Nikon Coolpix 7800

[Thomas Gutjahr]

For my purposes, mostly landscape and travel snapshots, the P7800 strikes the right belance between outstanding picture quality versus size and weight. In my hands, the P7800 feels very comfortable to hold and operate.

That said, I still wish

- much, much faster - in all aspects: starting up, waking up, focusing (!!), switching modes, reviewing, etc. Nikon with their Coolpix series just seems to think amateurs don't care for speedy operation. Wrong!!

- 2.34 EVF, the currently implemented EVF is a bit skimpy and its difficult to judge colors and exposure correctly.

- in many configurations, the main and subdials do nothing

- Subdials can't be configured by user

- video button (which I never need) can't be reprogrammed to do something useful

IMHO, in these respects, Nikon should take a good, hard look at Olympus' user interface and configurability.

Again, in summary, the P7800 is a fantastic camera with room for improvement.

 

[papybenenuts]

thanks for this review

i hope the successor is coming soon ...

wake up NIKON ...

 

[canpen]

Have you used RAW (NRW) format with it? If so, how large are the resulting files and can you use continuous shooting with RAW and how many RAW shots it can take in a burst?

 

[Thomas Gutjahr]

I don't shoot RAW, so I can't answer your question.

In a different thread, I read the NEF file (Nikons RAW file) is approx 26 MB.

That said, RAW should give you more leeway in post processing. With JPEGs, if you don't nail the exposure, white balance, shadow detail, avoiding blown highlights, there is only so much you can do to correct problems.

 

[Thomas Gutjahr]

Just in case: one thing which helps to speed things up a bit is to turn off image review OFF. This way, you are ready to take the next shot, even though the P7800 still writes the previous shot to the SD card. In other words, the P7800 buffers images and writes from the buffer to the card. As long as the buffer is not filled up, you are good too shoot.

Otherwise, I would guess due to a relatively slow processor, the P7800 takes time to both calculate the exposure and do the focusing. You can turn off both - sort of. If you go into manual focus mode, you may have to do manual focusing, which is of course time consuming. But once set, up, that time can be saved.

Similar with exposure - if you lock exposure or go to manual exposure mode, that time can be saved too.

So in summary, if Nikon would put a much speedier processor into the follow up model of the P7800, that aspect would be improved, if not fixed. Unfortunately, history shows Nikon has never bothered about speed in their compact class (I loved the P6000, but it was sooo slow).

Two things are on the positive side

- with ISO and time limits specified, the P7800 tries to get the most clean image possible: decrease shutter speed to the longest possible time before raising ISO - it really helps! Since I mostly shoot in aperture priority, all I need to take care of is to ensure the aperture is wide open - the lense is sharp enough to produce excellent images

 

[Lightpath48]

Have you used RAW (NRW) format with it? If so, how large are the resulting files and can you use continuous shooting with RAW and how many RAW shots it can take in a burst?

I shot raw almost exclusively, when owning a P7800. The files were over 20MB. It would shoot a burst of four or five, then freeze for 14-16 seconds with a blackened view while writing to a 95MB/sec. card.

The P7800 was my best compact for image quality, but just unacceptably slow. The response to controls, especially the four-way controller, also left a lot to be desired. It was as if every time I pressed a function the camera had to think about it for a while, before deciding whether to comply.

I'm watching Nikon, but not expecting anything more in this product sector. My Coolpix A is better in every way, but necessarily lacks zoom.

 

[André BARELIER]

I agree with your findings, except that, while being relatively slow, the P7800 is not THAT slow. (It depends a lot on the card you use).

For a travel camera, I have no complaints about it.

I may add that it has 3 user's banks, which I find extremely handy. You can store a LOT of things in each bank: default mode, (and, if in A mode, default aperture), iso (and if auto, maximum iso value and minimum shutter speed), default focal length, ADL, state by default for the LCD (on or off), etc.

Also, you can set the rear wheel and multi selector wheel to set metering mode, or ADL value, etc.

In fact, this camera si incredibly featured and customisable, with great image quality and fast lens.

A very underrated camera.

 

[canpen]

So in summary, if Nikon would put a much speedier processor into the follow up model of the P7800, that aspect would be improved, if not fixed. Unfortunately, history shows Nikon has never bothered about speed in their compact class (I loved the P6000, but it was sooo slow).

Yep, I can't stop thinking if only my P900 lens would have been attached to a Canon who use their latest DIGIC processors in their superzooms.

I thing the P7800 successor (P8000) will really set the stage on what to expect from Nikon in the future. If it is still stuck with Expeed C2, all hope is lost. If it is a new C3 variant of Expeed 3 that is still stuck with Fujitsu FR processors (like C2), all hope is also lost. If it is based on the ARM version of Expeed 3 or something more recent, then Nikon can have a future with its compacts.

I believe at the moment the biggest problem is that they made an architecture upgrade for the DSLRs from Fujitsu FR to ARM based processors a long time ago, but never did that for their compacts. Their compact firmwares are stuck with the old architecture and would need a serious rewrite, which of course has its costs. So until they do that, they don't even have a better processor they could use with the current firmwares.

They simply have to do that architecture upgrade at some point and should have done it ages ago.