Nikon Coolpix 885 Review: 4. Body & Design: Digital Photography Review

Compact Flash compartment

The 885's Compact Flash compartment door is a slide out and flip open type, it is moulded into the rear of the hand grip. Inside you'll find a Compact Flash Type I slot and an eject button which pushes the card out just far enough for the 'thumb lip' on the back of the card to be exposed. No major problems here. The 885 doesn't support Type II cards (such as the IBM Microdrive). The camera is supplied with a 16 MB Type I card.

Connections

On the right side of the camera (from the back) just beside the Compact Flash compartment you'll find the USB and DC-IN connectors (behind a rubber door). On the left side a dedicated video out connector (this is one of the places the 885 differs from the 775 which has an 'all in one' connector for both USB and Video Out).

Lens

The 885's lens now provides a full 3x optical zoom (38 - 114 mm equiv.) with a maximum aperture of F2.8 at wide angle and F4.9 at full telephoto. Unlike the 775 there's no automatic lens cover, instead a lens cap and string are provided.

On power up the lens extends out of its protective barrel and retracts at power off.

Flash

The 885's flash unit is mounted above and to the left of the lens, it has a quoted range of 3.7 m (12 ft) at wide angle. The small lamp directly to the right it is for redeye reduction / self timer indication.

In redeye reduction mode the lamp lights for approximately 1.5 seconds before the flash fires which is supposed to help reduce the size of the subject's pupil.

Tripod mount / camera base

Relatively simple base design, tripod mount is made of plastic (this will make some cringe, but this camera isn't aimed at prosumers). It's locality to the battery compartment will probably mean that on some tripod mounts you'll not be able to change the battery without unscrewing the mount.

Supplied In the Box

Supplied in the box is:

Nikon Coolpix 885 digital camera
16 MB Compact Flash card
EU: EN-EL1 Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery
EU: MH-50 battery charger & power cable
US: 2CR5 battery (non-rechargeable)
USB cable
Video cable
Lens cap (LC-E885) & string
Wrist strap
Manual (excellent quality)
CD-ROM - Nikon View 4, Canto Cumulus 5.0 Trial, iView Media Pro (Macintosh), ArcSoft; PhotoImpression 2000, VideoImpression 1.5, PhotoPrinter Pron 2000, PhotoStudio 2000, Panorama Maker 2000

Nikon Accessories


Fisheye Converter * FC-E8 [buy online] x0.21 (183° view angle)	Wideangle Converter * WC-E24 x0.66	Wideangle Converter * WC-E63 [buy online] x0.63


Telephoto Converter * TC-E2 [buy online] x2.0	Telephoto Converter * TC-3ED [buy online] x3.0	Slide copying adapter * ES-E28 [buy online]


Remote Cord MC-EU1 [buy online] Shutter release, zoom control, Interval, Playback control, 80 cm (31.5") cord.	Soft Case CS-E885	Lithium-Ion Battery EN-EL1 (Also requires MH-50 or MH-51 charger if not supplied)