I have had the 4100 for 9 mothns and have shot over 2000 photos under a range of conditions. It is my third digital camera. I have been a keen photgrapher with 35mm for over 40 years and I just cannot see myself going back to film.
Under good lighting this camera will take great photos. Indoors with a flash and close up, photos are good. If you like taking photos with ambient light indoors, or in poor light out of doors, there are better cameras available (but there is a cheat mode you can use on the Nikon to boost the ISO to 200 for these situations)
Construction of the camera is excellent with thoughtfull design. The rounded corners ensure that it will easily slip into a shirt pocket and also provide increased strength to the plastic construction.
The menu system is intuative and direct.
Battery life is excellent. When my camera indicates that the batteries are low they are infact only around 60% used, so there is plenty more shooting before the batteries drop dead.
Exposure is excellent and I have taken many difficult shots directly into the sun and the Nikon handles it beautifully. Colour rendition is also very good.
White balance for fluoro and incandescent lights work a treat and provide excellent colour reproduction. The sunset mode provides real life colours.
The Nikon 4100 does not like low light conditions. While is will eventually boost the ISO rating to up to 200, it really needs exceptionally poor light before it will do this. In poor lighty it will stay at ISO 50, and drop the shutter speed to as low as O.5 seconds. You can cause the 4100 to boost straight to 200 ISO by selecting the party mode (and then I turn off the flash light to use the ambient light). However, noise is clearly present at ISO 200, and perhaps this is why Nikon are reluctant to move off the ISO 50 mark.
The images look soft on the computer screen, but the photos print up beautifully sharp.
All in all, an exellent, well made point and shoot camera, but needs good lighting where it will produce excellent photos. A very easy and pleasant camera to use. While this model is now discontinued, if you can pick up a second hand model at a good price, you will have a very nice point and shoot digital camera.
Problems:
The Nikon software supplied with the 4100 is next to junk level. There is better software free on the cover discs of computer magazines. But for most people, Windows XP is able to down load shots from the camera and Picasa (a free program from the Google organisation) will cover the needs of most point and shooters for post shot fixes, printing, and file storage.
Under good lighting this camera will take great photos. Indoors with a flash and close up, photos are good. If you like taking photos with ambient light indoors, or in poor light out of doors, there are better cameras available (but there is a cheat mode you can use on the Nikon to boost the ISO to 200 for these situations)
Construction of the camera is excellent with thoughtfull design. The rounded corners ensure that it will easily slip into a shirt pocket and also provide increased strength to the plastic construction.
The menu system is intuative and direct.
Battery life is excellent. When my camera indicates that the batteries are low they are infact only around 60% used, so there is plenty more shooting before the batteries drop dead.
Exposure is excellent and I have taken many difficult shots directly into the sun and the Nikon handles it beautifully. Colour rendition is also very good.
White balance for fluoro and incandescent lights work a treat and provide excellent colour reproduction. The sunset mode provides real life colours.
The Nikon 4100 does not like low light conditions. While is will eventually boost the ISO rating to up to 200, it really needs exceptionally poor light before it will do this. In poor lighty it will stay at ISO 50, and drop the shutter speed to as low as O.5 seconds. You can cause the 4100 to boost straight to 200 ISO by selecting the party mode (and then I turn off the flash light to use the ambient light). However, noise is clearly present at ISO 200, and perhaps this is why Nikon are reluctant to move off the ISO 50 mark.
The images look soft on the computer screen, but the photos print up beautifully sharp.
All in all, an exellent, well made point and shoot camera, but needs good lighting where it will produce excellent photos. A very easy and pleasant camera to use. While this model is now discontinued, if you can pick up a second hand model at a good price, you will have a very nice point and shoot digital camera.
Problems:
The Nikon software supplied with the 4100 is next to junk level. There is better software free on the cover discs of computer magazines. But for most people, Windows XP is able to down load shots from the camera and Picasa (a free program from the Google organisation) will cover the needs of most point and shooters for post shot fixes, printing, and file storage.