Nikon has announced the release of a new Coolpix model which promises to set new standards for a high performance camera packaged in a stylish and extremely compact exterior, when compared to a conventional DSLR body. The company claims to have consulted extensively with pro photographers, before coming up with the P7000 – a camera promising SLR-like quality in a compact body.
User Friendly
The P7000 has been designed for the professional photographer who is already used to SLR bodies. Critical function controls such as the command dial and the AF control lever are exactly where you’d expect them to be, if you are a Nikon DSLR user. We liked the Quick Menu function which lets you zoom to a pre-determined focal length of choice.
Image Quality
The Coolpix P7000 provides excellent image quality with its 7.1X Nikkor lens. This gives you an equivalent of 28mm-200mm on the 35mm format. Nikon has thoughtfully included the Vibration Reduction technology into the P7000, knowing things can get a little tricky shooting at 200mm zoom. This camera employs Nikon’s new EXPEED C2 processor working with a 10 MP sensor gives you an excellent dynamic range to work with.
ISO Range
The P7000 offers you a wide ISO range of 100 – 3200, expandable to 6400. It is good to see a compact offering you the high image quality capability of 100 ISO. Shooting in the night mode in low light ensures minimum image noise even at high ISO settings. The noise reduction feature allows you to further control grain on your images. It is worth mentioning here, that the P7000 does feature Nikon’s award winning D-Lighting technology as well. For those of you who don’t already know, D-Lighting allows you to post process under-exposed images to bring out the shadow details like magic!
Movie Mode
The P7000 allows you to shoot High Definition 720p movies with full stereo sound. You can also use external microphones to record high quality audio. And then of course, the HDMI output allows you to view your recordings on any High Definition display device.
RAW
For those who like complete control over their post-processing, the Coolpix P7000 allows files to be stored in the NRW format. As Nikon users would know, this RAW file format provides maximum post-processing capabilities, and acts as a ‘digital negative’, if you may. For those who are not very fussy about post processing, the camera’s in-built editing functions provide basic editing options.
The Heart of a Complete System
The P7000 poses as the center of its own complete system, being compatible with the high quality Nikon Speedlight flashes. Accessories like the wide angle adaptor and infra-red remote control further increase the capabilities of this compact. Nikon also offers the free use of its online file storage system – Picturetown. You can easily share images using this facility, and also organize them categorically. Nikon allows 2GB of storage on Picturetown.
