Never held or operated a more natural, solid feeling digital camera in this class. The greatest thing about this camera. Slightly more compact than the 5000, but I think, its a design improvement.
Wide angle images are always excellent. From mid-to-tele, a very mixed bag. Hopefully most have tried and use this camera from later production runs. When it first came out, though, there were many issues.
Whether sharp or not, the images are much more film like than stuff from Canon or Olympus, certainly earlier Sonys. Neutral color, decent sharpness and definition. Probably a step behind the Canon and Sony in ultimate resolution, but you need to zoom way in to tell. Very workable jpegs. Did not own when the raw firmware was available.
Freezing up during file writing and lens softness were the big issues. I would wager that it is still a very slow camera to use, as accessing its large buffer still locks things up. One of the slowest cameras you will ever touch, especially with certain cards. Nikon touts this as having 64MB of internal buffer, but it is not well executed.
I found focus in normal circumstances to be very accurate. Like many cameras it struggles in poor light.
Quite configurable once you get through the manual and understand all the functionality that's built in there. Quite impressive.
I have been assured by a dealer that the issues I have had with this camera have since been addressed. You can certainly see that in the currently available pricing which makes it almost too good to resist.
Problems:
Slow. Defines the word. Probably listed in Websters.
Lens softness issues. I would try out the camera at a number of f stops and zoom settings and distances. From 20-30 feet out to infinity, from the middle of the zoom range to full telephoto is where I experienced softness. We're not talking about something slight, either. I looks like th lens has Vaseline on it.
Were prone to freeze ups during file writes. Intermittent, but very aggravating. Battery needs to be removed to reset.
Many interesting modes, but as mentioned before, care must be used with executing them, as the camera can take nearly a minute in some cases to clear the buffer. You can miss many shots with it.
Wide angle images are always excellent. From mid-to-tele, a very mixed bag. Hopefully most have tried and use this camera from later production runs. When it first came out, though, there were many issues.
Whether sharp or not, the images are much more film like than stuff from Canon or Olympus, certainly earlier Sonys. Neutral color, decent sharpness and definition. Probably a step behind the Canon and Sony in ultimate resolution, but you need to zoom way in to tell. Very workable jpegs. Did not own when the raw firmware was available.
Freezing up during file writing and lens softness were the big issues. I would wager that it is still a very slow camera to use, as accessing its large buffer still locks things up. One of the slowest cameras you will ever touch, especially with certain cards. Nikon touts this as having 64MB of internal buffer, but it is not well executed.
I found focus in normal circumstances to be very accurate. Like many cameras it struggles in poor light.
Quite configurable once you get through the manual and understand all the functionality that's built in there. Quite impressive.
I have been assured by a dealer that the issues I have had with this camera have since been addressed. You can certainly see that in the currently available pricing which makes it almost too good to resist.
Problems:
Slow. Defines the word. Probably listed in Websters.
Lens softness issues. I would try out the camera at a number of f stops and zoom settings and distances. From 20-30 feet out to infinity, from the middle of the zoom range to full telephoto is where I experienced softness. We're not talking about something slight, either. I looks like th lens has Vaseline on it.
Were prone to freeze ups during file writes. Intermittent, but very aggravating. Battery needs to be removed to reset.
Many interesting modes, but as mentioned before, care must be used with executing them, as the camera can take nearly a minute in some cases to clear the buffer. You can miss many shots with it.