Kodak Playsport Zx3

Colour (2.57)

For the past couple of years, Kodak camcorders have done a notoriously poor job in our bright light color accuracy testing and the Playsport Zx3 continued with this trend. The camcorder simply could not white balance properly during our testing, which is a problem we see from many ultracompact camcorders—although the Kodak Playsport was particularly bad. The camcorder measured a color error of 13.6 with a saturation level of 128.7%. The sample images below speak for themselves. (More on how we test color.)

Colour Accuracy Performance
Colour Test Chart (above), Colour Error Map (right)
The Kodak Playsport produced a color error of 13.6 and a saturation level of 128.7% in our bright light color testing. (The map on the right is a diagram of the color error. The length and direction of each line indicates how the camcorder processed each particular color.)

Looking at the error map and test chart above you can see what we're talking about when we say the Playsport had difficulty white balancing properly. All of the video we shot with the camcorder during our bright light testing came out with a strong orange tint that simply wrecked havoc on the camcorder's color accuracy score.

Kodak Playsport Colour Sample
Auto	100% Crop

The only good news about the Playsport's color accuracy score is that it came out slightly better than its predecessor, the Kodak Zx1. Both camcorders had terrible white balancing issues, but, as you can see from the comparison images below, the Playsport handled things just a bit better (although it still did very bad in this test).

Kodak Playsport Colour Comparisons
Kodak Playsport	Kodak Zx1
Picsio GC-WP10	Sony Bloggie Touch

Only the Sony Bloggie Touch puts up far better numbers than the two Kodak models and the Picsio in this color accuracy test. All Kodak needs to do, however, is improve the auto white balance system on its camcorders and it should do a decent job here. Just take a look at how the Playsport did in our low light color test where it didn't have a problem white balancing properly.

	Close-Up Colour Comparisons
	Ideal	Kodak Playsport	Kodak Zx1	JVC GC-WP10	Sony Bloggie Touch
Red
	Ideal	Kodak Playsport	Kodak Zx1	JVC GC-WP10	Sony Bloggie Touch
Green
	Ideal	Kodak Playsport	Kodak Zx1	JVC GC-WP10	Sony Bloggie Touch
Blue
	Ideal	Kodak Playsport	Kodak Zx1	JVC GC-WP10	Sony Bloggie Touch
Skin Tone 1
	Ideal	Kodak Playsport	Kodak Zx1	JVC GC-WP10	Sony Bloggie Touch
Skin Tone 2

Colour Score Comparison		Compare the Kodak Playsport to the Kodak Zx1
		Compare the Kodak Playsport to the Picsio GC-WP10
		Compare the Kodak Playsport to the Sony Bloggie Touch

Noise (10.26)

The Kodak Playsport balanced out its poor color accuracy performance with a strong showing in our noise test. The camcorder averaged 0.565% noise in our bright light testing, which is roughly half as much noise as we measured on last year's Kodak Zx1. (More on how we test noise.)

Noise Comparisons
Kodak Playsport 100% Crop	Kodak Zx1 100% Crop	Picsio GC-WP10 100% Crop	Sony Bloggie Touch 100% Crop

Not only do the crops above show the presence of noise in each camcorder's recorded image, but they also do a good job showing sharpness and detail. Of the models shown above, only the Kodak Zx1 is not capable of recording a Full HD (1920 x 1080) image. Despite this fact, the video captured by the Playsport doesn't look all that much sharper than what the Zx1 (records 1280 x 720 image) was capable of producing.

Noise Score Comparison		Compare the Kodak Playsport to the Kodak Zx1
		Compare the Kodak Playsport to the Picsio GC-WP10
		Compare the Kodak Playsport to the Sony Bloggie Touch