Having friends that have more money than they know what to do with is nice. Every camera I have reviewed so far are ones that I have borrowed from friends or own myself (only 1 I own, the Canon S230).

The reason I became interested in trying out the Nikon 4300 is marketing. I love good advertising, so when I saw a very good commercial for the 4300 I started paying attention to anyone that might have one. As it turns out a friend who is a nurse has one who bought it because it is Nikon. I asked to borrow it and whammo here comes the review with first hand experience.

So without further gilding the lilly, here's the review.

PICTURE QUALITY: A-
A camera, film or digital, should first and foremost take a good picture. The quality of photo should be the primary form of judgement on a camera. Nikon has long been known as a premere camera company and they don't drop the ball with the 4300. The pictures of the 4300 are very nice, good colors and very nice exposures. While there are cameras in this megapixel range that offer sharper photo's, most if not all of them are not as easy to use or are not geared towards point and shooting. I would definently give the 4300 above 90% score for picture quality but not above 95%. A option that is becomming more and more common in digital photo's is noise reduction effect, turning this on will lower the noise or visable shake when taking photo's in low light when the shutter needs to remain open longer. The 4300 of course has this option but the nice thing is that it does a very good job even without it being on. This option lets the 4300 jump to above 95% in that area.

Common problems that appear in a lot of good cameras don't rear their ugly heads here. Purple fringing is almost nonexistent, in fact the edge of the photo's are almost perfect.

In addition to the previously stated nice low light performance, the macro photo's are impressive as well. I found I could get about 2 inches from the subject, in my case a ladybug, before the picture became a little blurred. Impressive for a camera that doesn't have a attachment on it.

Overall I'm very happy with the photo quality, superb for a point and shoot, good for any other type.


EASE OF USE: A
I am a bit undecided between which is more important for this camera, ease of use or options, I have to think Ease of Use is more important because it is obvious this camera is designed first and foremost as a point and shoot, with additional tweaking options included.

Nikon was the originator of the whole wheel select option, letting you pick a series of preset photo options, such as landscape, close up or whatever. The 4300 lets you pick many different options using the easy to use menu on the camera. One of the few gripes I have about my s230 are that the menu select buttons are so close to the selection buttons, my big fingers sometimes choose both. The 4300 doesn't have this problem because of a singular rocker switch that lets you move about the options easy with just a touch.

Just like a lot of cameras there are buttons below the LCD screen that let you pick from some of the more common settings, this is where you can select the photo preset options such as close up or mountain photo, these buttons also control flash, menu select and exposure. I'll talk about more options in just a second.

Startup is a bit slow for some cameras, about 4 seconds, and while you have the option of either picking large sized TIFF format or three JPEG sizes, even using JPEG your going to have a 3-4 second delay between shots. While it does have a quick shot mode, the photo quality is much lower. I found the G2,G3,G4 and S40,S50 all had much faster photo delay times, the S40 being able to take a few shots at a time. The 4300 I think takes about the same speed as my S230, but honestly I can't remember if the S400 will beat it or not.

One thing I didn't like is that the 4300 won't fit into a pocket, in fact your going to be hard pressed to fit it into one of the mini cases either, a small medium one will work just fine but I love the fact that with my S230 I can carry it in my pocket or attach my mini canvas case to my belt.

Another quirk of the 4300 is that only 80% of the picture is visable through the LCD screen, this kind of messes up some of my centering of photo's.

OPTIONS: A
While this is definently a point and shoot, it seems it has the desire to be a more professional model. Through the menu's you will see that it offers many different light metering options. These options include spot types, center, and matrix. The options also include many different white balance options, some include nice presets for flourecent lighting such as you might find in so many indoor settings.

More options you want? Ok how about contrast, different brightness settings, best shot settings, sharpness, bracketing selection. Also there are black and white options, and a very nice option that I really love called focus confirmation. Focus Confirmation displays on the LCD screen a area that shows up as brighter than the rest that shows the area that the camera will focus tighter on than the surrounding area.

While these give it a lot of small options, you can build up custom modes like more advanced cameras. But you can use manual focus.

For the person that is happy with point and shoot, you get 12 total modes for point and shoot. Nice indeed.

Ok you want the frosting? Well the 4300 is totally compatable with most of Nikons lense converters. This brings it to the forefront of the point and shoot pack. You can add a external flash as well!

Now what I didn't like is that the movie mode, which is adequete as any short movie mode can be, does not have audio! I love using the movie mode for short little stuff for my daughter, but playing it back really feels lacking without sound.

BATTERY: A+
The battery is a very nice setup for the 4300, not only can you get about 200 photo's using the LCD screen and of course using autofocus. It uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery but here's the best part, it can use disposable battery's as well! This makes it easy to use on a vacation.

PROBLEMS
Only a few problems came up for me. You'll definently need to buy a larger memory card, the one that comes with it is pretty small, and with the cost of a good sized one under a hundred bucks, you can't go wrong with one. I bought a 128 meg card for my canon, and I absolutely think its a necessity for any digital camera.

Another problem is that the tripod mount is right next to the battery, while this is sort of unavoidable it does make it impossible to change the battery while mounted.

And finally as I said before it is a bit too big for pocket carrying and for mini cases. Not a big deal but not being able to carry it easy might make some people tend not to carry it, and for a point and shoot this sorta defeats the purpose you know?

PRICE: A-
While this isn't a super expensive camera, you are going to have to expect to pay around $350. Yes you can find it online for as low as $250, but the store is highly unreliable that sells it that low, in fact under $300 all the stores have pretty craptastic ratings. You'll get refurbs and used for around 300-325 but new from a reputable store is going to run 330-350. Offline your looking closer to 400. Bottom line is you can get a s40 through amazon.com for $300 and a s50 that has 5 megapixels for $400, and in my opinion the S40 takes as good a photo as the 4300 and is much more portable.

CONCLUSION
I like this camera, as a point and shoot is does a very good job, I think it has enough options (especially the lense attachments) to bring it above the sony competition and the canon as well, but the size of it brings it back down. I personally would prefer the S50 over the 4300, but I'd take the 4300 over the s40. If I needed to buy a new camera though I'd go with the S400, size does matter in a point and shoot.

It reminds me of the Mazda commercials that say "The soul of a sportcar in a minivan", well the 4300 has the soul of a professional camera in a point-and-shoot, but unfortunently it has still has the size of the minivan as well.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 350
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use