Nikon Coolpix 8700 Review

Preview based on a production Nikon Coolpix 8700, Firmware v1.20

The eight megapixel, eight times optical zoom Coolpix 8700 was announced on January 28th, 2004, a year and eight months since the five megapixel Coolpix 5700 on which it is based. The 8700 enters the eight megapixel fray which is currently made up of another four digital cameras; the Canon PowerShot Pro1, Sony DSC-F828, Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom and the Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2. The most noteworthy difference between the 8700 and the rest of the competition is the range of its zoom, the 8700's starts at 35 mm, the rest have 28 mm wide angle equivalents, of course this also means that the 8700 has more telephoto reach than the rest.

If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help you understand some of the terms used).

Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the author. Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (normally 960 x 720 or smaller if cropped) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C.

This article is Copyright 2004 Phil Askey and the review in part or in whole may NOT be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author. For information on reproducing any part of this review (or any images) please contact: Phil Askey.