Kodak ZI6
I’m a few months away until my first-born child gets here so instead of spending time getting the baby’s room ready, I’ve been busy buying every gadget I can think of to catalog her life. I have no shame stating that I will be the dude in the front row with a video camera on a tripod, all the while taking enough still pictures to fill up a card. A few months ago I purchase the Nikon D40, and it turned out to be a wonderful purchase for still pictures.
Lately I had been looking into a new video camera, specifically one that would record in HD. I already have a pretty decent Canon video camera that will do in most planned situations, but what I really wanted was a super small camera that I could carry around in my pocket and would start up fast enough to capture just the right moment. I was led to the Flip Mino HD on a gadget blog, but after researching it for a few days it seemed like another camera would be just the ticket. The next day I went to Best Buy and picked up the Kodak ZI6 for $125.
It’s about the size of a cellphone and a little thicker. There are no flip out screens and no moving parts, so it is perfect to keep in your pocket. The main advantages over the Mino HD is that the Kodak can record on SD cards and also uses AA batteries. If you use regular Duracell batteries, be prepared to only get about 10 minutes of footage in small spurts. Using the Kodak rechargeable batteries included in the package can net around 45 minutes and replacement packages can be picked up for around $15 for a pack of 4. At most online electronic sites you can pick up a high capacity SD card for super cheap. I recently bought an 8GB SDHC card on Amazon for $12. An 8gb card will store about 2 hours of footage.
So far I’ve shot about an hour of short clips; mainly of my dogs and the walls and ceiling of my work bathroom while taking a dump. There are four modes of shooting: Still (5mp), VGA, HD, and HD60 which is 720p resolution at 60 frames a second. 4-D you say? Yep. There is even a macro setting for close ups. You can play back the video on the unit in a few short clicks or hook it up to a TV with the supplied component cables. The quality with a direct connection is wonderful. To play it back on a PC you can either remove the SD card or hit the mirrored button by the lens which ejects a USB connection from the side of the unit. One of the nice small features of the camera is that Kodak’s software is pre-installed on the camera and can be setup on any PC in seconds. The ArcSoft package will play back the videos or upload them directly to your YouTube account.
As with any gadget, there are several downsides that become apparent pretty quick. The main problem I’ve had so far is that the only mode worth a shit is HD60, and make sure that its broad daylight or a very well lit room. When the camera tries to focus on a dark subject you lose quite a bit of frames. The regular HD mode suffers from frame loss even when in a bright area. Just think about the clips of Oblivion running on a PS3 and you’ll know what I mean. The other problem that I’ve found is that most computers will have a hard time playing the video back smoothly unless you have a great graphics card and plenty of RAM. The files are created in H.264 MOV files so the native apps like QuickTime and VLC both have trouble playing the videos. The best option is the supplied software from ArcSoft but it isn’t very convienent since you have to start the program to use the player. I haven’t been able to find way to load the player only as the default program. Don’t even think about trying to edit them in Vegas or Premier unless you can run Crysis at full settings.
All in all, it does exactly what I need and the downsides aren’t that big of deal if you have a primary video camera that can handle low light and prolonged shoots. If you are looking for a second video camera that is under $200 and shoots in HD, its the best of the lot.
Search for it on YouTube for some other reviews and sample clips.
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