All, my first few days with a Nikon 990 camera were interesting.
First, the Coolpix 990 is NOT a "point-and-shoot" camera. At nearly $1,000 for the camera and more for accessories, it scares me to let someone else handle it. If you just pick it up and take shots then you get rather "ordinary" pictures. Like so many $10 "single use" cameras, it doesn't have enough flash range and the defaults are just OK.
THIS CAMERA LONGS TO BE USED AT ITS FULL CAPACITY AND TO CREATE EITHER 8MB TIFFs or 1MB (JPEG 1/4) IMAGES! Using it at 1,024x768 is an insult to its capabilities. Buy of 64M+ SNDK CF card!
IF you crank it up to a full 3.3Mpixels and use the 1/4 JPG (1.1MB) mode, you will get a damned nice picture. I would say that "most people" would be very satisfied with 11 x 14" prints .. and some from 16x20" prints. 8x10" prints will be VERY crisp (better than many people have ever seen). Of course ... it's all up to you and your eyes.
There's a REALLY BIG PROBLEM with digital photography that no one wants to discuss. If you photograph a straight line and that line doesn't happen to line up with a pixel, tough. With "film", the grain is dissolved in such a way that the line remains (where one granule ends up larger on one side than another). But with digital film, it becomes and "all-or -nothing" event.
Forget "low light" shots as the the 990 can't see much in the dark. My earlier SLR would send out an IR image in such cases but the Coolpix seems to rely upon whatever light is already there.
Press the button and then wait.
Sometimes it is instant and sometimes it takes a whole second. If your subject moves even a tiny bit, the autofocus system stops you from taking a picture. THAT, is a total pain. I'd rather have a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of the "perfect" moment than a perfectly focused snapshot of whatever happened a second later. I figure to go "manual" in the near future to handle this kind of problem (been there and done that!).
Quick Conclusion:
If you only want a better way to take snapshots, buy the Coolpix 800 for <$500 (after rebates). The Coolpix 990 is NOT for rich kids with lots of money and no brains. But it IS for those with lots of money AND lots of brains.
I can't help but to compare the Coolpix 990 to "CDs". I have a set of $300+ Senheiser headphones that can reproduce ANYTHING. To me, records are always "scratchy" but CD's "hurt" my ears. Since I hate hiss and pop, I listen mostly to CDs. I REALLY wish that they had upped the CD standard from 44KHz to 88KHz or better.
If you are a beginner with aspirations or an "intermediate-level" photgrapher, you will LOVE the Coolpix 990. But, if you are a true pro, you will think of the Coolpix 990 as the "CD" of a camera (lots of resolution and the capabilities for LARGE prints .. but it, "hurts the eyes").
That's my take. All are welcome to comment.
Craig
PS I ran into some software problems when I loaded the Nikon software. If you have a CD-RW drive, you may not be able to use USB to unload your CF card. Please feel free to write me for an answer since Nikon's staff is overwhelmed at the moment (too many camera sold too quickly makes for a VERY long wait time on the phone). |
