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| Action | Details | Time
taken (seconds) |
Notes |
| Power: Off to Record | Lens always defaults to wide | 6.2 | Lens takes 2.4 secs *1 |
| Power: Off to Play | 3.9 | "Busy" displayed *2 | |
| Power: Record to Off | 3.1 | Lens retract | |
| Power: Play to Off | 1.0 | ||
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| Mode: Record to Play | 1.9 | "Busy" displayed *2 | |
| Mode: Play to Record | 2.3 | ||
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| Play: Magnify | 15 steps to 4.0x | 2.9 | |
| Play: Browse delay | 1.1 | *3 | |
| Rec: Thumbnail view | 3 x 3 thumbnails | 2.7 | |
| Rec: Thumbnail view | 2 x 2 thumbnails | 1.5 | |
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| Auto Focus LAG | 0.8 - 2.0 | Fast *4 | |
| Shutter Release LAG | 0.1 | Fast | |
| Total LAG | 0.9 - 2.1 | Fast to Average | |
| Off to Shot Taken | 7.1 | Average | |
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| Shot to Shot | 1600 x 1200 JPEG FINE | 2.6 | Fast |
| *1 | There is a 2.6 second delay between turning the power dial to 'ON' and the lens beginning its extension. |
| *2 | Camera displays hour glass icon, then rough thumbnail full image is displayed about 2 seconds later (2048 x 1536 FINE). |
| *3 | Time taken to display the 'rough thumbnail' after pressing the left or right arrows. |
| *4 | Thanks to continuous auto focus mostly focus lag is less than 1 second, this can be a little longer for macro focus or at telephoto zoom |
During our testing of the Coolpix 775 we noted an incompatibility with Lexar's Pro 12x 320 MB Compact Flash Type I card. There were no such problems with the Coolpix 885, and it was tested with several high capacity cards:
The table below shows the results of our continuous shooting test, indicating the actual frame rate along with maximum number of frames at a selection of image resolution / quality settings and how long you would have to wait after taking the maximum number of frames before you could take the next shot.
Just like the 995 (and the 990 before it) the 885 has the unique Multi-shot 16, VGA sequence and Ultra HS continuous modes which provide some added options for continuous type shooting.
| Mode | Image Type | Frames per sec (monitor off) *1 |
Max no. of frames |
Wait before |
| Continuous | 2048 x 1536 FINE | 1.5 fps | 4 | 7.6 sec |
| Continuous | 1024 x 768 BASIC | 1.5 fps | 34 | 5.5 sec |
| Multi-shot 16 *3 | 512 x 384 | 2.1 fps | 16 | 8.6 sec |
| VGA sequence *4 | 640 x 480 | 1.5 fps | 43 | 5 sec |
| Ultra HS *5 | 320 x 240 | 30 fps | 70 | 32 sec |
| *1 | Frame rate drops to approximately 1.2 fps with LCD monitor on |
| *2 | You can take a frame as soon as there is space in the cameras internal buffer (writing continues "in the background"). Timings taken using the supplied Nikon branded SanDisk CF card. |
| *3 | Sixteen 512 x 384 images on a single 2048 x 1536 frame |
| *4 | Monitor is blank during shooting |
| *5 | Ultra HS seems to capture images using the 'video feed' mode provided by the CCD, thus it's prone to vertical blooming. It also has the same bug as 995, if you enable focus confirmation sharpening it affects (is visible) the Ultra HS image quality |
A fairly decent performance, clearly the 885 uses an 'after image processing' type of buffer, this means you can squeeze more frames in if you decrease the JPEG quality or image size. A good performance overall.
Timings shown below are the time taken for the camera to process and "flush" the image out to the Compact Flash card, the timer was started as soon as the shutter release was pressed (shutter noise was heard) and stopped when activity indicator LED beside the viewfinder went off. This means the timings also include the cameras processing time and as such are more representative of the actual time to "complete the task".
| Store file of type | Time
to store (seconds) |
Time
to display (seconds) |
Approx. File size *1 |
Approx.
