The Kodak Pixpro AZ362 ($249 list) is one of a few new models that marks the reentry of the Kodak brand name into the digital camera market. On paper it's an impressive compact zoom camera with a 16-megapixel CMOS image sensor, support for 1080p video capture, an impressive 6fps burst rate, and long 36x zoom lens. The build quality is actually pretty good, which is deceptive when you consider that the camera I reviewed shipped with a lens that's so badly decentered that the left half of the frame appears out of focus in every shot. That may not be indicative of the performance of every AZ362 to hit store shelves, but there are still much better options available. The General Electric X600 is a better-performing, less-expensive budget option. If you've got more money to spend, our Editors' Choice superzoom Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200sells for  about twice the cost of the AZ362, but it's more than twice the camera. The Pixpro A362 is one to avoid.

Design and Features

The AZ362 says "Kodak," but potential buyers should be aware that this camera was not, to borrow a phrase from Apple, "Designed by Kodak in Rochester, New York." As part of its successful attempt to emerge from bankruptcy, Kodak licensed its name to JK Imaging, a Chinese manufacturing company. I've looked at other made-in-China budget cameras (like the aforementioned General Electric X600) and found that the quality can be hit or miss. There are bargains to be found, but there also landmines to be stepped upon.

The AZ362 is styled like a scaled-down SLR, which is common for long-zoom compacts. It prevents the camera from sliding into a pocket, but makes room for a larger lens, and a handgrip that allows you to get a steadier handheld shot. That said it's not a huge camera by any means, measuring 3.2 by 4.4 by 3 inches (HWD) and weighing in at 14.7 ounces. It's noticeably bigger than the 2.7-by-4.1-by-3.2-inch, 12.3-ounce, 30x Canon PowerShot SX510 HS.

The lens is a 36x zoom design, covering a 24-864mm f/2.9-5.7 (35mm equivalent) range. It extends from the body when in use and has a two-stage telescoping design. You should be careful when holding this camera, the lens wobbles noticeably with only a slight touch. The next model up in the Pixpro series, the AZ521, doesn't suffer from this issue. Its 52x zoom lens is a solid tube that extends from the lens mount, and stays securely in place when touched. To show just how different 24mm and 864mm are, take a look at the next two photos, both captured from the same vantage point.

There are actually a good number of physical controls on the body. The top plate features a mode dial, power switch, shutter release, zoom rocker, and buttons to adjust the drive mode and control exposure. The latter uses the standard +/- icon that represents exposure compensation, but activates an overlay menu that allows you to adjust the aperture, shutter speed, EV compensation, and ISO. Not all of these options are available in every mode; for example, shooting in Program only gives you access to EV and ISO. Don't try and use the button if you're in Automatic—it doesn't do anything there. And, for some reason, ISO is locked to automatic when shooting in Shutter Priority, although it's a controllable option when working in Aperture Priority. Pointing out these foibles is probably for moot; this isn't a camera that a photographer who places value in manual control is going to pick up.

Rear controls include a record button for movies, and buttons to adjust the autofocus area, enable macro shooting, activate the self-timer, and control the flash output. There's an "i" button that controls the color output (options are Normal, Vivid, Vignetting, Salon, and Dreamy) and one that looks like bullet points and lines that brings up an on-screen overlay menu. From there you can control the metering pattern, image capture resolution, control the image stabilization system, toggle locked or continuous autofocus, utilize in-camera HDR processing, and access the more detailed menu. From there you can do things like format memory cards and set the internal clock.

The rear display is 3 inches and packs a 460k-dot resolution. It's actually a pretty decent panel. The viewing angles are good, it's adequately bright, and it's sharper than you would expect to find on a budget camera. It's one area where the AZ362 compares favorably with other budget superzooms, like the General Electric X2600 and the Olympus SP-620UZSee it at Amazon UK.

