After lengthy consideration and reading of these reviews I recently bought a used 5400. I had been getting superb shots from my 4 megapixel Sony S85 and it is a hard act to follow, but the megapixel trend goes ever onwards and upwards. I did have concerns about low light focussing and slow write times of the Nikon but I really like taking landscapes and needed a 28mm wide zoom and panorama assist mode, and wanted more creative control in addition to a few more pixels. I was recently tempted to re-consider the Nikon 5400 after seeing them on ebay for £200 (used).
After I bought my first example I upgraded its firmware to v1.4 and took around 150 test shots outside and inside. I really liked the wide-angle lens, vast creative control, compact lightweight robust body, excellent control positioning, superb matrix metering and pleasant colour rendering. The auto white balance never fails. My big disappointment however was its inability to produce evenly focussed images. Distant subjects in a landscape would appear blurred in the left half of the image, but were reasonably sharp on the right. Even when I locked the focus at infinity this happened.
I took shots of the same scenes using the Nikon and Sony to make a side by side comparison, and found that the Sony was consistently sharper on distant subjects. Closer subjects were not a problem, and the two cameras were evenly matched. I studied the operating manual in detail, tried selecting a focus sector on the left hand side of the monitor but to no avail.
I couldn’t put up with this fault, as landscapes are my first consideration when selecting a camera, so I tried a second Coolpix 5400 believing the first to be just a faulty example. I did consider an Olympus 8080 but had to rule it out due to its greater weight and bulk.
The second 5400 is a factory re-furbished example. I noticed an immediate improvement in lower lux level focus capability and speed of focus) and the uneven focus problem has gone. CF writing seems slightly slower but its an acceptable price to pay.
This is the ideal camera for those wanting to travel photos, providing high quality with lightweight portability and creative control. Just buy a spare battery and you’ll be fine.
Good Points
Handling and size
Wide angle zoom lens
Tons of creative control
Image quality
Natural colours
Night scene performance
AWB capability
Problems:
Problems
Manual focus difficult to use (but see this Forum for calibration table, not published by Nikon)
Small LCD screen (but good visibility in bright conditions)
No AF assist lamp (but you knew that anyway)
After I bought my first example I upgraded its firmware to v1.4 and took around 150 test shots outside and inside. I really liked the wide-angle lens, vast creative control, compact lightweight robust body, excellent control positioning, superb matrix metering and pleasant colour rendering. The auto white balance never fails. My big disappointment however was its inability to produce evenly focussed images. Distant subjects in a landscape would appear blurred in the left half of the image, but were reasonably sharp on the right. Even when I locked the focus at infinity this happened.
I took shots of the same scenes using the Nikon and Sony to make a side by side comparison, and found that the Sony was consistently sharper on distant subjects. Closer subjects were not a problem, and the two cameras were evenly matched. I studied the operating manual in detail, tried selecting a focus sector on the left hand side of the monitor but to no avail.
I couldn’t put up with this fault, as landscapes are my first consideration when selecting a camera, so I tried a second Coolpix 5400 believing the first to be just a faulty example. I did consider an Olympus 8080 but had to rule it out due to its greater weight and bulk.
The second 5400 is a factory re-furbished example. I noticed an immediate improvement in lower lux level focus capability and speed of focus) and the uneven focus problem has gone. CF writing seems slightly slower but its an acceptable price to pay.
This is the ideal camera for those wanting to travel photos, providing high quality with lightweight portability and creative control. Just buy a spare battery and you’ll be fine.
Good Points
Handling and size
Wide angle zoom lens
Tons of creative control
Image quality
Natural colours
Night scene performance
AWB capability
Problems:
Problems
Manual focus difficult to use (but see this Forum for calibration table, not published by Nikon)
Small LCD screen (but good visibility in bright conditions)
No AF assist lamp (but you knew that anyway)