On 5 Dec 2005 08:02:21 -0800, wrote:
Firstly, I assume that this statement is correct, in as far as the Z740
does not include an image stabilizer, which most longer zoom (5x or
greater) normally do include?

Correct.

Secondly, on a practical level, how much does this impact on the
quality of the photo? For example, can you *only* get a perfect
picture if you use a tripod, no matter how still you hold the camera?
Is the difficulty directly related the length of the zoom (ie: you
must hold the camera more still at 10x zoom than you would at say 5x
zoom to get the same sharpness)?

It's a question of how much light does the camera need to take a sharp
picture. Basically, as the light level goes down, the camera has to keep
the shutter open for a longer time, which means that blurring from shake
becomes more of an issue. The rule of thumb is shutter times of 1/focal
length are OK; so for the 740 at full zoom, if the shutter speed is
1/400s or faster you'd be fine. At 5x zoom, you could get away with
1/200s or thereabouts and could take blur-free pictures in lower light.
A stabilizer, by cancelling out some of the vibrations, allows slower
shutter speeds (1/60 or 1/40 at full zoom would be typical).

If your daughter is likely to do most of her photography in full
daylight, a stabilizer doesn't add much. Indoors or outdoors in
twilight, it'll be a big help.

As mentioned, the camera is for my daughter, who is not a professional
photographer, or a even a prosumer. However, she would like to take
nice photos that don't look blurry, obviously.

I really like the 10x optical zoom lens, but I am begining to wonder
whether I should drop down to a lower zoom camera that either has an
image stabilizer, or one that doesn't need one?

Panasonic sells the LZ2, which has a 6x zoom lens with a stabilizer for
about $210 or so. Other than that, I think most/all of the cameras with
stabilizers are 10x/12x zooms that are above your price bracket.

Secondly, on Kodak's web-site they recommend using a 512MB SD flash
card. Does this mean that the Z740 will not accept a 1GB SD flash
card, as that is what I was planning on getting. If it does accept a
1GB card, why would I opt to use a 512MB instead of a 1GB?

Should be fine. 512 was probably recommended because it's (a) the
smallest 'useful' card these days and (b) is cheaper than 1G. Some
people recommend a pair of 512s instead of one 1G to give some
redundancy in the (unlikely) event of a card failure.

Also, would the Z740 take advantage of hi-speed SD flash memory or not?
I checked the specs on Kodak's web-site but could not find any mention
of memory speed or access times. If so, what speed memory would I get
to get the best performance from the camera? (ie: 60x, 100x, 133x, 10
MB/s, 15 MB/s, etc....)

For example, I looked on the Kingston memory web-site, and it states
that generally camera's up to and including 5.0 MPs (which the Z740 is)
work fine with the standard SD flash memory.

Camera's higher than 5.0 MPs, SLR cameras, or those that have burst
mode (or continuous) shooting would either benefit, or require the
faster flash memory. The Z740 does have the burst mode option -- would
the burst mode only work if you had faster flash memory or not?

According to the review of the 740 at
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/kodakz740/page4.asp
the burst mode is quite slow, as is the write-to-card operation. I
wouldn't bother with the more expensive fast cards.

-dms