The Coolpix 3500 is a Nikon for your Pocket and Pocketbook!
Written: Jan 18 '03 (Updated Aug 30 '03)
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Pros: Easy to use, it takes nice photos without the flash!
Cons: No microphone and the battery runs down fast.
The Bottom Line: This is a basic digital camera great for a beginner or the person wanting an easy to use digital camera.
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Nikon COOLPIX 3500 Digital Camera |
Wow! Nikon has digital camera that can easily fit into your pocket without tearing up your pocketbook.
The Nikon Coolpix 3500 is a 3-megapixel version of their Coolpix 2500. The camera is very small measuring 4.5 inches wide x 2.3 inches high x 1.2 inches thick, measuring 7.5 ounces with the battery.
It is silver and gray in color with a lens that swivels up and down for easy photo shots. This is basically a Nikon point and shoot camera!
This camera can also take movies in the Quick Time Motion JPEG (Movie) at 320 x 240 of 15 frames per second for up to 35 seconds at a time.
~~~ The Swivel Lens ~~~
The swivel lens has the flash built next to it so it swivels in the same direction as the lens. Benefits for this is taking a photo of yourself by flipping the lens backwards so you can view the LCD screen. In the backward mode you can move it up and down from 50 degrees to 90 degrees. In the normal front the lens will move from 50 degrees to 130 degrees.
The lens is an all glass F2.7-4.8 with a 3x Nikkor optical zoom lens. The lens is equivalent to 37mm to 111mm in a 35mm format. Shooting distance is 1.6 inches to infinity. The camera also includes a 4x digital zoom.
The flash built-in with the swivel lens gives you basic settings of Off, Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Fill and Slow Sync. It has a flash range from 1.3 to 5.6 feet in the telephoto and 1.3 to 9.8 feet in the wide-angle mode.
~~~ Photo Comparison ~~~
I compared the photo quality and printing of the Coolpix 3500 to my Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera. Both cameras are 3.34-megapixel and produce a large photo of 2048 x 1536 pixels.
As far as looking at a large photo taken by both cameras they look pretty close the same as far as quality. Printing up a 4 x 6 inch and 8 x 10 inch print also showed great results that are hard to see any photo quality difference.
Now when zooming both photos to 500% of the original size produced a little more grain on the Coolpix 3500 over the Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera.
Bottom line: The 3500 produced excellent photo quality for viewing and printing.
~~~ CompactFlash ~~~
The Nikon Coolpix 3500 uses a CompactFlash type 1 card, it comes with a 16MB card.
The camera gives you three different grade choices of Fine, Normal and Basic. No matter what size I use I always want the best quality so I use the Fine on all sizes.
In the JPEG format sizes and the amount that fit on the 16MB CompactFlash card
These are all in the Fine setting.
2048 x 1536 produces 10 photos
1600 x 1200 produces 16 photos
1290 x 960 produces 24 photos
1024 x 768 produces 37 photos
640 x 480 produces 86 photos.
I highly recommend buying a 64MB card or higher for more photo storage.
~~~ The Battery ~~~
The Coolpix 3500 uses a lithium Ion rechargeable battery (EN-EL2) and comes with a charger. You must take the battery out of the camera to charge it. The battery is rated at about two hours of usage, it ran out of power after about 1 ½ hours of usage for me.
I recommend buying an extra one so you always have one charged.
Nikon also offers an optional AC adapter.
~~~ What you get! ~~~
The Nikon Coolpix 3500 digital camera
One EN-EL2 Li-ion rechargeable battery with charger
One 16MB CompactFlash card
A Neck strap and USB cable
Documentations and manual
Three CD-ROMs are included with NikonView 5 made for Windows and the Macintosh, NikonView 5 Reference Manual in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Japanese, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Arcsoft Panorama Maker.
~~~ Other Features ~~~
A 1.5-inch color LCD for photo taking, reviewing and menu.
