Nikon Coolpix P5100

Opinion: My wife bought her P5100 after I had bought my Fujifilm S9500, and except for the longer zoom on the Fuji, the Nikon wins easily in every way, including quality, ease of use, and utility. A real point & shoot camera, with only one weakness, and that is fairly noisy pictures at higher ISO settings (here the Fuji is far better).

Love this little camera :-)!

Opinion: I have used Nikons for over 40 years from the F to the D3 but I bought this little baby for the same reason as most serious photographers – there are times when I just want to leave the big cases at home and travel light and discreetly.

My main concern about any camera is image quality, and the quality of the images taken with this camera in good light are incredibly sharp and detailed, more so at 100% than my D3! I suspect it would rival the D3x for detail, especially as the pixels are more tightly packed. This arrangement does have its drawbacks though, namely noise in poor light and anything much higher than the base ISO of 64 is likely to deteriorate the image. However, pictures taken with the built in flash at 5-6ft are perfectly lit and exposed, so in bad light just use flash!

The menu has more items than a Chinese takeaway, and for the inexperienced user the options are mind boggling. There is a ‘point and shoot’ mode though and when my son borrowed the camera for his trip to America, he came back with a wad of excellent pictures including many taken indoors with the built in flash. In 98% of them, exposures were perfect and when displayed via a PS3 on a 46 inch HD TV, the images were stunning, reminding me of happy days with a 5x4!

A very good reason for choosing this camera is the traditional glass see-thru viewfinder. LCD screens are all very well, but if you want to photograph little Johnny on sports day running for the tape, you are going to have some badly framed pictures if you are only armed with a LCD. The other enemy of the LCD apart from fast moving subjects is bright sunshine, which anyone without an alternative view finder will soon find out.

All in all this is a superb little camera. OK it does need good light to deliver its best and that means the traditional ‘sun behind you’ type shots. If you are hoping for brilliant results in back lighting, you might be disappointed and are advised to get out the big boy for the demanding creative stuff. This is a camera for convenience, and there is a small price to pay which really is versatility for all conditions.
I am having a job to prise this out of my son’s hands, but no matter, I don’t need much of an excuse to purchase the P6000 and this is it! Is it better? I am not so sure. A few more features yes, but will the image quality be better than the P5100 with a different lens design and a few more pixels. I very much doubt it. I suspect that the 28mm (35mm equiv.) lens will give much more barrel distortion creating a new set of rules and people don’t seem as impressed as they did with the P5100 in the reviews. It is amazing how critical people get, according to the more they have, but yours truly will be reviewing the latter model in a couple of months, when I have formed an opinion.

If you can still find this camera in store, go for it. It is stunningly impressive and I doubt if even the P6000 will beat it when it comes to imagery.

Opinion: A very good-to-excellent camera within its capabilities. I have generally always owned Canon PS cameras, so the move to this one was not a given. I previously owned the G9 and still would had it not been for some of its shortcomings. I always carry a PS camera as I travel a lot and cannot always carry the big, heavy stuff. The P5100 replaced both the DS-850IS and G9 Canons. So these are my comments and a direct comparison to the G9.

If the P5100 were capable of producing raw files, had a better viewfinder (which is a fault of all of these – why can’t we have a wider angle of view and some parallax lines so we can really use these?) and a more robust processing engine, it would be an ideal camera. The build is like a mini D300; solid as a rock. Compact. Amazingly compact for its features. G9 is made nice too, but it is a much larger camera. There are also known issues with the G9’s lens and dust contamination. LCD is large and sharp, but harder to view in sunlight than the Canon’s. I use it to shoot most of my images, but I would prefer to use a viewfinder if I could ever find one that was worth it. The jpegs I shoot with this are more neutral than the G9’s, appear every bit as sharp and have about the same exposure latitude. The G9 was no screamer speed-wise either, but it beats the P5100. Focus on both of these cameras at the long end is rather ponderous and sometimes downright hit and miss. For a Nikon DSLR shooter, the flash system is compatible and one of my main reasons for purchasing. The biggest feature I like about the Nikon is configuring the Fn button (I use it to switch between the 2 personal user settings, where over a dozen settings can be retained by the camera; excellent). I also enjoy the (full resolution) square format mode; a new/old way to see things.

