Kodak Zi8 Detailed Review

I’m addicted to receiving packages in the mail from the Interwebs.

The Kodak Zi8

I got this little gadget because one of my core competencies is being silly and I want to practice acting like an idiot in front of a camera. You never know, one day you might find yourself on vacation or with a new family member and you want to be just entertaining enough not to bore yourself or your audience to insanity.

Let’s just jump right in and review this thing, shall we?

PART I: The Hardware

The Lens

See that picture up there? Makes you think the lens has a nice big easy to wipe off covering like the Flip UltraHD does, doesn’t it? Not so.

There is a flat element covering the lens — including anti-reflective coating that gives it a green sheen (not visible above) — but it’s recessed, and small. That means it will be harder to get it gunky with fingerprints, and harder to clean when it does get dirty.

Build

It feels about as durable as a cell phone. Drop it on a carpeted floor, but not on tile or concrete. Throw it in a purse or a pocket, but not in with the key chain. The plastic finish is very smooth and attracts fingerprints like nobody’s business.

Buttons and Switches

There are four buttons — Settings, Delete, Record, Playback — and a four-way joystick. I have no problem operating the joystick, and I have average-to-large fingers.

The power button does need to be held for about 1/4 second before it turns on. I think this is to keep it from being turned on accidentally. In my experience any button that can be clicked accidentally in a pocket can be held down for 1/4 second or more in a pocket, but I’m no UI engineer.

The macro switch on the top feels fine, but I wish it were a push-button on the back, not a big switch on top. That would make it less annoying to change while recording: you can see the camera shake and hear the click when you switch it. Small detail, but great products are great because they pay attention to tiny details.

UPDATE: There’s a reason why the macro switch is the way it is. A good reason, including a sneaky trick. See TIPS AND TRICKS below.

The Screen

I have absolutely no problem with this screen. It is a nice size, bright enough for daylight, and sharp. There are small black bars above and below the actual recording image; status info (record mode and battery level below, recording icon and elapsed time above) lives in the bars, not on the image itself.

Recording Light

As with all other video cameras, there is a little red light near the lens to tell you when you’re recording — or being recorded. On other cameras like the Flip UltraHD you can disable this light. On the Zi8 you cannot. At least not as of firmware v1.05.

USB Dongle

A release on the bottom unsheathes the concealed USB plug. Then you pull it out using a fingernail, kind of like the blade on a Swiss Army Knife. The connection between the plug and the device itself is rugged and flexible.

I prefer this to the Flip cam’s rigid USB plug which makes me think I’ll break something if I don’t hold the cam in the right position while it’s plugged in.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that I chose THIS camcorder over the Flip UltraHD because this one also takes still pictures. I have a nice Olympus dSLR but I also want a pocket camera with me all the time that I can whip out for snapshots. Taking notes, Pure Digital? How many sales have you lost by not including this easily implemented feature?

PART II: Firmware Updates

I should point out that when I received it I updated the firmware to v.1.03. I have since updated it to v1.05.

I’ll bet all the reviews I’ve read were done on earlier versions. I read reports of various issues: audible whine during recording (fixed in 1.03); slow to respond to button presses (fixed in 1.03); zoom function is jerky (still present in 1.03 but fixed in 1.05).

Kudos to Kodak for quick turn-around on resolving issues. Unfortunately, I have two problems with Kodak’s firmware updates:

1. They are not announced anywhere that I can find. Nobody wants to remember to check your webpage every week for new updates, Kodak. Please provide a firmware announcement mailing list, or have a firmware release news page with an RSS feed;


2. The firmware updates hardly describe the changes made. The 1.05 update had this to say: “improves the following features: Audio recording and playback; Digital Zoom; User Interface.”

   Yep, the digital zoom issue is gone. No, I can’t detect any audio differences since 1.03. Perhaps they mean it’s improved since 1.01? I can’t find any changes in the User Interface, either. What was the change?

   I do notice that the available recording time estimate has changed from 1.03 to 1.05. No mention of that? I think that’s pretty important, don’t you? I did some tests and I notice that the average video bit-rate has gone up. Better quality? That would be worth mentioning, wouldn’t it? As would the apparent improvement to the EIS function?

   Other companies are more specific about their changes and we users appreciate that, Kodak. Please provide more detailed RELEASE NOTES.

