video camera hd
Review by TRANCE MAN for Kodak Zi6 High Definition Pocket Video Camera – Black
Rating:
OK, I’ve just bought one and now had it for about 24 hours. The description on the side of the box reads…
* Kodak Zi6 Pocket Video Camera
* Wrist strap and pouch
* User guide
* Arcsoft media impression software (PC only)
* 2 AA rechargeable batteries NiMH (2000mAh, btw)
* Battery Charger (fits 2 batteries only)
* HD and AV cables (about 1 metre each)
Just to note. It does not come with an extra memory card which is essential to purchase on top of the unit. I bought an 8GB fast reading memory card of good quality which I think is crucial for huge HD files. The camera is apparently able to take 32GB memory cards. The VGA (lowest setting) resolution is fantastic for video sharing sites such as Youtube with no problems uploading the file direct from the pop-out USB plug built into the camera, via a PC. No software needs to be installed on your PC or MAC to do this task. The HD (highest setting) footage is awesome, especially plugged into an HD TV. You get a basic software application on CD-ROM (PC’s only) that lets you edit your footage which you are unable to do directly on the camera. The box description reads….
* Windows OS XP SP2 or Vista
- Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz processor or higher
- Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
* Macintosh OS X 10.4 or higher
* 1GB RAM
* 300MB available hard disk space
* 1024 x 768 display resolution
* USB port 1.1 or higher
* CD-ROM drive
The camera will suffer severely in dark/dim locations but makes up with being vibrant and crystal clear in daylight. You will need an extremely steady hand or a tripod too. I found you need to pan areas very, very slowly to reduce camera shake/blur and any noise your hands make on the unit will be picked up on the mic too (really annoying to hear back). It does not have image stabilisation and when you view back your footage on a huge 42″ HD TV, you will soon realise and learn just how steady you need to hold the camera while recording. The macro facility is amazing and can’t wait to experiment with it.
Another factor that seems to be coming to light is how power hungry the unit is. Some may opt for expensive lithium batteries or invest in another battery charger that can charge 4 x AA at a time in under an hour. The batteries that come with the unit take 15 hours to charge and soon drain. I intend taking my camera on holiday so I will need to buy one of those Super-Power battery charge units complete with numerous 2450mAh batteries to power this camera adding yet another extra cost as well as the memory card, so bear in mind all the added extras you may possibly need.
You will not be disappointed with this camera, just be weary of how the slightest camera shake while recording can be multiplied severely when viewing on a huge 42″ + HD TV can look. I think it’s going to be one of the best gadgets I’ve bought and perfectly ideal for Youtube addicts which I think Kodak has now cornered the market with.
Hope the above helps someone thinking about buying one, I’m glad I did.
Review by The Soft Machine Operator for Kodak Zi6 High Definition Pocket Video Camera – Black
Rating:
The Zi6 is a pocket sized video camera about the size of an ipod, just a bit thicker. It can record in VGA, HD or HD60 mode, but if you’re going to record anything substantial you’ll need an SD card – it only comes with 28MB of usable memory! This lasts for about 20 seconds on HD mode!
The camera itself is very usable, with two buttons and joystick to cycle between settings and start/stop recording or playback. This allows one handed use. The on switch is located on the top, which is not a great position – the side would have been better. After turning it on, you’ll find it’s ready for action almost straight away – which is a real plus point, as traditional cameras and still cameras that take video tend to be sluggish.
Quality of the video is very good in strong lighting, but takes a nosedive in low conditions, and the only zoom is a juddery 2x digital zoom. The HD setting gives impressive and clear results when the light is good. Moving from well lit scenes to poorly lit scenes seems to create a sudden change of picture quality, with the image adopting a sudden “washed out” feel that you get in low light. As there’s no illumination feature, then there’s not a lot you can do about this. The camera also takes stills, but the results are not very good unless the light is strong – a bit like a glorified phone camera, really.
The USB connector is a normal USB plug and is – strangely – built in. It flips out of the side when you press a button. This is OK for laptop use, but if your USB ports are on desktop PC, you’ll have to get an extension lead of leave the camera hanging off the PC.
A button on the side changes the camera’s focus from distant to macro to enable close up shots.
Batteries: it takes normal AA batteries and comes with two precharged and a charger (Although my Precharged ones were already virtually flat.)
Plus Points
* HD results are very good when light is good.
* Quick start up time
* One handed operation
* Box comes with an impressive accessories pack – a carry case, a strap, a HD lead, a normal AV lead, batteries & charger and video editing software.
Bad Points
* Quality of video is not very good in low light.
* Still camera suffers due to lack of illumination
* USB connector is not very good for use in desktops
* Digital Zoom is quite juddery at times.
