Smooth and Satisfying with No Bitter Aftertaste..

Author's Rating:

Pros: Very versatile, easy to master, great optics, excellent results.

Cons: Not much.. battery life could be better and a bigger memory card would be nice.

The Bottom Line: 
Highly recommended for anyone wanting a lot of flexibility and control with high quality results.

Author's Review
Plenty has been said already about the stats and features of this camera so I'll skip straight to the nitty gritty... Most of my images end up online so resolution has never really been a problem and my old Agfa Ephoto 1280 has filled the bill very nicely for many years. But I finally made the decision to move from the darkroom to the computer with print photography as well so I decided it was time to upgrade.

My purchase of the Coolpix was pretty much a shot in the dark. I was attracted by the 5 megapixel resolution and the 8x optical zoom, this combined with the Nikon reputation and a screamin' buy on ebay clinched the deal. For once I got lucky! This camera is the bomb, as they say. I shoot mostly outdoors in all types of weather conditions with animals as the principle subjects. I was instantly struck by the speed of the camera. Very little lag time in point and shoot situations and if you prefocus the response is instantaneous. A marvelous feature for someone who has been trying to develop precognition in order to catch the perfect shot of a flighty animal. The camera is very comfortable and easy to use. The rotating LCD screen is a marvelous touch as I do a lot of ground level shots, you can even see the screen when taking self portraits (not that I would ever do such a thing...) The screen is remarkably glare resistant but could perform better in low light situations. There is also an electronic viewfinder which comes in handy in many difficult lighting situations. This little sucker has enough bells and whistles to satisfy anyone and comes very close to the versatility of control you find in high end SLR cameras. You truly have a full range of control from fully automatic point and shoot to the most meticulous manual operations. A broad range of resolution options from completely uncompressed (TIFF or RAW) to highly compressed jpg options. MOST importantly from my point of view is the results which are superb. Crisp, brilliant images, High quality 8 x 10s are no problem and 5 x 9s are stunning. Even my online images sport a new definition that's very pleasing.

It's hard to find anything to complain about here. You can pick these baby's up for right around $600.00 if you shop around a bit. For this kind of quality I consider that dirt cheap. I guess I could carp about the short battery life but even that is nitpicking when you consider the size and price of batteries. Realistically speaking you're probably going to have to pick up a half dozen batteries or the optional battery pack which gives you a lot more time that the standard battery. This pack will run you around $120.00 if you shop around. You'll also need to upgrade to a larger memory card or two... or so. 32mb doesn't go very far if you're shooting hi resolution.

I use this camera a LOT and the more I use it the more I like it.