Great Camera, but buy a case!
Written: Jul 25 '00 (Updated Jul 25 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: great pictures, easy to use, pro settings
Cons: crummy case supplied by Nikon, no viewvfinder-lcd
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| LSMillers's Full Review: Nikon Coolpix 990 Digital Camera |
The pictures are breathtaking, but protect your investment by buying a decent case for it! I recently dropped mine, which was inside the flimsy case supplied by Nikon, and it now needs to be sent in for repair (the auto focus isn't working). I'm kicking myself that I didn't protect this delightful camera more effectively.
My non-digital camera is an Olympus IS-3 (that i have a decent case for), which I mention to give you an idea of what I was using prior to this. I find that the pictures that I'm getting with the Nikon are much better, mostly because I can compose them on the spot with the lcd screen. This is a dream for me, because my greatest difficulty in the past has been in composing my shots properly, with the correct lighting, depth of field, cropping, etc. The screen lets you do all this right on the spot. Also, you can alternate between automatic and a pre-set constellation of settings (such as spot metering with a specific shutter speed), which makes it extremely simple to get that difficult shot where there's a lot of backlighting. Lastly, you can view and delete the crummy shots on the spot, making room for the better ones that you'll hopefully take later.
It's also wonderfully simple and fast to connect this camera to my Mac Powerbook G3 to download the pictures. Just a matter of plugging in the usb connection, running the software and downloading the pictures. There's a pcmcia card that i could purchase to make this even easier, but I don't find this necessary for me yet.
The camera comes with a tremendous range of user-controllable settings, more than I'll likely use but I'm nevertheless glad that Nikon included them. Also note: this camera (and all other high-end digitals) is a battery hog!! Be prepared to go through four AA batteries in a single shoot. My remedy for this was to buy a Nickel-Metal Hydride (Not NiCAD) battery recharger with eight batteries, so that I'm not spending the equivalent of a roll of film on batteries with every session. Go to your local ham radio store to get the best deal on a AA recharging system.
A word of advice about the memory cards -- the 3 megapixel pictures are real memory hogs, so don't think you'll be shooting too many of these without buying a bigger card than the one which comes with the camera. Note that you'll likely be using the 3 megapixel setting only for 8 x 10 prints -- it's absolutely wasted for internet pictures, and likely overkill for 3 x 5s. I bought a 32 mb card, and will buy a 128 mb card when the price comes down (I think they're currently selling for around $400). Otherwise you can only shoot only one or two of the highest res pics on a 16 mb card. I should add that the 8 x 10 prints are breathtaking, virtually indistinguishable (to me) from a 35 mm print.
One minor irritation has been my inability to screen out the light during the day outside when trying to see the lcd screen. I'm hoping that Nikon makes an attachment that will let me block out the light and just see the screen, or perhaps I'll jerry-rig something. I'm planning to purchase the 3x tele and fisheye converters to get a wider range of shots.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
LSMillers
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Location: California
Reviews written: 43
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