-- 2 -- A closer look at the Nikon Coolpix 900 camera review

A promo shot of the Nikon Coolpix 900 (the newer model out now is called the 900s). For reviews and stats: review 1; review 2 and of course news:rec.photo.digital

Thinking of getting
the camera?

Do yourself a favour and get these two items for sure:

(a) If you are like me you will be taking more than 24 shots in a day, or at least before you want to rush back to the computer again. The 4Meg card that comes with the camera is, well.. pointless. You've spent a lot of money on the camera already, spend some more and get a decent 30Meg chip (96 pics in normal mode). I got mine from DStore but you could also check ACE's indexes for other sources.

(b) This camera eats batteries for lunch (and dinner, and breakfast..). Don't just get rechargeable batteries, get the nickle metal hydride versions (sold by Radio Shack or under the "Quest" label). Get two sets and the charger. One set is enough for a day's worth of shooting and downloading of some of the shots so always keep them topped up.

masking objects of desire

When I first got the Coolpix 900, I put up a quick comparison of the Mavica FD-7 against the Coolpix 900. As you can see besides the obvious resolution difference, where the coolpix basically captures and image that is four times the screen area of that taken by the FD-7, there are also some subtle differences in colour and tone.

COMPARISON: Relative sharpness and detail recorded

Sony Mavica:
This is an un-retouched section showing the edge effects where the glass meets the background. Even when the image is reduced, the edges tend to remain smudgy --though I found it not to be so noticable with other solid opaque type objects. Click for larger picture

Coolpix 900:
A similar image (also un-retouched) showing the increased detail. (Click for original photo 270K)

So you would think that this is the ultimate camera. We'll I've got a couple of beefs with it. First the downloading of photos takes forever. The camera comes with a serial cable which works at a max. of 1.15K. If you have 30Meg of photos you can do the math to see how long it takes (about 45 min). I'm looking for an adapter so that I can plug the flash card into my PCMCIA slot in my lap top. I figure that would be faster.

The zoom is digital, but only 3X (there is an increased digital zoom, but only at 640X480 so I never use it). Others have made lens ring adapters (and here) to be able to use readily available telephoto conversion lenses.

Finally, my biggest beef is that this camera usually has about a second delay between when you press the shutter button and when it actually takes the picture. A lot can happen in a second: smiles disapear, heads move, moving cars disapear right off the screen, you get the idea.

cleaning up your photos with Photoshop