Image Quality

All the pictures in this test were taken at the full 12 megapixel resolution JPEG with the exception of the resolution test and when testing RAW. Image sizes vary from picture to picture but average out at around 6.15Mb in the fine setting JPEG. Knocking the quality down to normal drops the file size down to around 4Mb. A substantial difference if you're on a day out and want to take pots of pictures. Just remember the images won't look as good extra large. Our main grumble with the file quality settings is that there's no option for recording both JPEG and RAW.

On the surface, image quality from the Z990's new BSI sensor looks exceptional. It's always good to prepare yourself to find noise and loss of image quality because of the size of the sensor and the amount of pixels crammed onto it. This is true in the Z990 because noise starts to creep in quite early. Sure, there's a noise reduction facility and it works well in most cases but there's just one or two pictures that we found a bit too much image degradation. In most cases, we found that noise was controlled sufficiently up until around ISO 800 where there's a noticeable drop in quality. Sharp edges become more fuzzy and purple colouring starts to show in shadowy parts of the picture.

By ISO 3200, the Z990 has started damage control and begins to smooth out detail in an attempt to lose noise but it can't erase the green and purple blobs in the dark and mid-range areas. The final ISO 6400 setting shows invasive colour and nasty artefacts all over the pictures. It's not a setting for the faint-hearted, you should only use this if you really have to. But then, you have a flash built-in so unless you want flashless pictures in the dark, stay away from the ISO 6400 setting.

Colours are very realistic from the Z990 and Kodak have done an excellent job with the sensor. We really love how the primary colours are handled. They don't clash with any other colours and they're rich and saturated. However, the camera does suffer from chromatic aberration which, for the uninitiated, is a small purple line around the edges of high contrasting subjects. It's down to the colours not focusing correctly on the sensor and it's all very scientific so we're not going to go into the ins and outs. However as a general rule of thumb, the better the lens quality, the less chromatic aberration (AKA chroma, CA, colour fringing or purple fringing) in the picture. Most digital cameras suffer so it's not too much to worry about and we only found it on very high contrast images.

The built-in flash is a pop-up type that sits over the lens barrel. It can't be manually raised... well, it can but you have to ram your nails under the flash to do it, so it's not advisable! The flash works very well, there's a nice even spread regardless of the focal length. With portraits, there's a risk of getting red-eye but because the flash pops up, it raises it on an oblique angle to the lens so there's no trace of red-eye even without the red-eye reduction setting on.

The Kodak Z990 has two macro types: macro and macro plus. Normal macro mode has a middle-of-the-road 10cm close focusing distance but the super macro can get in even closer at the loss of the zoom. According to the Kodak website, the closest it can focus is 1cm, but we found that the lens was all but touching objects and we still got a satisfying two-tone beep.

Noise

There are 7 steps of ISO on the Kodak z990 Max from ISO125 to ISO6400. Noise performance is good with image quality only really starting to become an issue at ISO800. You can check the findings for yourself using the 100% crops below.

ISO 125 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Kodak EasyShare Z990's 30x lens has a very versatile focal range, as demonstrated by the examples below.

28mm	840mm

Sharpening

Straight out of the camera, the pictures do benefit from a standard sharpen in Photoshop. The great thing about the Kodak is that it has a sharpening menu in camera. However, the actual sharpening that's applied to the pictures is minimal to the point it's hardly noticeable.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The Kodak Z990 has two file quality settings, Fine and Medium. Here are a couple of 100% crops which show the quality of the two options.

12M Fine (6.18Mb) (100% Crop)	12M Medium (4.02Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Kodak does suffer from chromatic aberration but only mildly. It's to be expected with a digital compact camera and it does handle it quite well.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

With two macro functions, which one you decide to choose will depend on the subject you're shooting and whether you need to use the zoom function or not. We found that the macro plus gives awesome depth of field.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The only 3 flash functions (aside from turning it off) are red-eye preflash, forced on and auto. We managed to get some lovely shots of backlit subjects using the pop-up flash. There's also a flash compensation option in the unlikely event of the image being too dark or bright. There's no sign of light fall off at the edges of the frame at either end of the focal range which is great. The test pictures were taken at a distance of around 1.5m.

Off - Wide Angle (28mm)	Fill-in - Wide Angle (28mm)
Off - Telephoto (840mm)	Fill-in - Telephoto (840mm)

And here are some portrait shots. Neither the Flash On and the Auto/Red-eye Reduction settings caused any amount of red-eye.

Fill-in	Fill-in (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

You'd think that with manual settings, getting a perfectly balanced long exposure would be easy and it is easily adjustable. However, there's no indication that the picture will be over or under exposed without getting the histogram. Once focus is locked, the information on the display screen disappears so if the exposure changes, there's no way of knowing if it's out of exposure range.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

HDR

The Z990 has a HDR (high dynamic range) artistic effect, which can be turned On of Off.

Off	On

Panorama

The Z990's Automatic Panorama mode captures a 180 degrees horizontal or vertical view in a continuous burst until you release the shutter, much like Sony's Sweep Panorama mode.

Full-size Image

Passport

The Kodak Z990 has a passport scene mode which mimics the passport booths that you find in shopping centres.

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Kodak EasyShare Z990 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Kodak Z990 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Kodak RAW (KDC) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.

Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Lens Extended

Front of the Camera / Pop-up Flash

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Quick Menu

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Video Mode

Rear of the Camera / Quick Menu

Top of the Camera / Image Search

Bottom of the Camera / Processing

Rear of the Camera / Image Playback

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

It's easy to say that the Z990 is arguably one of the best digital compact cameras that Kodak have released. The picture quality is excellent, we were extremely impressed with the tonal rendition and accuracy of colours. The new sensor seems to be doing its job by reducing noise very well at the low to mid-range ISO settings. It's great to see that Kodak are getting into the back illuminated sensor market simply because it means a better quality image for the consumer.

The build quality is very good although there are notable flaws such as the plastic tripod bush and unresponsive buttons. One of the biggest issues with the Z990 is the buttons and switches being so unresponsive. If you want to shoot in a hurry, forget it. Choose a different camera.

At times it took us up to a minute to turn the Z990 on, we had trouble zooming in and out as the camera seemed to ignore the commands entirely and entering the menu at the top of the screen could be a nightmare. The weird thing was that sometimes the Z990 would execute commands straight away and other times it seemed to take an age.

At one point when we were shooting a football match, we missed a lot of opportunities because the Z990 wouldn't zoom in or allow us to choose a different ISO setting. Another key issue regarding speed is the processor. Pictures take a long time to download onto the card from the sensor and don't expect the camera to allow you to do anything. It completely locks up. It would have been nice of it to allow us to make adjustments to the settings or something but we just got a half black, half blue image that simply said processing. It's extremely infuriating but if you're not in a rush, then you won't be bothered by this.

There's lots of features packed into the Z990 and the long zoom just adds to it. The image stabiliser seems to work well and the range is enough to contend with the latest 30x optical megazoom cameras. For the price, you get a lot of camera. It would be nice to see past innovations such as the vertical grip, but it's not detrimental to the camera. The Z990 certainly has enough going on it to keep a photographer interested. This camera would suit a keen photographer who likes to enjoy nature without the tediousness of having to walk everywhere, especially one who isn't in a rush to get the job done. If that's you, I think you'll really like the Kodak EasyShare Z990.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	3.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	4.5

Specifications

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