Nikon Coolpix P5000 Digital Camera Hands On First Thoughts

[Jim Keenan]

A car company once asked if they could “build one for you”. A nationwide burger chain let patrons “have it your way”. Nikon isn’t in the automotive or fast food business, but point and shoot photographers who want to let their camera do all of the work, none of the work or some of the work, rejoice! Nikon just built a P&S camera that lets you have it your way. You might want to put down that burger and drive to your nearest camera store to check out the Coolpix P5000.

 

Nikon has packaged a 10 megapixel sensor, 2.5 inch LCD monitor and a viewfinder, full manual controls, Vibration Reduction and a flash hot shoe into a digital camera about the size of a deck of cards. But if you want to let the camera do all the driving, Nikon has also equipped it with the usual suite of auto and special scene options.

I got my hands on a P5000 this morning, and after the battery charged I bumped the image quality from “normal” to “fine”, set it on “auto” and took some shots. Two hours later, a few things have become clear: this camera is a pleasure to shoot with – the handgrip body style makes for a solid feel, shutter performance looks pretty good, and image sharpness and color are first rate, both in direct sun and with flash. We’ll have a more in-depth review of this camera down the road, but based on today’s shoot Nikon has a winner on their hands.

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[usapatriot]

How are noise levels when zooming in on a picture?

I hear having 10mp on a 1/1.8 Type CCD doesn't help much.

Also, how good is the detail in the pictures, I heard the details get a little bit muffled.

[Ben Stafford]

Thanks for the questions, we'll try to address them in the full review!

[Jim Keenan]

How are noise levels when zooming in on a picture?

I hear having 10mp on a 1/1.8 Type CCD doesn't help much.

Also, how good is the detail in the pictures, I heard the details get a little bit muffled.

I haven't noticed any change in noise when shooting the same shot at wide and telephoto settings with the lower ISO levels in either the Pentax A30 or the Nikon P5000. I've attached two shots I just did with the P5000 - one at wide angle, one zoomed in at 3.5X, both taken from the same distance in program auto mode. The detail seems fine to me.....................these shots are at the default settings for the camera and were not resharpened when I sized them for the web.

The smaller physical size of the sensor in P&Ss typically will show more noise at a given ISO setting than its larger (physically) counterpart in a DSLR, so shooting a P&S at high ISO settings will exacerbate the noise issue. Zooming in at high ISO may make the noise more apparent due to the nature of the subject than a shot at wider settings.

[usapatriot]

thanks, looking foward to the full review!