Digital Camera Review
Nov 11, 2005
- By Emily Raymond
The Nikon Coolpix P1 looks like all of its other compact Coolpix cousins with its 3.6 x 2.4 x 1.5-inch body, but it comes with a little something extra—wireless technology. The P1 and its sibling, the P2, were announced in September 2005 and hit the market a month later for a $549 retail price. Nikon claims the P1 to be the world’s first wireless digital camera, though Kodak also makes that claim of the EasyShare-one. We can say for sure however that the 8 megapixel P1 offers the most megapixels and most manual control of any consumer wireless digital camera currently out. This Nikon Coolpix has 16 scene modes, an auto mode, a program mode, and an aperture priority mode. This model also has the Nikon technology suite that includes Face Priority Auto Focus, in-camera red-eye fix, and D-Lighting compensation. The compact P1 has a 2.5-inch LCD screen with 110,000 pixels, a 3.5x optical zoom lens, and 32MB of internal memory. Its most distinguishing feature is its built-in wireless port, which can transfer pictures and movie clips to a wireless enabled computer or printer within a 100-foot range. The P1 comes out just as the consumer wireless market is heating up.
Picture Quality / Size Options (6.5)
The Nikon Coolpix P1 has 8 megapixels and plenty of image sizes to fill the range. 3264 x 2448, 3264 x 2176, 2592 x 1944, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768, and 640 x 480 are the options. All of these are 4:3 formatted except for the 3264 x 2176 size that is optimized to make 4 x 6-inch prints. The smallest two image sizes are optimized for the computer screen and television, respectively. The smallest 640 x 480 size will also be easy to email, which will be very handy on a wireless digital camera. The image sizes can be adjusted in the camera’s menu once the mode dial has been moved into the correct position. The compression – with its Fine, Normal, and Basic options - can only be changed in the menu.
Picture Effects Mode (7.75)
There are lots of in-camera picture effects for photographers who want to print directly and don’t want to mess with editing software. The Saturation option comes with Maximum, Enhanced, Normal, Moderate, and Minimum choices. Image Sharpening comes with Auto, High, Normal, Low, and Off options. Image Adjustment has Auto, Normal, More Contrast, and Less Contrast settings. These options are all available in the recording menu, but they don’t have live views so it’s hard to see their effects until after the pictures have been taken. A noise reduction mode can be turned on and off as well. Surprisingly, there are no color modes such as black & white and sepia; these effects must be added with the included PictureProject software.
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