Absolutely the best digital camera I've used yet

Author's Rating:

Pros: Amazing zoom, incredible quality, color perfection, expandability, compatibility, uses CF cards

Cons: Too many features! (Not exactly bad, but there's a learning curve), no CF media

The Bottom Line: 
In my opinion, it's THE best 8 Megapixel digital camera available. This camera provides excellent image quality with easy use.

Author's Review
Don’t you just love that new plastic smell – like when you pull this camera out of the box? Yeah, of course! Mine smelled like that about a month back. Now it’s got a pleasant combo of camera bag & sweet, yet tangy barbecue sauce – that got spilled on the bag during a long shooting session. Hah! Here’s a great camera – loaded with features, many that I’ve gotten the chance to try out first-hand, something that you DON’T get when you get a chance to “play with the camera” for a couple days (or look at it, maybe even touch it at the store. Bleh! (sticks tongue out.)

Specs? Who cares about numbers. They’re all over the place. There’s a couple numbers you need to be concerned with when you take this fine camera into consideration. 8.0 Megapixels. 8X Optical (Yes, Optical) zoom. 1.8” LCD Monitor (nicely backlit).

The real “numbers” – the down and dirty good stuff :

Crack open the box – and you find : 1 Nikon Coolpix 8700 camera, 1 neck-strap, 1 lens cover, 2 manuals (English, Spanish), Quickstart guide, Transfer cable (USB), Battery, and Charger … but no media! (AHH!) Time to hit the store and grab some Compact Flash cards (if you don’t have them). A CF reader is a good buy as well – since USB transfer eats battery life. (A good CF reader runs about $19.99. If you pay more, you’re getting ripped off.)

Now a run through of the useful stuff - for starters – 8X optical zoom – this beats out most of the current competition in the 8 megapixel market. Nobody comes close to this quality. The lens on this camera, is fixed for a reason: It’s so good that Nikon thinks you’re all set. For those out there that say you can’t add on to this camera, go do your homework! Read the manual! You can pick up the Nikon 67mm Adapter ring for about $35.00 – ( Nikon part #5597 ) which allows you to add on 3” filters, telephoto lens, fisheye, etc. Downside with using this – you’ll need a Nikon external speedlight. The built in speedlight is blocked when the step-up adapter ring is attached. Pictures will come out with a half-moon shadow along the bottom. But – whoa – slap on the 2x telephoto – and you get an optical of up to 16X – very nice!

Built in Nikon Speedlight (aka flash)- The built-in flip-up speedlight. Bright built in Nikon speedlight that brings out color quite nicely in bad-light situations. You can get a dimly lit room to look like you’ve got a pair of hotlights and a fresnel lighting it up – with perfect color to boot. About half of that effect is the speedlight, the other half is the way you have the camera set. Plus, if you find that the camera’s built in corrections are doing too much correction – you can always bollox up the shot in manual mode … so it comes out exactly the way you see it. Nice! If you need more flash than the speedlight – you can always hook up an external to the hotshoe that this camera has (NOTE : Hotshoe & external flash is a necessity when using the step-up ring – as I’ve mentioned earlier on.)


Seeing your shot – the 3 viewfinder options – You have three options with this sweet camera: 1: Digital Viewfinder: A backlit, nicely sized viewfinder. 2: 1.8” LCD Screen: The new “standard-size” for higher quality cameras (backlit as well) 3: Video Output – hook this camera up to a hi-res monitor and get a huge view of what you’re looking at – the way you’re going to see it when the shot is done. Option 3 is great in a nasty-shot studio situation, you can get some shots that normally, would be ten times as difficult. I’ve set up the camera on a boom – hooked it up to a monitor – stood on a ladder and taken shots from far overhead. I didn’t fall – plus – the shots came out great (not to mention sell twice as good as normal!) - well worth the effort.

