The Kodak AZ901 Astro Zoom is cheap, functional and has 90X Optical Zoom!

It’s not every day that you come across a camera that can show you the leaves on a tree when you can’t even see them with your bare eyes. I tested the Pixpro AZ901 from Kodak and I was amazed by the fact that this thing can zoom in 90 times.

I’m far from a professional photographer, but I know a thing or two about ISO, shutterspeed and aperature. However, these pictures you’re going to see were shot on manual, because I wasn’t really familiar with the Kodak settings yet.

This first picture was taken from in my room, not zoomed in and handheld. As you can see there’s a tree in the distance.

This is taken on the same spot, but with 90X zoom. It’s not perfectly sharp, but note that this was also taken handheld and it was completetly zoomed in. Pretty nice if you ask me.

Again picture taken from my room, but as you can see in the distance, there’s a brown horse. I zoomed in 90 times and got this result on a tripod:

It’s sharper than the first picture, but not amazing as well. However it’s still awesome that you get this result with a rather cheap camera. (Only 450$)

 

 

PROS

• The 90X Zoom is Epic
• Very well built and sturdy
• Shoots video as well at 1080 – 25fps
• Flip out screen
• Long battery life
• Overall good quality pictures

CONS

• Not amazingly sharp when completely zoomed in
• Troubles with autofocus, not very good, but you can put it on manual in this case
• Not that easy to operate and steep learning curve
• You get what you buy: you can’t change lenses
• No mic input for filming

 

VERDICT

The Kodak PIXPRO AZ901 is worth it’s 450$ price tag. You have 90x optical zoom, which is great for nature or sports photography and the image quality is good. It’s not the most amazing high end camera, but it does the job if you’re looking for a first camera to try out long distance shooting. You can find the AZ901 here.