Nikon Coolpix P100

Viewfinder

The P100 has an electronic viewfinder, located above the LCD screen. To the left of the viewfinder is a diopter adjustment dial and a button which switches from the LCD screen to the viewfinder. There is no automatic switching as there is with other similar cameras like the Fujifilm HS10. The viewfinder isn't an optical one; instead there is a small LCD screen located inside that shows the same view as the main LCD screen, albeit smaller and with less definition. Nikon didn't specify the resolution of the viewfinder screen, but it is definitely less than the main LCD screen.

The viewfinder of the P100

LCD

The LCD screen of the P100 is a 3-inch one with a resolution of 460k pixels. That's a definite step up from the 230k and 300k screens we have seen; it is sharper and gives a better preview of the image. The screen is articulated, so it can flip up and down for wait-level or over the head shooting. It can't rotate, though, so you can't use this for self portraits.

The LCD screen of the P100 flipped out

The LCD screen of the P100 folded against the camera body

Flash

The built-in flash pops up when you press the button on the side of the housing, placing it abut an inch and a half above the lens. This should be enough to avoid most red-eye, but red-eye removal is also available as an editing option. Nikon didn't supply any figures for the range of the flash, but it looks to be quite powerful from the limited testing we could do at the PMA show. We'll know more when we get a model in for review.

The flash in the active position

Lens

The lens of the P100 is a large, long lens with a 26x zoom range. This range starts at 4.6mm (26mm equivalent) and goes out to 120mm (678mm equivalent), which is an impressively long range with a decent wide angle. This means that the P100 could handle everything from landscape and group shots out to zooming right in on the action at a football game. This long zoom range does mean that the lens is rather large, and it pokes out a long way when it is zoomed all the way out.

The P100 with the lens at the wide angle zoom setting...

...and at the telephoto zoom setting

The big question here is how well this lens performs, and that is something that we will have to reserve judgment on until we get one in to test. We do often find that long zooms like this have performance problems, though: the Coolpix P90 had some problems with distortion and images getting rather soft at the longest zoom.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

There are just two ports on this camera: a mini HDMI port for connecting to a HDTV and a multi-purpose port that provides for both a USB connection and an aanlog video and audio output. 

The two ports on the P100: mini HDMI (top) and a multi-purpose port

Battery

Power is provided for this camera from a Nikon EN-EL5 Lithium Ion battery that holds about 1100 mAh of charge. Nikon claims that this will last for about 230 shots, but we'll wait for our own test results before we decide if this is an accurate figure. 

The battery compartment of the P100

Memory

Images are stored on SDHC cards that fit into the slot just above the battery (shown in the photo above). The camera also includes about 43MB of internal memory that can be used to hold images and video in a pinch.