Compare Prices on Nikon P6000
I'm a Nikon enthusiast. I maintain two professional digital SLR bodies and several lenses, but I wanted something runt to carry around when I didn't want to lug a astronomical SLR around. You know, night on the town or anywhere where a mammoth camera would attract too powerful unwanted attention. So when Nikon announced a point and shoot (P&S) camera that supported a RAW file format, I was immediately alive to. When I heard about all the other bells and whistles on this P&S, I was choose to accept one. So does it live up to all the hype? Let inaugurate with what I liked.
THE GOOD
13.5 Megapixel RAW files - Yep, it's even got a higher pixel count than my D300 and depending on the settings I can score some grand enlargements or a lot of flexibility to slice. With RAW files, there's more latitude for post-processing adjustments.
Fully Automatic or Manual - Unbiased like its bigger brothers, the P6000 has Programmed Auto, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority or Plump Manual modes. A gigantic selection dial on top of the camera selects the mode. The deliver dial come your thumb controls the selection of urge, aperture or both in manual or programmed modes. It also has specific scene modes unprejudiced like Nikon's other P&S cameras.
Two User Modes - After you've customized the settings to what you like, you can set them to one of two user modes to prefer anytime by unbiased selecting U1 or U2 on the mode dial. Sparkling handy.
Auto or Manual Focus - Yes, manual focus on a P&S. Occupy the macro/MF button and build the camera into manual focus mode and you have even more control. Another to the left of the conceal activates a terminate up portion of the screen--apparently to succor focus--and also allows the same narrate dial that control everything else to also focus the lens. It sounds grand in theory, but more about that later. Auto focus is probably easier and does a pleasant job.
Facial Recognition - Buy Face Recognition for focus mode and the camera will score the faces in the image shown on the shroud and do a square yellow box around each face. A half-press of the shutter and the box changes to green to point to it's in focus. The caveat here is that the entire face must be visible for the camera to sight it. If your subject has their face slightly turned, it won't gawk it.
Geotagging - This is Nikon's first foray into the GPS arena and when it does work, it works well. It's not as rapidly in acquiring a region as the one I expend on my SLR, but because it's built-in, it's always available and convenient. When you spend it with advantageous software or upload your pictures to Flickr, it proves to be very factual. Tremendous if you do place scouting or if you're objective getting former like me and having a harder time remembering where you took a recount.
VR (Vibration Reduction) - By default the VR mode is on. I can't peep any reason to turn it off. Even when mounted on a tripod, it works elegant and causes no problems. Of course, I haven't tried a long time exposure yet and that's usually where VR gives me problems on my bigger cameras.
Optical Viewfinder - This is a rarity in this day and age, but I like to have this option when I really want to be discreet and not even have the viewfinder camouflage turn on. It zooms with the lens but only shows about 80% of the staunch image.
Decent Movie Mode - It's only TV quality and not HD, but it works for those few times I would want to characterize a short video. I captures the sound and allows you to zoom the lens during the movie, unlike some cameras.
Ergonomic Build - The camera has enough size and weight to be titanic but not too grand to be difficult to carry around. Granted, it probably won't fit into your shirt pocket, but it can certainly fit in places your tall SLR won't. The camera has a magnesium front and rubberized grip and feels like a bigger camera. The buttons are, for the most share, in logical places and the layout will seem familiar to Nikon SLR owners. The one thing that I had to accept feeble to was the zoom control. On the P6000 it's in the same station that the power control is on Nikon SLR's.
Flash i-TTL Hot Shoe - You can exercise your great flash on this dinky camera. When I mount the SB-800 on this camera, it dwarfs the camera itself. I mediate the SB-400 would be ideal if you need more flash power than the built-in flash provides, but for most state, I mediate the built-in is more than sufficient.
4X Zoom ED Lens - Equivalent to a 28-112mm in 35mm format. It's more than enough for most needs. If I need more than than, I'll grab my SLR. The two ED elements do a beneficial job of correcting chromatic aberrations.
Lens Accessories - There's a screw ring that allows a 0.75X wide-angle adapter to be old, making the effective focal length about 21mm.