Image-wise, I would rate both of these cameras as equal, and the choice of which one produces the best images comes down more to personal preference. I find the same thing with P5100 images that I do with those from the D70s and the D80. They are snappier from the camera, have a more film like response to light in the tonal curve and (to me) appear more natural than those from a Canon. If you compare P5100 jpegs to G9 raw files, well, the G9 would have the nod.

I generally give the cameras I buy very fair and some would say high ratings. I defend my position from the standpoint that I have owned (literally) dozens of digital cameras and I do a lot of up front research before I buy, so I’m prone to be impressed once I get the things. I continue to find this to be an excellent carry along camera, and I intend to keep it until I can justify the price of an M8, or until someone comes along with a real viewfinder built into one of these.

Opinion: Picture qality is as good as any dslr in good light.
exelent color .
controls on the camera are easy to use.
solid build quality .

Opinion: I bought this camera few months back, I was impressed with this camera for its built, quality and size. I replaced my few nikon P&S camera CP4300 & E7900. A little bit slow in low light but it still take a best quality photo.. Unfortunately, I paid a full price for this camera as its original RRP than today it is down to £150.00 but still no regrets coz this camera takes photo as priceless..

Opinion: This camera works great for me. I was looking for a P&S to compliment my D200 and this fits the bill perfectly. I needed something light and easy to carry around instead of the big rig for shooting casual stuff to go on blogs and web sites. Even though it's a 12MP camera, I set to shoot at 2MP size which is more than enough for my needs since all of the photos I take only end up on the Web. So silly that Nikon designed this as 12MP which is more resolution even than a D200! 2mp 1600x1200 at 300 dpi is plenty for me since I always down-rez to 72dpi for the web. Bonus with shooting at low rez is that ISO performance goes way up!!! Shoot at 5MP if you need to print big enlargements (Nikon's $3000 D2HS does great at 4MP).

The camera takes GREAT photos and is a joy to use. It's like a super compact D200 with built-in VR. Many photos look better than from the D200 straight out of camera. Has great manual controls and a decent flash. My favorite feature is the built-in barrel distortion correction for wide angle shots as distortion is my biggest complaint about wide angle photography especially with these types of cameras. There are loads of great features and I think the menu system is actually quite good and intuitive - love the programmable function button. I debated getting a Canon Powershot SD750 over this but I think this is much more like a real camera instead of the (too) small ELPH/IXUS models. I think pros and advanced amateurs looking for a second pocketable portable that is neither too small or too big will love this camera.

The only negatives are that yes, the autofocus is a bit slow, but this only happens in poor light or with fast moving subjects. I generally don't shoot in these conditions and when I do have to shoot in poor light it's really just a minor inconvenience. Fast moving subjects are not what this camera is intended to shoot, get an SLR for that...

Love the size (could be a bit smaller) and controls. Image review is very quick, shutter lag isn't bad, very fun to use. Lens is sharp. Still discovering all the features (D-lighting, black borders, sound recording, built-in cropping, etc.). This is a camera for people who want to take PHOTOS and in typical Nikon fashion seems designed by a photographer and not a market researcher. If you want to take PHOTOS, understand the differences between aperture and shutter speed, want straight forward simplicity instead fo gimmicks, and appreciate the feel of a real camera instead of a glorified USB stick, you'll be happy with the p5100!

Opinion: The P5100 is a pleasure to use and I don't find it slow at all. It's not as fully featured as the G9 and it's a step below in price and performance, so it's really silly to compare them.

But for what it it, it gives really quality images in a very compact package indeed and I'd choose this way ahead of any of the IXUS models for IQ and ergonomics. Handing and holding the camera is a real pleasure and the user interface simple and intuitive.

It's certainly a keeper for me as a carry around.

Only the front part of the camera is magnesium alloy and not the rear which is plastic. It's a bit silly to make half rugged body and i would rather have paid a few dollars more for a camera that was fully magnesium alloy.

Otherwise, no complaints.

Opinion: I've had the P5100 since November, 2007 and couldn't be happier with it. Not to get too technical, but the images it produces are fantastic. It's pretty straight forward for ease of use, and that's coming from a longtime Canon owner. I found the neckstrap to be kinda funny....it's not that big, so it looks and feels strange hanging from your neck. I put a wrist strap on it instead.
Highly recommended.

Opinion: The P5100 is everything I was looking for camera. It takes very nice pictures and is very easy to use. A new person to photography to a professional photographer can use this camera. My money was well spent and I have no neg comments on this camera. Been using it since Dec 07