Zi8 LINUX FIRMWARE UPDATES
Speaking of firmware updates, you can update the firmware on Linux! Their firmware website says there are no downloads for Unix, but you can do it. Here’s how I did it:

1. Visit http://www.kodak.com/global/mul/service/downloads/DownloadLookup.jhtml?pq-path=15372/15504&product=EKN036561. I know it says no downloads for Unix. Choose Windows XP; download the .EXE.
   
2. Use the unzip command (unzip should come with your linux distribution) to extract the files from the .EXE. Works for 1.03 and 1.05; I expect it will work for future updates.
   
3. Follow the directions provided on the website for the rest of the update.

PART III: In Use

It powers up quickly and it remembers the mode and settings you were using to record last, with one exception: the audio gain control resets to the default setting every time you power up instead of remembering how you set it last time. It does remember your other settings. Why not this one?

I find that the default mic gain records my voice a little too quietly, unless I speak really loud while recording. Each time I power it up I have to remember to adjust the gain. Annoying.

I have absolutely no problem with the quality of the video or audio recorded by this device aside from that one little glitch above.

YouTube

YouTube celebrity Charles Trippy did at one point buy a Zi8 and he returned it in favour of the Flip UltraHD after a brief comparison. I can’t for the life of me find that video right now. I guess it wasn’t tagged with “Kodak” or “Zi8″.

His complaints: the quality of the video seemed worse than the Flip and the video took forever to process.

Thing is, he recorded his test videos in 1080p. Naturally that video will take forever to process compared to the Ultra’s 720p.

I don’t know why but the field of view is narrower in the Zi8′s 1080p and the light sensitivity is lower in this mode as well as in 720p/60s. The field of view and light sensitivity are similar to the UltraHD when using 720p/30s.

This means he’s comparing apples to oranges.

The video processing from 1080p to 720p for YouTube (a 2nd gen. compression) probably makes quality worse than a straight 720p recording as well as taking twice as long.

Bottom line: if you are recording for YouTube, use 720p @ 30s to get the most out of this camera.

PART IV: Recording Modes

1080p

The level of detail recorded at 1080p is superior to that recorded at 720p, but not by as much as I expected.

I also find that the camera is less sensitive to light in 1080p mode: not a problem outside, but if you are indoors you might get better video at 720p/30s than at 1080p.

Finally, as noted above, the field of view is narrower at 1080p. If you’re filming someone’s face and it fits perfectly at 720p, it will probably be too cropped in 1080p.

720p/60s

This mode is great for filming action, or basically any scene where you might want to provide a slow-motion replay.

Slo-mo replay is pretty popular on YouTube (and other) videos — see Failblog for examples — so I think this is a great feature that makes this an outstanding camera for a lot of people.

As noted earlier, the camera is less sensitive to light in 720p mode. This makes sense: your slowest available exposure is 1/60s (ideal) versus 1/30s in the other video modes (and perhaps longer in snapshot mode).

720p/30s

This is where most users will set their Zi8 over 90% of the time; the entree to the other modes’ appetizer.

I have no qualms with any aspect of the video: field of view is fine; quality is fine; light sensitivity is fine; colour saturation is fine.

All these are comparable to the Flip UltraHD videos I have viewed (too many, sadly… the internet is the new television). I notice that the audio seems slightly better than with the Flip, and the colours are more vibrant than with the Sanyo VPC-CG10 — at least according to a side-by-side comparison I watched on YouTube.

WVGA

I have not yet used this mode. I’m not sure why anyone would want to.

I suppose if you were filming a small video to embed in a webpage and you aren’t planning to edit and re-compress it later this might be useful?

Still Camera Mode

This is exactly what you expect it is: an extra feature tacked onto a camcorder intended for video, at the cost of some extra developer time.

Pictures are captured at (or perhaps up-sampled to) 3072 x 1728 (5.2MP). My test photo came in at 1.2MB. Quality wise it’s nothing to write home about.

Anyone expecting a decent still-photo camera should not buy this unit. It is the ultimate point-and-shoot, and by that I mean you have absolutely no manual control. The image looks compressed, although not so badly that there are compression artifacts.

This function is perfect for my needs. I wanted a pocket video camera that I can also use for candid snapshots. As I mentioned earlier, if I want to take a quality photo I’ll use my quality dSLR. Ultimately this was the decision-breaker for me between the Flip UltraHD and the Kodak Zi8. I’m glad I chose this camera.

Filming yourself

Other cameras like the Sanyo VPC-CG10 and Sony Webbie HD have aimable screens or rotating lens fixtures so that you can use the screen to frame yourself well. With the Zi8, as with the Flip camcorders, if you want to film yourself you have to face the screen away from you.

