Kodak Zi8 Overview
The Zi8 is designed like many pocket video camera, it has the candy bar style with the lens at the top. We received the raspberry version of the Zi8, but it also comes in black and aqua. The lens on the Zi8 is a 6.3 mm, f/2.8, fixed focus lens. Beside the lens is an activity LED and microphone.
The front of the Zi8 actually easily slides off to allow you to install the rechargeable lithium ion battery. Having a rechargeable battery is nice, but having one that is removable is also a good thing. This means if for some reason the battery is faulty you can just replace the battery not the entire camera.
Flipping the camera over you can see the large 2.5-inch LCD screen. That’s quite a large screen for a pocket video camera. Below the screen you have your controls which consist of directional button in the middle, settings & delete button on the left and a camera & review button on the right.
Starting on the left side of the camera you have the power button and SD / SDHC card slot. Now unlike other pocket video cameras Kodak has not gone with internal memory so to record anything of great length you will need an SD or SDHC card. The Zi8 supports SDHC cards up to 32GB and it does have 128MB of internal memory. There is a USB connection that comes out of the left side of the camera was well so you don’t need a card reader to transfer videos to your computer.
Moving over to the right side of the camera, at the top there is an external microphone jack, which means you can capture stereo quality audio when you are recording things if you choose to use an external microphone. Below the microphone jack you have a mini HDMI and mini A/V connections. And finally below that you have your power input.
At the top of the camera is a slider that will let you switch between normal shooting mode and macro shooting mode. On the bottom is a tripod mount and a loop hole for a wrist strap.