THE BAD
Distortion - At the widest zoom, there is a lot of barrel distortion. You'll especially scrutinize it when taking pictures of building or anything that has parallel lines in the image. At the telephoto waste of the zoom there is objective a minute amount of pincushioning. Nikon must have been aware of this suppose since they've included a menu option for Distortion Control. It works, but there are limitations which I mention further in this review. At the widest zoom, there is a beautiful amount of image softness in the corners which I would inquire of in a P&S.
Noise - Even though Nikon advertises that this camera goes from ISO 64 to 6400, The usable range is effectively 100-400. ISO 64 is unbiased too dumb unless you have a tripod. Everything above ISO 400 produces too great noise. Even at ISO 800, the number of artifacts in the image starts to collect distracting. At ISO 3200 and 6400, the camera automatically reduces the resolution to 3 megapixels. So you demolish up with a photo that's grainy from both the noise and the slight resolution. In other words, barely usable. I can't really believe of a area where I would want that.
Horrible Software and Mac Benefit - This is usually Nikon's downfall. There software is so abominable, it's not even usable. As a matter of fact, I can't even exercise the latest ViewNX software that the installation program downloads from Nikon. Every time I try to concept my images, it crashes on my Mac. The RAW format is a modern Nikon proprietary format: NRW, and it only seems to work natively on Windows Vista machines. To employ it on my Mac, I need to convert them using Lightroom or ViewNX...which, of course, doesn't work. I'll need to wait until Apple releases Aperture NRW serve so I can spend my normal workflow.
Poor Battery Life - The P6000 is using battery technology developed nearly 4 years ago. It's the same battery that my obsolete 3700 P&S used: the EN-EL5. Marvelous for maybe 250 shots if you don't expend the flash considerable and turn off the GPS. With the GPS on, and updating only every 5 minutes, the battery life can be measured in hours since the GPS updates even when the camera is turned off. With all the bells and whistles this camera has, you would consider they would arrive up with better battery technology. A spare is indispensable.
GPS Acquisition - It takes a long time to win the satellites when you first glean to an location and turn on the GPS. In an start spot, it took over 5 minutes to first get. Thereafter, it composed sometimes took up to 2 minutes to gain a proper signal. If you're inside or amongst trees or buildings, it may retract even longer and even then, it may only gain three beneficial satellite fixes which means your altitude measurement may be less than true.
Features Disabled in RAW mode - Talk about bait and switch. If you expend RAW mode, many of the image adjustment features are disabled. Proper, you would probably do most of the adjustments in post-processing, but if the Nikon software doesn't work, how do I fair the barrel distortion since the Distortion Control is disable? Active D-lighting isn't a colossal loss, nor is the ISO 3200 and 6400 settings that won't work in RAW mode, but Auto Bracketing is a nice feature to lose. They don't assure you this in any of the advertising or on most of the trade sites.
THE QUESTIONABLE
Popup Flash - I'm not certain why Nikon did this. There was plenty of room to have the flash flush with the front. In the fully automatic mode, I would put a question to the flash to pop up and fire if needed, but that doesn't happen. You have to manually pop up the flash if you want flash. Some people may like this feature as an easy blueprint to disable the flash, which then begs the question: why is there a disable option in the flash menu?
Built-in LAN - Sounds like immense view until you realize that it's wired Ethernet and it only connects to Nikon's Picturetown service. Splendid considerable useless if you're using wireless like most people.
2.7 ride Veil - There was room for a 3 hump shroud but Nikon opted to exercise the smaller cover when everybody else is maxing out veil sizes.
No Battery Charger - With such terrible battery performance, you'll need an extra battery. But how to charge it? You only collect an AC adapter with the camera which forces you to charge the battery IN the camera. Which means you're tethered to a wall outlet until you charge two or more batteries. Add the separate MH-61 battery charger to your shopping list.
Remote Control - You can expend an infrared remote to trigger the camera. Why didn't they include it with the camera though? Minor, but annoying point. (I have the infrared remote from a previous camera, but most people will not and I always procure it annoying when companies develop you pay extra for these slight things.)
