Nikon Coolpix P90 bridge camera
Super zoom, so-so pictures
Review You know, there’s a lot to be said for superzoom cameras. Instead of lugging around a DSLR camera and a stack of lenses, you can stick a massive zoom onto a camera that’s a little smaller than your average DSLR and simply carry that around. Nikon’s Coolpix P90 is a superzoom bridge camera with a whopping 24x zoom. It’s aimed at users who want more than a compact and a little less than a DSLR, but the question is: does the P90 offer enough to satisfy this type of user?
Nikon's Coolpix P90: get up close and personal with this superzoom lens
The P90’s design is definitely more DSLR-inspired than compact-influenced. It’s a chunky camera with a plastic body and cradles nicely in the hands. It’s rather large for coat pocket though, so it’s not so convenient for carrying around than say, a travel-camera like Canon’s PowerShot SX200, which to be fair, 'only' offers a 12x zoom. The P90 measures 114 x 83 x 99mm and weighs 500g with battery and card.
A quick tour reveals, on top, a mechanical pop-up flash, mode dial, tiny power button, and at the front, shutter button and zoom lever. At the back is a monitor button for switching between the LCD and the electronic viewfinder, the latter a 0.24in EVF with 230,000-dot display; a display mode button and a control dial which is used for adjusting settings such as shutter speed and aperture.
Underneath these is a 3in LCD screen composed of 230,000 dots. It’s attached to a hinged arm that enables it to be pulled forward and tilted 90° up or 45° down. Next to the screen are the playback button, multi-way controller, menu button and delete button.
On the right is a small plastic cover hiding a mini-USB port. This cover seemed rather flimsy and we do question its longevity. Underneath is another cover for a lithium-ion battery and SD/SDHC card slot, plus a tripod mount.
No complaints getting to grips with this big body
The P90 features a 12.1Mp (effective) 1/2.3in CCD; a 24x zoom in the form of a 4.6-100mm f/2.8-5.0 Nikkor lens offering the equivalent of a 26-624mm lens on a 35mm camera; image resolution range from 4000 x 3000 to 640 x 480; shutter speed range 1/2000-8s, although in some continuous shooting modes this is bumped up to 1/4000-1/20s; an ISO range of 64-6400, although the file size is limited to 3MB at 3200 ISO and above.
COMMENTS
very beautiful
this camera looks very beautiful , I l ike it !
here I have a good place that is Tradestead there are many kinds of beautiful and powerful consumer electronics with very cheap price that I like it very much!
Image stabilisation FTW
Alex said "I have a 300mm (450mm equivalent) zoom on my APS-C SLR camera and have a job getting steady shots with that. You have to have a tripod."
Thankfully, Nikon are now quite good at vibration-reduction - it's the really big advance in lens technology in the last decade, you no longer need to hold the camera still. One of the pictures in the article is taken hand-held at 624mm equivalent and looks pretty sharp; even the pocket Canon camera I have can take sharp macro shots of coins in poorly-lit museums with a quarter-second exposure.
65%, what does it actually mean?
Do things ever get <50% these days? If not, we must assume 50% as the new zero, meaning this camera comes in at what, 30%? Sounds round about right from the pictures.
P90
Does it strip down into 3 parts for easy cleaning? where's the 50 rounds of 5.7mm kept? a P90 remodelled for the toruist/terrorist market? i'll take 2
Pointless waste of money.
Nobody with any experience of taking good quality photos would ever specify a camera like this. It is riddled with compromises - the sensor is too small and the zoom range is too big.
I have a 300mm (450mm equivalent) zoom on my APS-C SLR camera and have a job getting steady shots with that. You have to have a tripod. At 624mm you would need to cement it into the foundations to get a steady shot.
With this camera you end up paying twice for each "feature". You pay extra to have a 12MP sensor but it's so small you have to pay extra for the all the noise reduction tech that blurs out much of the detail that is "captured" by the high resolution sensor.
I defy anyone to get a decent shot at the maximum zoom without spending more on the tripod than the camera itself cost.
This is a camera designed by a marketing department not a photographer.
I pity anyone who wastes their money on this device.
