Nikon Coolpix P100 – Fast performer
Thumbs Up:
Overflowing with photo and movie features, solid design and fast shooting performance.
Thumbs Down:
The photo and video quality is not good.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Nikon Coolpix P100 is a 10-megapixels camera that has 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor having 10.6 million resolutions. The Coolpix P100 has 4x digital zoom and 3-inch vari-angle LCD with electronic viewfinder and anti-reflection coating.
The NIKKOR lens has focal length of 4.6-120mm (equivalent to 35mm) and aperture of F/2.8-5. The lens provides 26x optical zoom to Nikon Coolpix P100. The focus range is 50cm to infinity and for macro mode, it is 1 cm to infinity. The focus modes are Infinity, Macro, Center AF, Manual AF and 9-point AF. The ISO sensitivity options are 3200, 1600, 800, 400, 200, 160 and Auto.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has 43MB of internal memory and it has micro-SD card slot. The P100 supports JPEG image format and H.264 (.MOV) video format. The image storage resolution options are 2736×2736 (1:1), 3584×2016 (16:9), 3648×2432 (3：2), 640×480 (VGA), 1024×768 (PC), 1280×960 (1M), 1600×1200 (2M), 2048×1536 (3M), 2592×1944 (5M), 3264×2448 (8M) and 3648×2736 (10M).
The white-balance options are Custom, Flash, Fluorescent (daylight), Fluorescent (daylight white), Fluorescent (white), Incandescent, Cloudy, Daylight and Auto. The exposure metering modes includes Spot AF Area, Spot, Center-Weighted and Matrix.
The recording modes are High-Speed Movie, Movie, User, Manual, Shutter-priority, Aperture priority, Program, Subject Tracking, Smart Portrait, Sport Continuous, Scene, Auto and Scene Auto Selector. The colors effects are Custom, Monochrome filter (Sepia, Green, Orange, Red, Yellow), Black & White, More Vivid, Vivid, Softer and Normal.
The interfaces of Nikon Coolpix P100 are 1×USB, 1×HDMI and 1×component audio/video. The Coolpix P100 has EN-EL5 battery that has a life of approximately 250 shots. The accessories supplied with the P100 include Software Suite CD, Lens Cap, Strap, Audio/Video Cable, USB cable, AC Adapter/charger and battery. The camera can also be charged through USB connection to a computer.
Razzle Dazzle:
Nikon Coolpix P100 is 3.3 inches tall, 4.5 inches wide and 3.9 inches deep and weighs around 17 ounces with battery and SD card. The Coolpix P100 has compact shape, well-balanced body and provides nice feel while taking in hand. Its grip is comfortable and deep. The lens barrel has enough space to hold and steady the camera with left hand. It is difficult to hold the camera with fully extended zoom.
Inside Dope:
Nikon Coolpix P100 is equipped with extraordinary feature set. It has high-speed CMOS sensor with 26x mega-zoom lens. The Coolpix P100 provides 1080p HD video recording, high-speed video and photo shooting, fun modes and various settings. It is well designed with easily manageable controls. However, you have to spend some time with user manual to know all the options. Nikon Coolpix P100 costs around $399.95. The P100 has 10-megapixel CMOS sensor that reduces noise in photos of low light and improves shooting-speed. The Coolpix P100 has various shooting modes. If you can pay more for better options, then we recommend Nikon Coolpix P100.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has sensor-shift image stabilization (Nikon Optical VR) that works amazing to minimize the blur even with fully extended lens. It can combine with Nikon Best Shot Selector (BSS) to give better and sharp shot of still subject. BSS is high-speed shooting setting that captures up to 10 shots on pressing the shutter release button and saves only the sharpest shot.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has 3-inch vari-angle LCD with electronic viewfinder. You can pull out the LCD display from camera body and title it up or down. However, the LCD display does not swing out from the camera horizontally. The LCD display blanks out after taking a shot like other LCDs and electronic viewfinders, but it comes back fast.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has responsive and comfortably placed controls. Power button, mode dial and shutter release with zoom ring are located on the top. A button to move from displaying information on LCD and diopter adjustment dial sits on left side of electronic viewfinder. On the right side of display, you will find a Movie record button, switch to select regular of high-speed video recording and Display button to change the viewing information on displays. Horizontal dial sits above the thumb rests and allows you to change aperture settings and shutter speed, and zip through videos and images in playback. Round directional pad with center OK button, Delete, Menu and Playback buttons are also available. You can use the pad to navigate through menus; search through movies and photos; adjust focus, flash, timer and exposure compensation.
