Overall Image Quality

On the whole the Coolpix 775 produces well metered, well balanced, fairly detailed (although we really did hope for more sharpness) and noise free images. If anything images have a slightly soft look, whether this is down to the lens or lower internal sharpening (even at the 'Normal' sharpening setting) is unclear.

Colours are, generally, strong and accurate (except for blues which can seem slightly undersaturated or hue shifted). Automatic white balance was good. The 775 gets its bigger brothers excellent Matrix metering system which almost impeccably picks the correct exposure for any given scene.

The 775's only other noticeable weaknesses are some barrel distortion and chromatic aberrations near the corners of the frame (especially at full wide angle). Also it's Auto Sharpening setting tends to choose lower sharpening settings than other digital cameras, giving images a 'softer' look.

Purple Fringing (Chromatic Aberrations)

The 775 suffers from chromatic aberrations (or 'Purple Fringing'). To give it some credit it's not as bad as we've seen on other cameeras and will only be visible in certain shots, mostly near the corners of the frame and when the lens is used at wide angle.

Visible chromatic aberrations in an "every day shot"
Our now standard chromatic aberration test shot

Barrel and Pincushion Distortion

At full wide angle (38mm equiv.) we measured approximately 1.5% barrel distortion which is at the higher end of what we'd expect. However, at full telephoto (115 mm equiv.) there's virtually 0% (so small as to be unmeasureable) pincushion distortion.

Barrel Distortion, 1.5% @ Wide Angle	Pincushion Distortion, ~0% @ Full Tele

White Balance

The 775's automatic white balance worke dvery well, even in strong incandescent or fluorescent lighting there was only a slight colour cast, hue was hardly effected. The pre-programmed white balance settings were also good and useful for shooting consistently balance shots. The addition of manual preset is unusual for an ultra-compact and is welcome as it worked well.

Outdoors, Auto	Outdoors, Cloudy	Outdoors, Manual
Incandescent, Auto	Incandescent, Incandescent	Incandescent, Manual
Fluorescent, Auto	Fluorescent, Fluorescent	Fluorescent, Manual