KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 Camera Review

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 is relatively portable for a bridge camera. Lens aside, its body has a fairly thin profile, and it's pretty lightweight. You can see its size with the lens fully extended (depth of 6.4 inches).

The PIXPRO AZ528 feels cheaply built. It's made of a cheap plastic that's easily marked when you scratch or bump it. The fixed plastic screen doesn't feel especially sturdy, either. Otherwise, the buttons are big and clicky but also feel underwhelming. Accessing the Micro USB port is a bit cumbersome due to the stiff plastic flap that covers it. It feels like it could easily break over time. On the other hand, the battery and SD card compartments have a hinged hard plastic door, which is a little better. The zoom toggle around the shutter button is overly sensitive while also feeling sluggish, making it hard to precisely set your focal length. But the mode dial feels solid and provides decent physical feedback. Overall, you're getting what you pay for in terms of build quality here.

• Lens cap
• Lens cap strap
• 1x PIXPRO LB-060 battery
• AC adapter
• Micro USB to USB-A cable
• Shoulder strap
• Quick start guide and documentation

The camera has decent ergonomics. It's very lightweight, making it easy to carry around over your neck or shoulder. The hand grip has a nice rubberized coating, and there's a small thumb rest on the back for a secure hold, but the camera and grip are on the smaller side, so it's a bit cramped for those with larger hands. It also lacks a viewfinder, and the screen is fixed, making it tricky to shoot from different angles. On top of that, the limited amount of physical control dials and buttons makes it pretty cumbersome to adjust settings or exposure. You have to press the exposure compensation button and then use the D-pad to adjust relevant settings. Still, its simple design and interface are accessible for beginner shooters or those who prefer to take photos in auto mode.

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 uses a fixed screen. It's quite dim, making it difficult to see on a sunny day, and has a very low resolution that makes it hard to properly evaluate your photos in-camera. The vertical viewing angle is also notably bad, with a heavily degraded image and noticeable color shift when viewing it from above or below. There's no touch functionality, either, so you have to navigate the menu with the D-pad.

The user interface is decent. It's a very simplified menu, fit for its intended audience, with few options and settings that are easy to understand. The shooting menu shown above is what appears when you click the menu button, and the options vary depending on what mode you're in. However, there's also an additional settings menu that you can access when you scroll down and press the 'SET' button.

The built-in lens has a long 52x zoom range (24-1248mm in full-frame equivalence), making it versatile for capturing far-away subjects. However, you can't adjust the focal length precisely. The zoom toggle around the shutter button is the only way to adjust it, and it jumps at various increments. For such a cheap camera, it has a fairly wide max aperture, but it's a variable aperture, so it only opens up to the max f/2.8 at its widest focal length, with a max of f/5.6 at the tail end of its zoom range.

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 features a 16-megapixel 1/2.3-inch sensor. It has a limited ISO range of 100-3200.

The camera has decent battery performance overall, mostly because its poor video capabilities aren't very demanding, resulting in a long video battery life.

That said, it's only CIPA-rated for about 240 frames on a full charge. While CIPA estimates tend to be on the conservative side, and your actual battery life will vary with usage, that isn't very long relative to other models.

The camera has limited burst shooting capabilities. Rather than shooting truly continuously, it can only shoot in single-press bursts. In its regular 'Continuous Shot' mode, which uses the camera's mechanical shutter, it captures bursts of about 7 fps, with approximately 7.5 seconds of processing time before you can shoot again.

In 'Cont. Shot-Fast' mode, it captures bursts of about 30 fps, with a cap of about 50 frames at approximately 4 megapixels in file size. In this mode, it takes about half a minute for the camera to process the full burst of images before you can shoot again.

Finally, there's 'Cont. Shot-High Speed' mode, which captures reduced-quality images (VGA size: 640x480 pixels) at 60 fps, with a cap of 120 frames. This mode takes almost a minute to process the full burst of images. Both the 'Fast' and 'High Speed' settings are electronic shutters only.

This camera has a continuous autofocus feature, but it can't focus continuously while burst shooting, so we couldn't score it on our AF-C tests.

This camera has a continuous autofocus feature, but it can't focus continuously while burst shooting, so we couldn't score it on our AF-C tests.

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 doesn't have sensor stabilization, but its built-in lens does have optical stabilization. Overall, the camera does a decent job of stabilizing handheld shots, allowing you to capture clear shots at fairly slow shutter speeds. That said, your mileage will vary depending on what focal length you shoot at and even how steady your hands are.

This camera doesn't support RAW photos.

It's worth noting, however, that its JPEG image quality is inconsistent. The camera really struggles to meter and apply consistent white balance. You can notice some color shift in between frames during our autofocus testing. There's also noticeable chromatic aberration in some of our sample gallery images.

This camera doesn't support RAW photos.

This camera doesn't support RAW photos.

We cropped this sample photo to a 16x9 aspect ratio for comparability, but you can click to see the original JPEG.

We cropped this sample photo to a 16x9 aspect ratio for comparability, but you can click to see the original JPEG.

We cropped this sample photo to a 16x9 aspect ratio for comparability, but you can click to see the original JPEG.

We cropped this sample photo to a 16x9 aspect ratio for comparability, but you can click to see the original JPEG.

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 has very limited video features. It can record videos in 1080p and has little in the way of advanced recording capabilities.

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 can record at up to 30 fps in 1080p or up to 60 fps in 720p. On top of that, there's a 'DVD' resolution option (640x480) at 30 fps, with a slow-motion recording option that captures footage at 120 fps with 30 fps playback (4x slow motion).

The camera's internal recording capabilities are very limited. It can only record at very low bit rates, and it can only record in 8-bit 4:2:0, so the depth of color it can capture is limited. It also imposes a 30-minute time limit on recording.

The camera's autofocus performs terribly in video. Because the camera doesn't have manual exposure controls in video, we couldn't properly evaluate its face tracking autofocus, as the depth of field was too broad, leaving the entire scene in focus. We also had to adjust the methodology for the object tracking test by backing up and zooming in to achieve an approximate field of view, but the results aren't really comparable. Overall, the AF is jerky and inaccurate

The camera's video quality is poor. Even in a lit room, the quality is poor, with noticeable noise and lack of sharpness, as you can see in the test video. There's also noticeable chromatic aberration, especially in the corners. The video quality degrades even further in low light. 

You can also compare the quality in HD (720p), DVD (640x480), and the camera's slow-motion mode. The video shows just how bad the quality is in that mode.

Rolling shutter isn't too bad because of the camera's slow sensor readout speed, but you'll still notice some skewing or wobbling with faster camera movements. 

The KODAK PIXPRO AZ528 has a single SD card slot that supports UHS-I cards. It's located in the battery compartment on the bottom of the camera.

The camera only has the older Micro USB standard for charging. Otherwise, there are no inputs for mics, headphones, or HDMI. It supports Wi-Fi connectivity to use the companion app but not Bluetooth.