Not a big deal for most users: as demonstrated in a bajillion YouTube videos, vloggers quickly get the hang of aiming well. On the other hand, it would be nice to have for perfectionists like me who might be filming part of a presentation for work. Imagine delivering your lines perfectly on the 20th take only to discover that your head was half out of frame the whole time.

PART V: TIPS AND TRICKS

While-Recording Light

All video cameras have a little light near the lens that glows while it’s recording.

Is this a good thing? In some cases, yes. If you’re hanging with friends and making a fool of yourself or perhaps wearing less clothing than you’d like publicly displayed, it’s nice to know if someone’s just playing with their gadget or actually recording you, so that you can go talk to them about where they might or might not want to post that bit of footage.

On the other hand, most people don’t act naturally when they know they’re being recorded. The red light is practically a cue to freeze up, shuffle feet and mumble. Assuming your subjects are okay with you recording them, having that red light off will make for better recorded moments.

Having the red light off will also help you avoid the attention of over-zealous mall security officers and other employees who don’t understand your right to take pictures in public places. Sadly, examples of this type of suppression of freedom are all too easily found.

So what’s this tip? Simple: cover the light with a small piece of black electrician’s tape. Problem solved. Remember to trim the tape so it doesn’t cover the lens or especially the microphone which is right beside the light — or use an external mic.

The Macro Focus Switch

At first I was a little annoyed at the macro switch on top of the camera. If you change the switch while you’re recording, it makes an annoying click and shake in your footage. If it were a button on the back, you could change modes less obviously.

As it turns out, this is actually a mechanical switch that moves the first lens element behind the protective cover. You can see it rotate slightly as you flip the switch. There’s also an electrical connection to tell the camera the switch moved, although it looks like this is only used to update the status bar with a macro flower icon.

The cool thing about this is that you can shift the switch part-way, so that it focuses somewhere in between infinity and the macro focus point two inches in front of the camera.

This is especially important when you notice that the hyper-focal distance for this camera starts somewhere *just* beyond arm’s reach. In other words, if you hold your camera at arm’s length and aim it back at your face… well, you’re not quite perfectly in focus.

The disadvantage is that it takes a little manual dexterity to get that switch in the right position part-way between on and off. If being perfectly in focus is important to you and you have short arms, though, you can do it.

PART VI: Not Terribly Useful

Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS)

EIS is supposed to help people with shaky hands produce a steadier video.

Early reviews of this function revealed that it is not terribly effective. Reviewers were barely able to tell the difference between having it enabled versus not, except that it eats through your battery faster when it’s on.

Firmware v.1.05 has improved the EIS function. At least, you can see a difference in the little screen as you record.

I did four quick test videos: one each with EIS on and off in 720p/60 and 720p/30. Each was about 15 seconds. In each I tried three things: holding the camera steady; simulating someone who’s had too much coffee; and panning.

EIS seemed to help during panning and it seemed to help if the camera was already being held quite steady. It didn’t help with shaky-hands syndrome. In no case did I ever notice rock-steady video.

My conclusion: still barely detectable difference, unless you do a lot of panning. Not worth the extra battery consumption. If you need steady video, use a tripod.

Face Recognition

This feature works by adjusting the exposure so that any face it detects is well-lit. This would come in handy if you’re shooting someone with the sun behind them, or someone in shadow standing in front of a bright scene.

It does seem to work. It was even able to detect my cat’s face. Maybe it just looks for eyes and noses?

It loses you if you turn away from the camera, though. If you’re shooting a scene where your subjects aren’t well lit with respect to the ambient light and they aren’t continually facing the camera, repeated exposure changes while the camera detects people and then loses them might be annoying.

Then again, it might not. This camera is designed for people like me shooting random candid-type hand-held videos. There’s no expensive dollies or steadicam rigs and the camera-work is not going to be perfect. Honestly, if you’re producing a planned video, you’re probably going to have a more sophisticated camera and you’re certainly going to take the time to light it well.

This is a pretty neat feature, and I think any difference it makes is going to be good. If you’re shooting your child playing in the park, you don’t want to worry about light and stuff. You just want to see smiles and drooling.

Personally, I keep it off to save the extra battery consumption.

I’ll probably turn it on whenever I shoot people. If I remember.

Heck, I have to go into the settings menu to fix the audio gain every time, anyways.