If you want a small, pocket camera to take away with you, I’d recommend this. Getting it ready and operational is quick and the results can be very impressive in HD mode. If you want something for more general use, then I’d pay the extra and go for a proper, full size camera.
Review by Martyn Drake for Kodak Zi6 High Definition Pocket Video Camera – Black
Rating:
This little beauty is a pocket sized HD video camera suitable for everyday use. It makes bulky cameras a thing of the past and is so simple to use that even I can use it!
The image quality of the HD footage is remarkable for a device at this price. Outdoor and well lit environments look absolutely stunning, but much darker environments will be quite grainy (so make sure that when shooting in these environments you provide some kind of decent light source).
SDHC support up to 32Gb means no more knackered tapes and is quick to get started recording and reviewing recorded material on the device. Getting the video of the device is simplicity itself – on Macs (and PCs, I believe) these are presented as external drives and one only needs to copy or move the files from the device to your hard drive. All recordings are stored in the efficient H.264 video codec within a MOV container.
That said, the Kodak Zi6 is not going to be for absolutely everyone. To get the very best of out the device may require some post-production work.
The biggest issue for most people is going to be the lack of an image stabilizer. This was omitted to keep costs down, but in my humble opinion is not entirely a bad thing. This at least guarantees that the quality of video shot is top class. How stable the shot is depends on you. There are several ways of getting around this. For starters the Zi6 has a tripod mount which will fit any standard tripod fitting. As the Zi6 records in H.264 MOV format, footage can be brought into editing and FX packages and there are plenty of software available that can take of fixing stabilization issues.
As a Mac user, I use iMovie 7 (part of iLife 08) which manages the shot footage just fine. I use it to produce non-HD but high-quality widescreen videos suitable for YouTube when I want to both HD and non-HD material. PC users are catered for with software that’s bundled with the camera.
Switching between macro and non-macro mode is easy enough, but if one wants to get in real close you’ll have to stop recording, flick a switch, then start recording again. The switch is situated in an awkward place to be able to do it while filming at the same time. But this is no problem – just stop recording, flick the switch, start recording again and join everything together in your preferred video editing package.
I’d highly recommend getting a USB extender cable because trying to fit this device on a Macbook is a little crazy when you have a mouse plugged into the other USB port.
I like the inclusion of the soft cover carrying bag which also acts a decent lens wipe too when you accidentally put your fingers over the lens (although I still carry proper lens cleaning cloths to be safe).
The little joystick operates just fine, even with my sausage fingers as do the buttons that sit next to it.
The inclusion of the battery charger is well thought out along with two rechargeable AA batteries, and the fact the device can take regular standard AA batteries as well is excellent.
Kodak are onto a winner here and with a bit of practice and some post-production skills, you too and produce excellent high-definition home videos at a price that’s just right.
Review by J. Baldwin for Kodak Zi6 High Definition Pocket Video Camera – Black
Rating:
I already have a Flip Mino (see Flip Video Mino – Black (2GB)) and was very pleased with it, but was considering an upgrade to the new HD model. However that’s not yet available in the UK so, having read good things about the Kodak I decided to give it a try.
The Kodak is larger than the Flip and not in a good way – it doesn’t sit quite so comfortably in the hand and after a while I found that my hand would begin to shake. This revealed quite a serious drawback because while the quality of the video is stunning in HD mode, the Kodak Zi6 cannot cope with shake or any type of motion. A simple panning shot leaves it reeling.
For example, I used the Flip on a rollercoaster and obtained great results that look fantastic on a large screen HD TV (remember this is standard definition). I tried the Kodak on a Ferris wheel going at a moderate pace and you can’t make out a lot of it. Apparently it has to do with the Flip having a slightly wider field of view and if true it’s amazing Kodak didn’t think of this as for me it turns it in to a major disappointment. If you’re going to be doing anything other than static filming, you might want to give the Flip a go or wait for the HD version which will be out soon.
The Kodak scores over the Flip in that it uses a secure digital card so I currently have 4Gb in there compared with the 2 gigs of non-extendable flash memory on the Flip. However this translates in to an hour of HD versus an hour of SD. (You need to buy an SD card separately, by the way, so order one at the same time as you buy the camera!) Of course you can carry several cards with you which means no running to the laptop to transfer video. Here again I ran in to problems: the camera automatically appears in iPhoto on a Mac which is a good thing if you want to use iPhoto to store your video, and only a minor inconvenience if you don’t. But I found getting the camera to be recognised a chore – you have to turn it on first, plug it in to the USB socket, where the camera turns itself off, then wait for it to mount on the desktop. The USB stick is inconveniently placed for me, compared with the Flip. I have a lock on my laptop which means one of the USB ports is blocked (for the camera, anyway – it’s fine for everything else) so I have to use the other one. That means unplugging the power cord or sitting with my finger on it to keep the charge going! The USB stick that pops out seems quite flimsy too and I’m not convinced it will last. For some reason the camera won’t work with a USB extension cable.