Performance and Conclusions
The AZ362 stars and shoots in about 3.1 seconds and its shutter lag is reasonable when shooting at wide angles, just 0.2-second. Focus when zoomed all the way is slower; the camera takes about 1.5 seconds to lock focus and fire there. There were a couple occasions where it just couldn't lock on and hunted for a few seconds, but those were the exception rather than the rule. The one area where the AZ362 excels is burst shooting. It rattles off shots at 6fps, and it can keep that pace up for 85 photos when paired with a SanDisk 95MBps memory card.

I used Imatest to check the sharpness and distortion chracteristics of the lens. At its widest angle, it displays 2.8 percent barrel distortion, which makes straight lines appear to curve outward. We call an image sharp if it scores 1,800 lines per picture height on a center-weighted test. The AZ362 scores 1,376 lines. That's not a good result, and a quick look at the shot of our test chart showed that its right side was reasonably sharp with scores that came close to or met the cutoff for sharpness, but the left side was blurry to the point that some regions only showed 200 lines. That's a sign of a lens that's not properly centered. The best case scenario is that not every AZ362 that ships will be capture images that are this poor, and the worst is that we're looking at a lens that's been horrendously designed. If it's the former situation, that this camera passed through the company's quality control system, and then was sent out for review, is indicative of the controls that are in place on the assembly line. (The inline image below shows a crop from the same shot with portions shown from the left side of the frame and from the right.) There's a chance that you'll get a sharper copy of the AZ362 if you buy it. And there's a chance that you'll win the Powerball. This camera isn't worth taking a chance on.

I can say that because Imatest also reports on how a camera performs in low light. I shot our standard color target at each ISO sensitivity setting, from the ISO 100 that the camera will default to in bright light to ISO 3200, a setting which is frequently used when shooting in dimly-lit interiors. At ISO 100 the AZ362 already shows 1.4 percent noise in images. Close examination of a foreign banknote that we use to judge image detail at each ISO (thankfully located to the right of our color target) on a calibrated NEC MultiSync PA271W display shows that image quality is ok here, but not nearly as good as cameras that show less noise at low settings. Noise reduction starts to kick in at ISO 200, noticeably sapping sharpness from photos, and absolutely kills image quality by ISO 400. The camera does manage to keep noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 800, but photos are already a blurry mess by that point. If you're willing to forego some zoom, and spend just a little bit more money, the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS is a solid performer through ISO 800. Its lens is "only" a 20x design, but Wi-Fi and some other refinement made it our Editors' Choice for pocketable long zoom cameras.

Video is recorded in QuickTime format at up to 1080p30 quality. The footage is bright and colorful, but there's noticeable rolling shutter artifacts when panning; this causes the bottom of the frame to advance more quickly than the top, similar to the rubber pencil optical illusion. The lens can zoom in out during recording, but the sound is audible on the audio track and the camera is a little slow to reacquire focus. The same sharpness issues that are evident in still footage are there with video. Connectors include a micro HDMI port and a micro USB port; the latter is used to charge the camera's removable battery via an included AC adapter and USB cable. There's no external battery charger included. The memory card slots supports SD and SDHC up to 32GB in size; SDXC memory cards do not work.

Build-quality issues aside, the Kodak Pixpro AZ362 is a tough sell at $250. And if you get one like the unit I shot with, you've just dropped a couple hundred dollars on a Kodak-branded paperweight. At its retail price, there's no reason to dance with a budget brand. Not when our Editors' Choice compact superzoom Canon's SX280 HS delivers much better image quality, a pocketable design, Wi-Fi, and a 20x zoom lens for $20 more. If your budget is stretched and you do need to limit spending, there are better long-zoom cameras out there for less than $200—including the Olympus SP-620UZ and GE X600. And if money isn't that tight, our Editors' Choice for bridge-style superzoom cameras, the Pansonic Lumix DMC-FZ200, features a 24x zoom lens with an f/2.8 aperture throughout its zoom range.