Ladies and gents – introducing the Kodak Playsport Zx5.
A week or two ago I took the day off from the day job and caught the train over to Bath to meet up with our mate Anne from Pro-PR (she helps us out with a few things) and a nice guy called Paul who works for Kodak UK.
As it transpires, Kodak have a neat and very reasonably priced little camera called the Playsport ZX5 which was designed for Vloggers (video bloggers) but actually works really nicely for stuffing in your riding shorts or backpack and shooting the action on the trails. Especially as it’s light, it’s shock-proof, it’s water-proof, is the same size as a small mobile phone and it only costs £100.
The Playsport Zx5 shoots in full HD (108op at 30fps) and will also shoot 60fps at 720p. It also sports a 5mp camera, autofocus, HDMI and USB ports, a standard tripod mount and a fairly nifty ‘one button share’ option that lets you (when plugged in to your PC) quickly upload clips and snaps to Youtube, Facebook etc.
At the moment Kodak are dipping their proverbial toe in the water of action sports and using the ZX5 as an introduction to what they can do… and they’re planning on releasing a brand new, updated camera in early 2012 that’s aimed directly at the ‘action sports’ market. No real clues on that just yet and Paul was keeping super tight lipped but we’re guessing that they’ll be looking to make it more ‘wearable’ to cater to the head-cam crowd. Just a guess though!
I’m in the process of putting the Playsport through its paces and we’ll have a full write up in Issue 17… First impressions are good and – whilst it won’t compete with the likes of a Drift or a Gopro in terms of the features it packs in – it is excellent value for money, the footage is great quality and at just over a hundred quid I reckon it’s a bit of a bargain.
In the mean time here’s a video that I shot partly on the Playsport. All of the non on-board footage was shot on the Playsport, the rest was shot on a DriftHD wearable camera. There’s a few glitches in the footage but that’s my software not the camera…
The Animal Bike Tour are also currently teamed up with Kodak and using the Zx5 to film all of their UK demos. Check this video out – considering it was filmed on a hundred quid camera the quality is super impressive indeed.
That’s all for now, stay tuned to Wideopenmag 17 for our full test of the Zx5. Welcome to mountain biking Kodak!
For more on the Playsport check out Kodak’s homepage here.
If you liked this post why not check out these?