images on a 16 MB Compact Flash card |
| 2048 x 1536 TIFF (HI) | 56.0 | 36.0 *2 | 9,327 KB | 1 |
| 2048 x 1536 JPEG FINE *3 | 5.2 | 2.9 | ~900 KB | 10 |
| 2048 x 1536 JPEG NORMAL | 5.2 | 2.8 | ~700 KB | 19 |
| 1024 x 768 JPEG FINE | 3.5 | 2.4 | ~400 KB | 37 |
| 1024 x 768 JPEG NORMAL | 3.2 | 2.4 | ~170 KB | 69 |
| 640 x 480 JPEG FINE | 2.5 | 2.4 | ~100 KB | 86 |
| 640 x 480 JPEG NORMAL | 2.2 | 2.4 | ~70 KB | 144 |
| *1 | With JPEG it's difficult to predict the exact size of an image file because it will vary a fair amount depending on the content of the image (especially the amount of detail captured). For example, take a photograph of a fairly empty wall and you'll get a small JPEG, take a photograph of a bush with a lot of detail and you'll get a larger image. File sizes here are closer to the later, the larger size of file you should expect. |
| *2 | TIFF files are displayed almost immediately, this timing was taken by pressing the magnify button (the camera is forced to load the full TIFF from the CF card). |
| *3 | For some reason there seemed to be a wide variance in the JPEG file size when set to FINE, on a normal shooting session nearly 50% of images were ~ 700 KB and 50% of images closer to 1 MB. This is a far greater difference in file size than we've seen before. |
We ran the camera through our new battery life test. This test is designed to be fair and comparative to each camera and battery type:
All batteries had been fully discharged and recharged before the test and all cameras were reset to their factory default settings. Here are the results:
| Camera Compact / Ultra compact |
Battery | Power | Battery life | Number of shots |
| Kyocera S3 | BP-800S | 2.1 Wh | 54 mins | 95 |
| Canon PowerShot S300 | NB-1L | 2.5 Wh | 1 hr 26 mins | 155 |
| Pentax Optio 430 | D-LI2 | 3.3 Wh | 1 hr 33 mins | 160 |
| Olympus C-40Z | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.6 Wh | 1 hr 33 mins | 165 |
| Nikon Coolpix 3100 | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.6 Wh | 1 hr 42 mins | 175 |
| Minolta DiMAGE F100 | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.3 Wh | 1 hr 42 mins | 175 |
| Minolta DiMAGE X | NP-200 | 2.8 Wh | 1 hr 45 mins | 180 |
| Pentax Optio 330 | D-LI2 | 3.3 Wh | 1 hr 48 mins | 185 |
| Canon PowerShot S330 | NB-1LH | 2.5 Wh | 1 hr 48 mins | 185 |
| Sony DSC-P71 | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.6 Wh | 1 hr 50 mins | 185 |
| Kodak DX4900 | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.5 Wh | 1 hr 51 mins | 190 |
| Sony DSC-P5 | NP-FC10 | 2.4 Wh | 1 hr 51 mins | 190 |
| Nikon Coolpix 3500 | EN-EL2 | 4.1 Wh | 1 hr 54 mins | 195 |
| Sony DSC-P9 | NP-FC10 | 2.4 Wh | 1 hr 59 mins | 200 |
| Nikon Coolpix SQ | EN-EL2 | 3.7 Wh | 2 hr 03 mins | 210 |
| Minolta DiMAGE Xt | NP-200 | 2.8 Wh | 2 hr 12 mins | 225 |
| Canon PowerShot S400 | NP-1LH | 2.5 Wh | 2 hr 17 mins | 230 |
| HP Photosmart 812 | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.6 Wh | 2 hr 21 mins | 240 |
| Nikon Coolpix 885 | EN-EL1 | 4.8 Wh | 2 hr 21 mins | 240 |
| Nikon Coolpix 775 | EN-EL1 | 4.8 Wh | 2 hr 27 mins | 250 |
| Canon PowerShot SD100 | NB-3L | 2.9 Wh | 2 hr 29 mins | 250 |
| Pentax Optio S | D-LI8 | 2.6 Wh | 2 hr 33 mins | 260 |
| Nikon Coolpix 2500 | EN-EL2 | 4.1 Wh | 2 hr 33 mins | 260 |
| Fujifilm FinePix F601Z | NP-60 | 3.7 Wh | 2 hr 47 mins | 275 |
| Casio EXILIM EX-Z3 | NP-20 | 2.5 Wh | 2 hr 48 mins | 285 |
| Casio EXILIM EX-S3 | NP-20 | 2.5 Wh | 2 hr 48 mins | 285 |
| Olympus C-50Z | LI-10B | 4.0 Wh | 2 hr 54 mins | 295 |
| HP Photosmart 935 | 2 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 3.6 Wh | 3 hr 09 mins | 320 |
| Canon PowerShot A70 | 4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP) | 7.7 Wh | 5 hr 08 mins | 515 |
| Other test notes: | ||||
| • LCD monitor is left on during
the battery test • The camera is powered off half of the time and left on half of the time (switch every 10 iterations) • There are now higher capacity AA NiMH batteries available, however in the interests of fair comparison we will continue to use our 1600 mAh test set |
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A virtually identical performance to the 775, the EN-EL1 Lithium-Ion battery providing approximately two and a half hours of life. Note the battery life advantage the 885 holds over Sony's DSC-P5, Canon's IXUS 300 and Kyocera's S3.
