Nikon Coolpix P80 10.1MP Digital Camera with 18x Wide Angle Optical Vibration Reduction Zoom (Black)

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Date Created :
Oct 25, 2010 10:38:07

D1) NIKON COOLPIX P80 DIGITAL

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This is a great camera if you aren't ready to shell out the big bucks for a Digital SLR, but also want something of better quality and capabilities than say a pocket sized point and shoot camera. Nikon has three different camera series: L ("Lifesyle series") S ("Style series), and P ("Performance series"). The Ls are your basic, slightly more bulky, everyday point and shoot styles. They typically run off of AA batteries, hence are slightly more chunky in shape. The menus are very simple, and the price range is usually 0 or less. The S series emphasizes a more stylized, sophisticated design...your touch screen menus, compact hard metal bodies, slim make. These are usually 5-150 price range and use the lithium-ion rechargeable cell battery. The P series is where you're at before you get to a DSLR, & it's a great bridge between the two in my opinion. Depending on your model, you can expect to pay anywhere from 0-350 on a P series. I owned the P80 for about a year before selling it and upgrading. It served me very well in a variety of situations, though it was certainly not flawless.

Pros: 1. Superior zoom/lens quality. You might see that 18x optical zoom and be skeptical, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Even fully zoomed in, I produced crystal clear beautiful images. Of course how shaky the person operating the camera is plays a big role, but with a steady hand you will get great shots. 2. Actual ergonomics. The camera is big, but not so huge that you feel you can't take it everywhere with you. I wore it strapped around my neck while riding bike trails, and as long as the lens cap was secure, I wasn't worried about it. It feels and appears to be very solid and well made. 3. Great battery life. After a full charge, I usually could get nearly 300 shots before having to plug it back in. I am also not big on using my flash though, so that plays a lot into it. 4. Helpful manual. Some cameras give you a 5 page booklet and then you're on your own. Or worse, you get a 'digital manual', CD, and no literature whatsoever. Nikon's manual was not only thorough in explanation of features, but also provides the user with helpful tips in a variety of shooting situations. Lots of illustrations to take the guesswork out also. 5. Full manual controls. Provided you know how to use these, you'll have a lot of fun experimenting. I was able to take some really nice potraits while in manual mode, with the camera effectively fuzzing out the background and sharply focusing on my subject. Sport mode was nice when wanting to shoot several images in succession, however takes some getting used to because unlike a DSLR, you won't hear the clicking of the shots being recorded each time. You hold your button down and it will record until you let go pretty much. Kind of neat, except then you have like 30 images that are nearly identical and have to go through and weed out the bad ones.

Cons: Not that great indoors, unless using your flash, which is unfortunate because a lot of the time the flash ruins the ambience of things. Without the flash, most of the pictures took on a golden tone, sometimes almost orange, which was rather annoying. Also very noisy indoors!! They didn't look that bad on the LCD, but when printed you could definitely notice. The LCD in general could be irritating, because the pictures looked great on there...but on my computer or printed from a lab, they looked much more drab. It can be kind of tedious having to go in and edit each and every picture just to add some saturation and contrast. I've owned a variety of Nikons and Canons...I must say that Canon seems to be far better in the way of vivid, sharp color straight out of the box. The software the camera comes with is definitely lacking. It is basically just for photo transferring, not much at all in the way of actual editing. I was also looking forward to taking some great panoramic shots with this camera, but it doesn't offer in-camera stitching so I didn't bother half the time. The software provides a stitching tool, but in the end it's just not feasible for someone who takes a lot of shots to go back and locate those specific three. Especially when you have to wait til you're on your computer to do so.

In general--very nice camera, good buy for the price. The zoom is great, and the 10 megapixels are nice for making large prints. My complaints are/were only minor in the end, as overall I got some very nice quality photos from this. I would definitely agree with other reviewers though in that the more experienced photographer will be finicky with this camera's noise level and other 'little quirks' as described. If you don't care about the minute details though, leave the camera on Auto and have at it.

• Nikon Coolpix P80 Fabric Case
• Lithium Ion Digital Cameras Battery For Nikon CoolPix P80
• SanDisk Extreme III 4 GB Class 6 SDHC Flash Memory Card SDSDRX3-4096-A21
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• Lowepro Nova 3 AW Camera Bag (Green) For The Nikon Coolpix P90, L100, P80, P6000, P60, P5100, P5000 Digital Cameras

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