Great Camera
Written: Feb 10 '02
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Pros: image quality, size and weight, manual controls, optional wide angle and telephoto lenses
Cons: somewhat complicated in manual mode, short flash range, relatively short battery life
The Bottom Line: Overall, I like this camera very much and highly recommend it.
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| alleng's Full Review: Nikon COOLPIX 885 Digital Camera |
I purchased this camera as a replacement for my trusty 2 year old Coolpix 700 to get the zoom lens and increased resolution from 2 to 3 megapixels. The 885 produces images of excellent realism and detail and is very light and easy to carry. I thought the Coolpix 700 images were great until I saw some from the 885. The vividness and realism of the images is striking. Macro focus and exposure are execellent if you are not using the flash. Color rendition is very good, with accurate, bright, saturated colors. I haven't noticed the red oversaturation that many have reported.
I also purchased the Nikon WC-E63 wide angle adapter. It's a bit awkward due to it's size, but produces excellent wide angle images. It's great for landscapes and sunsets.
One thing to watch out for is that in some modes the camera will automatically go to a higher sensitivity (ISO rating), instead of increasing exposure time, in low light conditions. At this higher sensitivity, image quality is reduced, resulting in a noisy (splotchy) effect, with an emphasis on reds. I have seen some images posted to the web that obviously show that they were taken at a high ISO setting. That's probably the reason that some have complained about the image quality. At the ISO 100 setting, the quality is excellent. In manual mode you can lock in whatever ISO setting you want, and I would suggest using the higher settings only if you have to get a picture and don't care about how good it is.
The metering is outstanding. Nearly every image is perfectly exposed. The one exception is some flash images. The flash has a pretty short range (about 7 feet) and produces dark images if the subject is some distance from the camera. This is also one of the common cases in which it goes to higher sensitivity modes.
Given the high power consumption and high cost of the 2CR5 battery packs, I would strongly recommend a Lithium Ion battery pack and charger. I was also sold a 3rd party (not Nikon) Lithium Ion battery and charger. The battery is good for between 50 and 70 shots in normal use so I carry a spare battery. I recently purchased an additional Nikon branded battery. Even though it's rated at a lower capacity (650mah v.s. 850 mah) than the 3rd party battery, it seems to last longer, although I haven't done an actual timed check. I would suggest staying with the Nikon branded battery. I also purchased a Viking 128MB memory card for $60. The card holds about 190 normal images and seems to be quite fast. It takes about 3 seconds to store an image and about 8 seconds for the camera to power up. I also use a Kingston 64mb card which also works very well. I have heard that the camera is slow with some lower cost high capacity cards, and would suggest sticking to Viking, Kingston, or the ones recommended by Nikon.
On a recent vacation trip, this was the only camera I took and it worked out very well. I got excellent normal, as well as sunset, night landscape, and fireworks images. The scene modes really do work. However for some kinds of shots, since the effective sensitivity is only ASA 100, the exposures are long and require a tripod or placing the camera on a support. I was amazed that the camera produced very good shots of a fireworks display at Epcot Center. I had never been able photograph fireworks before. It also did very well on night landscapes and sunsets.
The camera has a huge number of features in manual mode. That's good because it gives you lots of options and makes it possible to get great shots in a wide variety of conditions. On the other hand, it makes use of the camera complicated if you want to do more than just point and shoot. You have to navigate through several levels of menus to find the option you want. Together with the automatic and scene modes it's a great combination, however, allowing someone who is technical and likes to fiddle with menus to do some great stuff, while still permitting someone who doesn't want to mess with it to still get very good pictures under varied conditions.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
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Epinions.com ID:
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Reviews written: 12
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