SUMMARY
As a point and shoot camera, the P6000 is very generous. It takes kindly pictures that you would typically exhaust a P&S for. But for those occasions when you want to do a puny more, and you would reflect with all the features of this camera, it's not an unreasonable expectation that it should do a distinguished better job. Unfortunately, even all the features have limitations if you decide to expend the NRW format. And forget about making it work on your Mac.
After looking at this and the Canon G10, I'm tempted to return the P6000 and net the Canon. It's priced competitively and has many of the same problems but at least it works on my Mac. But then, I'd have to give up the GPS.
Should you retract one? That depends. Do you really need 13.5 megapixel RAW images? Do you need the GPS feature? Can you live with unpleasant battery performance and the need for a charger and extra batteries? Are you willing to utilize $550 for the camera and distinguished accessories? If so, you might assume the P6000. You might also want to mediate a D40 or D40x. But if these features are a mystery to you, you'd be better off with a noteworthy cheaper camera without all the extra features. Any of the Nikon S-series P&S cameras or the Panasonics would do the job splendidly.
I honest got this camera yesterday evening and have had time to play with unbiased about all the main features. I also have a Canon PowerShot G9 so I collect myself comparing the two all the time. With that said, I wasn't expecting anything with ultra obscene noise. The G9 noise levels are unacceptable (in my notion) at any ISO setting over 200. Having near from this same type of CCD, I wasn't expecting miracles so I'm not disappointed. If anything, I assume the noise is on par or a limited less noticeable on the P6000 than it is on the G9. That was a surprise considering that the P6000 is packing in more pixels on the same sized CCD. Here's my summary:
Noise = not titanic, but not unpleasant at all as long as you cease ISO 200 or lower. If you go up to 400 and above, idea on using noise reduction software.
Optics = not tack racy like you can earn out of a dSLR, but, again, not unpleasant. It reminds me of a suited mid-range P&S camera in terms of optics. I deem the G9 might be a shrimp better here.
GPS = sizable! I really worship this. Two words of warning: it eats the battery mercurial and it takes a while to lock on to the GPS signal (especially if you are in a city like Chicago) . Once it's locked on, the GPS coordinates are comely good.
Speed = Expedient. I found the camera responsive. No bustle demon, but shutter slide isn't a spot and all the camera functions are fairly posthaste.
Mac Compatible = 50/50. It's poor if you're expecting native Mac benefit from Nikon on it's modern RAW format. It's colossal if you're honest shooting JPG images. I only spend a Mac, but third-party solutions are already available to let you process the RAW files on your Mac. Lightroom 2.1 is compatible with the recent format and so is Adobe's Camera RAW 4.6 plugin for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. I've been shooting almost exclusively with RAW and happily processing them on my Mac with no problems at all.
Size = Immense! I savor the size. It's unprejudiced about the same physical size as the G9, but it's twice as light. It's considerable easier to catch this camera long and stuff it into a loose pocket. You almost don't know it's there. Anything smaller would have been too slight.
Vibration Reduction = a must have. It really works well, especially in lower light settings.
You'll appreciate this camera if you want a high-quality compact camera that has GPS, RAW and substantial creative control. It is a nice camera to purchase along with you when you impartial don't feel like pulling out the dSLR, but don't interrogate it to be a dSLR replacement because it's not. I'm quite blissful with it and watch forward to using it more and more.
Well, this is an early review (more as I hurry the camera through its paces), but I must acknowledge to the review by TGre. If you want EVERYTHING found in a D-SLR, then you need to occupy a D-SLR. I fill a D300 and consume it professionally. However, I needed a camera that I carry with me at all times and that packed as many features as possible. This camera certainly seems to be it! I unruffled can't possess that this runt beauty packs 13.5 megapixels, raw camera mode, aperture and shutter priority, and vibration reduction. My preliminary photos with the P6000 are moving, vibrant, and solid in color rendition. I am impressed. As for not being able to behold the zoom through the viewfinder, I don't collect that at all. The wide-angle and zoom functions are clearly viewable. Maybe TGre was referring to an accessory zoom lens. Again, if you want an SLR, go out and assume one, don't interrogate a cramped package like the P6000, at a very reasonable designate, to replace high-end professional cameras in every respect.
