Very Cool! (Nikon Coolpix 950)

Member Name: epollux

Product:	Nikon Coolpix 950
Date:	08/08/01 (201 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quality, features

Disadvantages: slow, power consumption

I have a Coolpix 950 for more than a year now and have been really satisfied with it.

First it is easy to manipulate - i was used to normal camera and the coolpix is somehow really close to the way a camera usually operate.

The body of the camera is made in 2 main pieces that rotates. The right part is the video screen and where the buttons for the settings are.

The left part is the lens and flash. You can rotate the left part to adjust the angle of your picture while seeing the result on the video.

There is 2 main modes, Record to take pictures and Play to view and edit the pics on the screen.

Record:
You can use the automatic settings or select the speed you want or the "overture" (don't know how to say it in English!)...

It offers several levels of quality – so the higher the quality the fewer the number of images you can store on a Compact Flash card.

A 64mb card will give you more than 120 pictures with a "Normal" quality (1600*1200).

Some additional features can be useful:
- Delay
- Multi pictures (take several pictures per second so you can keep the best one)

Play:
You can view the picture you took one by one or through a matrix of 9 pics on the video screen.

There are 2 things that make it not a perfect camera:
- It is sometimes a bit slow to both take a picture or to view them...(the new Coolpix has this problem fixed). There is a slight delay between the time you press the button to take the picture and when the picture is actually taken.

- 4 * RC6 batteries...buy rechargeable batteries otherwise it will cost you a fortune as the camera is very hungry for batteries

A word of advice: Buy a Compact flash reader that you connect to your USB port of your PC...Pictures are transferred immediately. Through the serial cable it takes up to a minute per picture!!!

Summary: