Good for What it is

By Adrian - March 14, 2011

This review is from: Nikon COOLPIX P500 12.1 CMOS Digital Camera with 36x NIKKOR Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Full HD 1080p Video

I've owned the Nikon p90 and p100, so I've got an idea of what these Nikon superzooms are like. I wasn't planning on buying a new superzoom, but the big jump in zoom to 810mm made me plonk down the money again. ( I think I need help, I'm becomeing a camera junkie). While wide angles aren't usually something I look for in most cameras, 22.5mm (35mm format) is really wide! The p500 is once again evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

The Good:

- Light and easy to hold, which makes it a good travelling camera. Less than half the weight of my dslr with an 18-200mm lens attached.

- Tilting 3 inch LCD screen.

- Humungous zoom. I write before that the Fujifilm HS10 720mm zoom was huge. 810mm is even huger! (This is the zoom range it should have been in the p100 imho, but as they say, better late than never). You will truly see things you'd never thought you'd see when you zoom out to 810mm.

- Easy to use...relatively. Since I've already used several Nikons, I'm more used to it than you might be if you are new to the brand, so I didn't find it especially difficult to navigate. If you are a pure point and shoot person using little compact cameras, you might find the functions available a bit daunting and you'll need to look up both the manual, and a FAQ section of photography terms and functions to know how to alter things like shutter speed and aperture. I use shutter speed sometimes, but not aperture, since it's nothing to shout about. If I want thin sections of focus, I go to my dlsr and f1.4 prime lens :)

- Photo quality is not bad for this type of camera. Definitely not dslr quality. But if you just want that photo (and you'll take heaps with 22.5-810mm on tap) then this will more than satisfy you.

- Macros: macro photo quality have always been quite reasonable in the Nikon p90, p100, and this model too. In some ways, they give dslr's a run for their money because while not in the same league pixel peeping wise, you can get a heck of a lot closer with the p90, p100 and p500, so the colour and detail is quite decent imho. Colour is not as full and bright as some other brands, but is quite acceptable in good light. It's a bit faded indoors or in poor light.

- Now comes is red, as well as black! Ok, this isn't really a big thing, but if you don't want common boring black, you now have a choice. Maybe it will appeal to others :)


The Bad:

- They STILL don't provide an external charger! As I wrote before in the p100 review- I'm lucky- I still have a spare from the Nikon s10. All you poor saps who don't will have to charge your camera battery using the USB cable and supplied AC charger. I don't know how much an external charger and spare battery are, but if you buy this camera, I'd suggest buying these too.

- If you turn on the camera while the lens cap is on, the camera will freeze up and the motor makes this sad grinding/whining noise as it tries to pathetically push the lens out against the lens cap. This is crazy! It was like this in the p90, p100 and they still haven't fixed it!

- Still has the same form factor as before. That's mostly good, but the small electronic viewfinder remains too. I don't find it easy to use.


I haven't used the video, so can't comment.


Overall, it's more of the same from Nikon, except the lens goes wider and further.

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