Sound is okay. I used it outdoors to record a walk through the snow early in the morning and the camera shot beautiful video and excellent sound. Later that day I used it to film some student presentations indoors and the sound was dreadful, as was the video, even though there was more light (it seemed to overload the camera so faces were underexposed).
The camera isn’t as easy to use as the Flip. The joystick is fiddly and everyone I’ve given it to has immediately commented on it. Getting the camera to play video back isn’t particularly intuitive and I think the Flip wins hands down on this.
The phone can shoot in two HD modes (the higher framerate HD mode is pointless unless you will be creating sow motion video and soon burns through batteries and drive space) as well as standard definition and a still mode that was pretty poor.
So a mixed review really. Great video sometimes, and good sound too, sometimes, but I wouldn’t shoot a wedding with it if you wanted to be sure you could see and hear everything, and I wouldn’t shoot a kids party with it because of the camera shake. If I had a choice I’d probably stick with the standard definition Flip for ease of use, lack of camera shake and decent sound and video, but I may still be giving its HD successor a go the moment it arrives here in the UK, which shouldn’t be long.
Review by Jimbo for Kodak Zi6 High Definition Pocket Video Camera – Black
Rating:
This item arrived beautifully packaged, and on opening it up I began to wonder where the camera actually was. However, it is that small that it sits at the bottom of the box so I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down with all the items included and worked my way through them.
The camera is just bigger than a mobile (about the same size as an Ipod classic), looks great and from first glance you can see that it is easy to use. Indeed, the manual included is a mere 16 pages which shows you how simple this little gem is to pick up and start filming with. Also included is a small, functional carry case (with a carry strap) to stop you scratching the screen (and the lens), a small carry strap to attach to the bottom of the camera, the aforementioned manual, a set of AV leads (to connect to your TV – this also has audio leads), a set of HD leads (again to connect to your HD TV), a battery charger (which will charge the 2 AA batteries also supplied, but will also charge 2 AAA batteries at the same time) and a setup disc for your PC. I have found that the setup disc is not necessary, as other programs will assist you in transferring media to your PC, but the program is easy to use and lets you delete from your camera only when you have tranferred stuff over).
Now, on to the camera itself. I eagerly inserted the batteries without charging them and the camera switched on with no problem (although after about ten minutes use the camera told me my batteries were running low – serves me right for my impatience I suppose). It is, as I said earlier, a great looking camera, with a 2.5″ screen, a small built in speaker for playback and simple to operate buttons to switch on (on the top of the camera) and to use the camera all the buttons are in front of you (apart from the Close Up/Normal button which is on the side) – from the front you can record, playback (you can fast forward/rewind and even play in various slow motion speeds), delete files (dangerous!), zoom in and out and choose the mode of recording (HD60 – 16:9 at 60fps, HD 16:9 at 30fps, VGA (‘normal’ TV) and Still (photos at 3 megapixels). Quality is brilliant on the default setting (HD60), although the unit does struggle in bad lighting conditions on this setting, really good on HD, VGA is average and very watchable on a ‘normal’ TV (are old TVs still considered normal I wonder?), and the quality of stills is very good.
My chosen subject matter, my small baby son, was a great way to test out the various settings – whilst he is not that mobile at three mmonths old, he can still move about enough to test both my ability to record him, the frequencies the camera can record sound at (remarkably high pitched let me tell you). I managed to record him sat in his ‘swinging’ chair (which has a good amount of swing in it) with no problems, no blur was seen on playback and when viewing on my TV the quality of my footage was very pleasing indeed.
There are a few issues that you should be made aware of:
The first is the internal memory available for use is roughly 30mb. This will unfortunately only get you about 26 seconds worth of film on HD60 (albeit really, really good quality) and you will therefore need to invest in a good quality SD memory card (there are loads about and they are decreasing in price all the time).
The second is the unit only records in mono so the provision off stereo audio cables seesm a bit pointless.
The third is that the batteries take a long time to charge, and they are used up fairly quickly so you will probably need a spare set of rechargeables.
The fourth is that there is no flash for still photos. Now whilst the still photo quality is still good with dimly lit locations, perhaps a flash would have helped.
The fifth is that the ‘pop out’ USB connector, whilst it is a great innovation, I would be wary of inserting the camera straight into a USB port due to it’s weight. Best to invest in a USB extension cable if you don’t already have one.
All the above are minor gripes with what is otherwise a remarkably simple to use, great quality camera. For the price you cannot go wrong but please include the cost of an SD card (anything from £5 to £30 dependent on size) in your calculations. Highly recommended.