Kodak Zi6 Camcorder Review

There is no menu and no way to change manual controls, except for the 2x digital zoom.

Still Performance (3.17)
The still performance is tested by shooting an X-Rite color chart at an even, bright light, then running the stills through Imatest imaging software for data on color accuracy, noise, and saturation. Typically, we shoot at a number of exposure settings and score based on the best performance. But there is no option here on exposure. So we pointed the camcorder are the target and hoped for the best. Here's what we found:

The Kodak Zi6 produced a color error of 18.9. This is an incredibly poor score, nearly twice the error of a standard camcorder. The noise measured 0.7975%, which is actually a decent score. The saturation is far too high, measuring 135% according to Imatest.

Still Resolution (1.09)
The still resolution is tested by shooting an Applied Image ISO 12233 resolution chart at an even, bright light, then rung through Imatest imaging software. As we explained in the previous section, the still image tests are normally shot under a number of exposure settings, then we pick the best one. As there is no exposure control, or really any control, we just shot in auto mode.

The Kodak Zi6 produced a horizontal resolution of 285.3 line widths per picture height (lw/ph). (Due to the low quality of the image and various internal processing, this test produced a high clipping error of 5.32%, which does diminish the exactitude of this score. However, the Kodak Zi6 has no manual controls that would allow us to try and less the clipping.) The vertical resolution measured 378.6 lw/ph (this clipping error was lower, measured at 2.91%).

These scores were not very good.