Nikon Coolpix 5900

Auto Mode
With a little patience, users can work wonders with the new Nikon 5900. When in automatic mode (the icon with the camera on a green background), managing photographic elements such as exposure, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, focus, and ISO is a breeze, as it’s all done for you. These smaller digital cameras are famous for their ease of use, and the Nikon Coolpix 5900 is another testament to that claim. My experience with the camera thus far has been minimal, though by all appearances, the Nikon Coolpix 5900 made quick, intelligent adjustments to automatic features.

Movie Mode
Growing in popularity, movie modes have successfully found their way into the realm of essential compact digital camera settings. The Nikon Coolpix 5900 has a few video recording modes available, all of which record video at 30 frames per second with audio. The settings are classified by the resolution of the frame. Among the movie mode settings are: TV (640 x 480), Small Size (320 x 240), and Smaller Size (160 x 120). Each video segment is recorded as a QuickTime movie to the memory card.

Drive / Burst Mode
A few continuous shooting modes are included on the Nikon Coolpix 5900. Users will notice that within the menu, Continuous is an option with the following sub-options available: Single and Continuous modes, which both record roughly 2 frames per second at a maximum of 5 shots. A Multi-Shot 16 mode will approximate 1.7 frames per second. These continuous capture modes will help improve the camera's speed as well as act like bracketing modes. By recording a predetermined number of shots, users can time the sequence to help capture the exact shot in an action sequence.

Playback Mode
Playing back your images on the Nikon Coolpix 5900 is done with the touch of a button--the Playback button to be exact. Simply press the Playback button, located to the right of the menu button, and voila. Pressing the playback button offers a quick review of pictures by scrolling through single frames or zooming out to see the pictures in groups. Magnification can be achieved using the zoom controls in the top right corner of the camera.

Other features available in playback mode include automatic Red-Eye Removal, Date and Time Stamp, Crop, and D-Lighting, which allows users to salvage photos with too much back light. The Nikon D-Lighting feature is a noticable addition to this year’s Coolpix models. The setting is designed as a point-and-shoot editing effect that will help salvage underexposed images that ordinarily would be discarded. Using this feature, the camera will automatically raise the dark tonal levels in the frame and bring the shot to an acceptable exposure.

Custom Image Presets
Like other Nikon digital cameras, the Nikon Coolpix 5900 has a very healthy number of custom image presets, including Auto, Scene Assist (portrait, landscape, sports, night portrait), Scene (party/indoor, beach/snow, sunset, dusk/dawn, night landscape, close up, museum, fireworks show, copy, back light, panorama assist, underwater), BSS (best shot selector), Image Adjustment, Image Sharpening, Saturation Control, Auto Exposure Bracketing, WB Bracketing, and Noise Reduction. The abundance of preset modes grants point-and-shoot users a substantial amount of control over the image, far beyond most automatic cameras.

Users can access these preset modes on the Nikon Coolpix 5900 by setting the mode dial to SCENE or through the Portrait selection. Additionally, several of the preset modes are available through the main menu when in automatic mode.