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Nikon Coolpix 950 vs. Canon Pro 70: Page OnePage 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 Introduction When Nikon announced the 950 the first sets of emails I received were along the lines of "I've just ordered a Pro 70 but now I'm not sure, what do you think of the Coolpix 950?". And people are still trying to decide between the Coolpix 950 and Pro 70. Whatever you read in this article is based on facts and side-by-side comparison of the two cameras (both of which I have), read this article objectively, weigh up what is important (or not) to you, check out some of the existing galleries for the two cameras (Coolpix 950 - 90+, Pro 70 - 150+). If you've not yet read my reviews of these two cameras then maybe you should to understand some of the details and comments I'll be making. Body and Design Lets start with the obvious, these are two very differently designed cameras, when Canon first announced the Pro 70 it produced a lot of oohs and aahs from the photography communities (digital and otherwise) because of it's "SLR-like" design. The 950 improves on the split body swivel design first seen in its older brother the 900 and 900s.
Most noticeable from the data above is that both cameras are roughly the same width but that the Coolpix 950 wins from a portability point of view simply because of its slim proportions when the swivel is in the upright position, plus its lighter weight (almost half the Pro 70). Interestingly however the Coolpix 950 doesn't feel any less strong than the Pro 70 because of its new magnesium case. Both cameras can be quite easily carried with one hand holding the side grip, the Pro 70 being a little more comfortable (and satisifying feeling) for bigger hands. Holding the cameras for shooting can be a very different experience, I personally tend to use the swivel on the 950 to ensure the LCD (which is pretty dim) is always viewable, holding the optical portion with my left hand. The Pro 70 begs for the more traditional SLR hold on its big stubby nose (note that the zoom control on the Pro 70 is on the left-side of the nose) and has a more natural feeling viewfinder. Batteries and storage The Pro70 ships with a proprietary Canon NiMH battery pack and charger (the charger is a very neat drop-in design which also doubles as an AC adapter) and can also take standard compact camera 2CR5 battery. The Coolpix 950 ships with a set of four AA Alkalines which will last for around 30 shots (if you're lucky), most Coolpix owners know the ins and outs of recharables and with a good set of four NiMH batteries and a charger battery life is about the same as the Pro 70 (best case around 200 shots). My personal comment on this is that more manufacturers should take Canons lead in shipping their cameras with batteries and chargers, unfortunately this would almost defintely mean that we'd end up with several incompatible proprietary battery packs (wouldn't it be nice if they would all adopt one standard 6V NiMH pack?).
Both cameras use Compact Flash (now available in capacities up to 64MB and soon up to 128MB), the Pro70 wins this leg of the race by having two CF slots one of which can take the new Type II cards (same electrical connections just a slightly thicker package) which means that the Pro70 can take the upcoming (soon we hope) IBM 340MB Microdrive. The Nikon Coolpix 950 suffers from a very badly designed CF slot cover which is just a simple piece of rubberised plastic with two "keys" which fit into the two holes you can see above the CF card, however after a while the cover won't stay shut and just pops open (nearly all the time now on my CP950). The other and slightly more inconvenient design flaw of the CP950 is the position of the tripod mount (as seen above) when mounted on a tripod you cannot change the CF card or batteries (or indeed rotate the optical swivel through its full range) without removing the camera from the mount, the Pro70 by contrast has the tripod mount on the lens barrel side and you can not only access the CF cards (as they're on the side) but also change the battery with the camera still on the tripod. The LCD's
What these two images unfortunately completely fail to demonstrate is just how much brighter and easier to view the Pro70 LCD is (especially outdoors in direct sunlight), there has been much debate about the dim LCD on the Nikon, the Pro70 LCD is leaps and bounds clearer, sharper and brighter than that of the 950. Both cameras however have the useful feature of being able to use the LCD from different angles, the Pro70 has the cunning flip out and twist LCD which allows you to keep the camera aimed at the subject but put the LCD into just about any position you like for viewing (perfect for tripod, overhead, macro and waist-level shooting). The 950 shares this talent but in a slightly different way in that you can twist the optical side of the camera to aim at the subject yet still have the LCD viewable (again useful for overhead, macro and waist-level shooting, not quite as good as the Pro70 for tripod work).
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