The ZD710 manages to get the colors right most of the times, and works well if you know your photography basics. What I mean is, if you leave it to the camera to handle the pictures you will never achieve good pictures in auto mode. Instead of allowing the camera to adjust the ISO, for instance, you can manually program the settings and reduce grain and patchiness in your pictures.
The pictures lacked clarity. Most of them taken indoors turned out quite patchy, like a watercolor painting blown up to actual size. This, I think, is due to the digital image stabilization engine that plays with ISO settings to get around shaky pictures, instead of the preferred optical one. If you click on the picture below you will see what I mean.
If you like to experiment, the Program, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority modes allow a little fun. Other innovative modes include Smart Scene (more like an auto mode), high ISO, and panorama.
Night shots are a hit-or-miss affair. If you're traveling and want to get some landscape shots at night, I suggest you avoid the auto mode. Use the night scene mode instead. Better still, if you have a hang of exposure compensation and aperture, adjust your levels manually.
I recently got myself one of these and i am so happy with this.. i have a questions and could not find any other decent blog to post it.... since i have started using the camera.. i have just downloaded my latest photos taken with the camer and im on photo count 489... and IM STILL ON THE BATTERY THAT CAME WITH THE CAMERA ? is this normal ? useally those batteries suck... and the question is ? if and when the shipped battery is dead how long and approximitly how many pics wil i then be able to take with my 2500 mah Ni-H batteries ? 