A Self Timer with a ten second delay, you can watch a small red LED flashing in front of the camera.
A Thumbnail Display with the choice of four or nine photos on the LCD screen.
A Quick Button for instant access to the playback mode.
Create a Small Pic. of 320 x 240 pixels for easy e-mail sending.
Time & Date can be shown on the photos.
Languages for the menu are in English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.
A threaded Tripod Mount is located on the bottom
Shutter speeds are from 1/3000 to two seconds.
DPOF Digital Print Order Format
Scene Modes of twelve scenes
~~~ Pros ~~~
Great photo quality as expected from Nikon with good macro capability.
The swiveling lens is a big plus because you can just swivel it up or down with ease to get that perfect photo while the body of the camera sits still. Plus the hiding of the lens by tilting it inwards so no lens cap is needed.
The feel of the camera is nice with the size like holding a cell phone in your hand. It is easy to use and operate giving you plenty of photos sizes to choose from.
The price of a Nikon in the price range of about $300 ($399 retail) for a quality digital camera.
The scene modes, with a large variety to choose from.
A Transfer Button that lets you transfer your photos easily through a USB port to your computer.
~~~ Cons ~~~
The biggest con of all is no optical viewfinder! Even though the LCD on the back does a decent job outside in the sunlight, when there is snow on the ground and the sun is out it is very hard to use. I do prefer a digital cameras with an optical viewfinder and LCD.
No microphone for the movie mode, what good is a movie without any sound.
In the movie mode you have no optical zoom, personally for me they could have left the movie part out and made it for digital still photos only.
The ISO is automatic not giving you any choices of manual settings, this will give you lot of noise in low light situations. (Grainier looking photos!)
Redeye seems to be a problem that I couldn’t get rid of even when using the redeye reduction setting. Not all photos showed up with it but the majority of indoor shots did.
Battery drainage is faster on this camera because you have to use the viewfinder all the time instead of being able to shut it off and use an optical viewfinder.
~~~ My Final Thoughts ~~~
The Nikon Coolpix 3500 is a fairly nice camera that is perfect for the person wanting a point and shoot camera. There are some manual settings that can be made but they are limited. The small size of makes it easy to carry along anywhere in a pocket or a purse. All the functions are easy to learn and operate.
Photo quality is excellent for a photo without the use of the flash, mainly outdoors and well lighted indoors. When using the flash from a distance produced a fairly good photo under any light condition. Using the flash close up on a person always produced red eyes for me even when using the redeye reduction setting. I was able to get the redeye out using software but I had no luck with the camera when taking close up shots of people. I figure the problem could be that the flash and lens are pointing at the subject at the exact angle no matter how you move the lens. (This is my theory!)
The photos all printed up good on glossy photo paper using my HP PhotoSmart 1215 Personal Printer.
Overall the Nikon Coolpix 3500 is a great choice if you want a simple to use camera with good photo quality.
~~~ Print your digital photos for 18 cents each; Click on Me to find out how! ~~~
Here are some of my other camera reviews!
Canon PowerShot G1 Digital Camera
Casio QV3000EX Digital Camera
Casio QV-2300UX Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix 2800 Digital Camera
Kodak DC280 Zoom Digital Camera
Kodak DC3400 Zoom Digital Camera
Kodak DX4900 Digital Camera
Minolta Dimage E-201 Digital Camera
Minolta Maxxum HTsi 35mm SLR camera
Minolta Maxxum 7
Minolta Maxxum 800si 35mm SLR camera
Olympus C-3020 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus C-4040 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-40 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-380 Digital Camera
Pentax Optio 430 Digital Camera
Nikon Coolpix 900-s Digital Camera
Sony MVC-FD87 Digital Camera
Sony Mavica MVC-FD95 Digital Camera
Sony DSC-F717 Cyber-shot Digital Camera
Sony DSC-P2 Digital Camera
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 319
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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surferdude7
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Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
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