The Bottom Line: Camera has pros and cons evenly balanced. If your price range is only a couple hundred dollars the Coolpix is good, but if you can afford more, get it.
Angellcatt's Full Review: Nikon COOLPIX 4100 Digital Camera
The Nikon Coolpix 4100 is the first digital camera that I have owned. Before this I was loyal only to my Nikon FE.
Always trusting of the Nikon brand (sometimes you really do get what you pay for) when I decided to take the digital plunge I knew I wanted to stay with Nikon. Then it was just a matter of which model I could afford.
One day I would love to own a higher end Nikon digital model, but the Coolpix line is a nice alternative for people who can't spend that money (or at least can't right now). It runs around $200.
My biggest priority is a camera that take a photo that looks beautiful on screen and makes a beautiful print up to 11x14. (I print using a Mac Powerbook and an Epson 1280 inkjet printer.) The Coolpix 4100 succeeds on that count with flying colors.
However, this camera has two very big drawbacks.
The first is that there is an enormous delay from the time you push the shoot button and the time the camera actually takes the picture. You can reduce this delay by depressing the button halfway and allow the camera to focus, and holding it there until you are ready to snap the picture, but this is completely impractical if you are trying to capture candid moments. There is also an enormous delay in between shots while the camera processes the previous image and warms up the flash to take the next one. These delays are lessened when you use a lower resolution, but they are still extremely frustrating to both photographer and subject. The camera tries to offer a solution by offering an "action photography" setting where it takes 16 shots in a row based on one push of the button, but while this is a cute trick when photographing a friend's track meet, it is not a satisfactory solution for a photographer.
The second drawback is that every once in a while a shot will inexplicably have glare spots. This bothers me less because they can be easily fixed in Photoshop, but still, a camera should not create glare spots when there is no problem with the lighting.
The Coolpix 4100 has a lot of "frills" that you will mostly find yourself ignoring, like a "portrait" setting that puts an outline of a person on your screen so you can line the shot up perfectly centered. On the other hand some of them are very cool, like the "panoramic" setting that creates a transparent overlay of the last shot you took on half of your screen so that you can perfectly line up the next shot to match and create a panorama.
Overall I would say if you have a pricerange of a couple hundred dollars and you want the convenience of a digital camera, go ahead and get the Coolpix. On the other hand, if you can wait a little longer and save up for a better model (over $1000) you can avoid a couple of pretty serious problems that the lower end models have.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.