I mentioned yesterday that I’d bought a Nikon Coolpix P80 digital camera. As general rule I’m not a fan of “point and shoot” cameras but I’ve always kept one handy for family get-togethers or other times when trotting out a full size SLR isn’t convenient or practical… If you’ve ever been crawling around the inside of a vintage aircraft like B-17 or B-24 you know what I mean.
Anyway on with the review… I promise I’m not going to bore you with specs or long winded analysis.
The P80 is what’s called a bridge camera by that I mean it’s designed to fill that niche between full sized digital SLR and basic “point and shot” cameras. It’s quite a bit bulkier than it’s pocket sized cousins but it’s smaller than and SLR. The P80 has a a relatively fast f/2.8 to f/4.5 18x optical zoom lens that’s equivalent to a 27mm to 486mm zoom lens on 35mm camera.
The P80 has all the automatic point and click simplicity of it’s smaller cousins and adds the Aperture priority, Shutter priority and manual exposure modes you’ll find on a digital SLR. I didn’t spend a lot of time testing the manual exposure mode… It’s a little awkward to use but I suspect with practice I could get comfortable with it.
Overall I’m quite happy with the P80 it has the flexibility I want without the bulk of an SLR my only complaint is that it doesn’t support RAW.
I posted a few sample pictures yesterday and I’ll add a few more here:
Jeff,
I am interested to know why you selected the Nikon Coolpix. Did you consider a Canon or a Sony? If so why did you think the Nikon was a better camera and what was the top reasons that influenced your choice.
Zoe
Hi Zoe, I never considered Sony and never will… I’ve never been a Sony fan and after their DRM Rootkit fiasco I’ll never buy Sony branded product!
That said I did look at the Canon Powershot S5 IS but it was a little bulkier than I wanted and ultimately I’ve been using Nikon gear for nearly 30 years so it was probably a foregone conclusion that I’d buy another Nikon.