Micro-SD card slot and battery compartment are located in a door on the bottom. A USB/AV port and mini-HDMI port are located under cover on left side. The flash button also located on the left side. There is no slot for add-on flash and the onboard flash does not rise automatically when needed. You have to push flash button to bring up the flash. The camera’s flash is powerful and has exposure compensation settings.
Nikon Coolpix P100 does not have automatic display orientation, which is a negative point. You will get this feature on cameras with same price range. The Coolpix P100 has various shooting options including aperture range of 10 steps with 1/3 exposure values, and semi-manual and full manual options with shutter speeds from 8 seconds to 1/2000 second. The camera also offers subject tracking auto-focus for moving subjects, auto scene recognition, various scene modes and single spot on the Mode dial for a group of user-selected settings.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has four special shooting modes. The Coolpix camera can do one continuous burst at 10fps (frames per second). You can select Sports Continuous mode to capture up to 25 (2-megapixel) images at 60fps or 60 (1-megapixel) shots at 120fps. Nikon P100 has Backlit Scene HDR option to combine various shots of same scene to provide single image with broad-range of tonal detail. Night Landscape mode also merges various shots using fast shutter speeds to allow us taking clear shots in low light.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has rich movie modes as compared to previous Coolpix cameras. You can record regular HD quality movies 720p at 9Mbps and 1080p at 12/14 Mbps and for more options, the file size will be large. The camera can also record VGA and QVGA video at 30fps. You can use zoom while recording. You can also select continuous AF and electronic stabilization when you start recording. The stereo mic does nice job and the camera has a wind filter, which you can turn on.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has a high-speed mode to record videos with four options including 24fps at 320×240 pixels (fastest), 120fps at 640×480, 60fps at 1280×720 and 15 fps at 1920×1080. You can record slow-motion movie of 10 seconds maximum recording time at 240fps and 120fps that stretches out up to 80 seconds of playback. The recording speed is 30 seconds for 60fps that stretches out up to 1 minute of playback. However, 15fps records at double speed of normal movie. Nikon P100 has maximum two-minutes of recording time that gives one minute of video. In high-speed mode, you cannot use the zoom and no sound is recorded.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has nice photo quality as per a point-and-shot camera and provides better shooting experience. The images are not sharp at lowest ISO 160 level. The reduction in image noise increases as you go up in ISO levels. The objects get soft and appear to have digital process. The photos have yellow blotches at ISO 400, but still they are passable. You can lock the Coolpix P100 to use ISO 160 to 200 or 160-400. We recommend you to use ISO above 400 only in bright conditions. The photo quality at ISO 400 is not good and you can only use them for web sharing and small print-outs. If you need just a snapshot camera then you can go for this Nikon Coolpix P100.
Nikon Coolpix P100 shows barrel distortion with pin-cushioning at fully extended lens. Nikon has included Distortion Correction option, which you can turn on or off in A, M, S and P modes. There is also purple and blue fringe in the images at fully extend lens.
The time from power-on to first shot is 1.8 seconds and shot-to-shot time is 1.4 seconds. The shutter lag is 0.6 seconds in dim light and 0.4 seconds in bright light. The continuous shooting time is 11.3 fps.
We captured some photos and videos through Nikon Coolpix P100 for testing. The colors, especially blues and reds, were not accurate. Everything was looking natural and bright in some shots. The exposure was good, but highlights are prone for clipping and blooming. The video quality was passable for a pocket-video camera. However, this Coolpix P100 could not replace full HD camcorders.
Nikon Coolpix P100 has EN-EL5 battery that has a life of approximately 250 shots. It needs 3 hours to charge the battery fully from zero.
Nitty Gritty:
Nikon Coolpix P100 is pocket-sized camera with extensive features and you like most of them. We recommend it to be yours primary camera.
