First up, you gotta love a camera that will never make you look silly in front of a group of people for forgetting to take the lens cap off!

This new model EasyShare digital camera and printer dock from Kodak combines a 5 megapixel capture a 10x optical zoom Retinar aspheric lens, printing on demand and many clever idiot proof settings.

The size of this camera for a mini type dslr is very compact. The Z740 is also a light weight at just 286g without the batteries, although is still quite a sturdy camera.

Kodak have really applied the 'easy' part of EashyShare with the menu navigation one of the simplest on the market for its range, and one of the simplest I've reviewed. A dial on the back and a handful of buttons around the 1.8 inch LCD is all any happy snapper requires. The dial offers 7 options, although the most useful by far would be the 'Scene' option with no fewer than 14 modes covering every scenario you'll ever need. To give you an idea, the options are as follows: night portrait, close up, backlight, snow, fireworks, flower, beach, party, children, self portrait, text, manner/museum, night landscape and landscape. Plus there are a further 6 dial options including sport, portrait, night, manual, video and of course auto.

Its worth noting that for those who like to take self portraits or close up headshots with friends that the 'scene' option of 'self portrait' drops the power down on the flash so you'll have perfectly exposed images every time - with no ghost white faces!

The lens offers plenty of flexibility with a 38mm to 380mm range, F2.8 wide to F3.7 telephoto and continuous auto-focus.

When the camera is placed on top of the docking station it both charges and is ready for on the spot printing without a computer. Printing images is very easy, with one button to begin printing and another to scroll through the images via the LCD on the camera. There are also options to print either 1 image per 4x6 inch print, 2 images, 4 or 9 images all of the same print.

The quality of the dye sublimation prints are great, with good colour accuracy and next to no variation between the LCD and final print. This result was quite impressive considering there is no colour correction between the camera and printer via a computer or lab technician.

Another great feature is the 'Share' button on the back of the camera which again simplifies the whole digital photography experience. The 'Share' button allows you 'tag' images for printing, emailing or labelling favourites while shooting, and then convert them to prints after when the camera is placed back on the printer dock cradle.

Overall, I was very happy my experience and further encourage Kodak to continue their process of simplifying the digital experience.

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