Kodak PIXPRO Astro Zoom AZ252-RD 16MP Digital Camera with 25X Optical Zoom and 3" LCD (Red)

This camera has a lot of settings and modes, most of which I haven't figured out. It has zoom and macro. I use rechargeable batteries to keep the battery cost down. It fell into a creek with me last year. After a few weeks, it started working again and has been working every since. Note that Kodak sold the rights to their name for cameras when they went bankrupt, so this Kodak has nothing to do with the historic Kodak headquartered in New York.

I think most, if not all, of the negative reviews talking about issues with auto focus have been user error. This is not exactly a point and shoot camera. The main thing that's easy to overlook is that you have to hold the shutter button down halfway until the square on the screen turns green, then you push it the rest of the way down. If you don't do that, the AF doesn't work as intended. If a standard point and shoot is what you're looking for, you probably won't love this camera. But if you don't mind learning how to play with the settings a bit and recognize that its a learning process, this camera is capable of really amazing pictures. I definitely didn't want something too complicated, but I wanted more than a point and shoot, and this is a nice compromise, especially for the price. Of course I'm sure its not going to produce the quality of the more expensive DSLR cameras, but I'm not a pro, I just want decent pictures of my son that my generic Android smart phone can't produce, and this more than fits the bill. And like I said, I wasn't impressed with the point and shoot cameras in my price range, especially with a fast moving toddler in a variety of scenes. I needed something with more customizable features and this camera fits my needs exactly.

Camera is gorgeous to look at. Needs four batteries instead of two. This will cost more to run. Can put together easily and take some pictures. So far it works. Pics turn out blurry. Thanks for fast shipment. Will be a big challenge and everyone knows me that I take too many pictures. It is going to take months to figure this one out. I take pictures all the time. The manual is not inside I have to go look it up online and it has very many pages. Should be a printed manual and put inside the box. Why not? Kodak do better next time! Complicated. This camera is very heavy and I have arthritis so I had to go by a used, cheaper Kodak old camera so I could hold it in my hand. My other Kodaks lasted many, many years but mine broke finally. This one is too fancy better for a professional camera not one if you want a easy camera.

Replacement for my older model Z-5010 which still takes good photos but the recycle time between shots has increased. The AZ-252 uses standard AA batteries and the 25X zoom is about the hand-held limit. The 14 or 16 MP files have more than enough detail for processing. The camera is light-weight, carries easily in a waist pack and the lens cap fits tightly. I find the pressure for focus preview on the shutter button is a bit too sensitive and I wind up with a few inadvertent photos. Very good camera for the price with more features than I will ever use.

Recently started selling items online, I needed a new camera but with finances tight couldn't afford top of the line, but found this one. Even with having to buy additional storage (the one inside is only for testing or something as you can only take 2-3 pics) and a case to hold it, still was a good price. That said, this is really only for beginners, if you're into photography, I'm sure there are better options out there, just probably more expensive.

This is a nice camera. Seems well made and takes good photos as far as I can tell. This came without a users manual. There is a website listed with the camera to download a manual, but the site listed is not working. I did find the information at Kodak.com. 97 pages! Really? Way too much for me to print, so I guess I will never know how to use this camera completely.

UPDATE 2: Years later, I ran into this piece of garbage in my rarely-used junk, and experienced a new wave of regret for having bought this. So I came back here to drop it all the way to 1 star, which I should have done the first time. After my previous update, I tried trading it in at a local camera shop, but they wouldn't even trade it for a memory card.UPDATE: I dropped another star because when turned OFF, in theory doing nothing but maintaining the clock, it kills a set of 4 Lithium Energizer AAs in less than 9 months. In July last year, I had to replace the batteries from the last time they died on their own, then I took 3 pictures that day and put it back in its case until today (April 2021) and now they are dead. Unless it just happened to die right before today, it probably killed the batteries earlier than that. For comparison, I have an old Canon a720 (only uses 2 AAs) which was sitting around for about the same amount of time, and it's still working.Original review below, not modified.This camera is a bit hard to compare given how few major brand models are still available (Kodak Pixpro is a 3rd party generic which licensed the brand name).The overall image quality is slightly beneath what you used to get from a Canon, but current Canon models in this range and a little higher have almost no manual controls. So the upside here is manual controls at a lower price which fits the image quality. Not bad.My biggest complaint is that the auto-focus can get confused and, despite having a manual mode with both aperture and shutter speed control, there is no manual focus. When taking a macro picture, it constantly focused slightly behind where I wanted it (despite setting it to center/spot). I had to pre-focus with a half press and then slide the camera back. Being able to set a long shutter time to get night shots is normally a benefit of manual controls, but when it's a distant shot at night the auto focus can't find anything to focus on so you get a well-exposed blur. No way to set it manually, not even a forced infinity toggle. This would be nothing but a menu option in a camera which already has numerous on-screen settings (eg, the auto/macro menu which pops up), but I guess whoever designed this just didn't know that this is something you might need.It's still not a bad deal if you want a long zoom during the day and won't be doing macro shots too close.