* Swing-out-fold-in LCD screen – 1.8" LCD screen can swing out and twist-around, perfect for when you've got the camera on a Tripod and you don't want to go bending to take your shot. Also - excellent if you're in a crowd and need to take a shot over everyone's heads! It tilts 270 degrees, and can flip-back onto the back of the camera so you've got a setup like the Nikon 4300. LCD folds away for storage or for when you don’t need it. You don't get the screen dirty or scratched – not to mention you can conserve battery life for more shots.


Taking your shot – Good response times from this camera. You press the button for AF, you’ve got a lock pretty quick (maybe .5-1 second) push it the rest of the way, snap – and it’s done. It’s no DSLR – but it’s pretty close. It’s got speeds of 50, 100, 200, 400, and Auto-select – plus – some added options for action-grabbing … and even a nice movie capture mode ( with sound! )

Lighting? Did you say lighting? -- This camera has some killer color corrections. You can set up the camera to basically snap a good shot any time, any place, any lighting. With the automatic presets, and features such as the white balancing – you’ve got a good foolproof way to get good shots all of the time. A few catches though :

1: If it’s dark – get a tripod. When you plan on taking pictures in poor lighting , you need to be stable. Holding the camera securely just won’t do. You need that extra stabilization from the tripod. The slower ISO speeds for poor lighting will show up blurry with even the slightest movements. Don’t go getting mad at your camera over this! If you were using a film camera, the same thing would happen. ISO 400, 200 will give pretty good shots with a little motion … but the slower the speed, the more stable you need to be… true with film or digital. It’s worth the extra time and effort though. When you can capture a nice night landscape – with perfect color, as you would see it if you were standing there … it’s just breathtaking.

2: If it’s too black or too white – you need to compensate. You confuse the camera by focusing on a overly black or overly white item. Auto-white thinks black is a poorly lit grey, and white is a overexposed grey … so – something solid-black gets lightened, white gets darkened. (NOTE : That’s what the “Ocean/Snow” shooting mode is for! This fixes the problem.)

Decent battery life – You can get hundreds of shots out of a single charge. The 45 minute charger comes in handy as well. It’s good to have a spare charged battery pack (Nikon : $69.99) or the AC Adapter ($24.99) on hand as well. A word of warning though – Third party equipment … it may look cheaper (sometimes it’s more expensive – 3rd party AC Adapter for Coolpix : $29.99 ) – but you also get what you pay for. I fried a 3rd party AC Adapter during a long shooting session.

* Nikon compatibility - If you've owned a Nikon camera in the past - like our Nikon Coolpix 4300 - the batteries, film, charger, cables - are all cross-compatible. VERY nice if you're a Nikon customer! Now we've got a bunch of chargers, batteries, and piles of media that we can still use. Don’t forget: The 8700 uses good ol’ Compact Flash cards – not those freaky SD, Memory stick, or other garbage format. Plus – it’s Microdrive compatible. You can take –lots- of pictures on this beast. It’s no toy – like those cameras that take those other garbage storage formats.

Some other fun stuff –

Movie Mode : You’re only limited by the size of your media! Record TV-quality movies with the 8700 – with SOUND and all! Cool! Very simple to do, just go to the menu, select movie, click the button – and you’re recording. Click again to stop. Your video gets recorded in Quick Time MOV format.

Rapid-shot mode : Take 8,16,32, or up to a hundred shots with a single click –amazing- Excellent if you have a problem shot to take (eg – fast action) – One shot is bound to be good (laugh).

Time-lapse movie mode : Shoot your own video of a flower opening and closing – leave your camera out all day to film it (Make sure it’s not going to rain … of course.)



Now, the "downside" for this camera -

* No media in-box - With our 4300, we received a CF media to get started with. This camera did not come with a free card. No biggie - we just picked up a bunch of new ones.

* Huge pictures - If you're stepping up from a lower grade model, be warned - 8 Megapixel means GIANT picture files. If you were using a 16mb card, expect to get maybe 4-6 pics on it at most. Basically – a bad thing if you’ve got old media.

* Price - $800 from Newegg, $999 elsewhere. But worth every penny. (Side-note: Beware of "too-good-to-be-true" prices. They usually are.)