Nikon Coolpix P5000 Digital Camera Review
By Emily Raymond
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
June 25, 2007
Announced in February 2007, the Nikon Coolpix P5000 is part of the company's Performance line of advanced point-and-shoots. The 10-megapixel P5000 has Automatic and Manual Exposure modes, and a hot shoe to accept Speedlight flash units. It has a $399.95 retail price.
The P5000 comes with a 3.5x optical zoom lens and accepts Nikon conversion lenses. The flexibility is nice, but the amount of cash involved may not be worth it. The P5000 camera costs $399. Add $100 each for the flash unit, wide angle lens for close-ups, and 3x telephoto lens, and there’s much heavier competition in the price range. The 10-megapixel Canon G7 has a longer 6x optically stabilized zoom lens, hot shoe, plenty of manual control, and it costs about $499.
The built-in flash fires an impressive 26 feet and still caters to point-and-shooters. It has Automatic, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, Program, Manual, and 18 Scene modes. One of those Scene modes is called High ISO and accesses the camera’s 64-3200 range to photograph in low light.
The camera has an optical viewfinder, but it is only 80 percent accurate. It is best to use the 2.5-inch LCD screen with its 100 percent accurate live view and high resolution of 230,000 pixels.
Ease-of-use is one of the P5000's strengths. It’s easy to hold with its chunky grip and relatively small size. The menus can be personalized to appear as text or icons. The custom function button allows users to avoid the menus altogether. And if you’re ever lost, there is a Help function to explain the current setting.
Pictures from the camera look good, although you’ll have to wait for them. The Coolpix P5000’s autofocus system is horribly slow. The Face Priority autofocus mode is even slower. By the time the camera recognizes a face, it’s just about out of the frame. Taking pictures of kids? Forget it. The pedestrian P5000 also took only one shot per second. This is a very slow Burst mode compared to similar cameras that can shoot three pictures a second. The slowness extends to the Playback mode, too. It takes nearly a half-second for an image to appear clearly focused. If you need speed, a DSLR might be the way to go. Entry-level DSLRs like the Olympus E-410 and Nikon D40 shoot 3 and 2.5 frames per second, respectively. The D40 sells for $599 and the E-410 starts at $699.
The standard optical zoom isn't functional during video capture. Audio sounds garbled and cuts off about a half-second before the image cuts. The resolution was standard at 640 x 480 pixels and 30 frames per second.
Nikon threw in a few interesting features like time lapse shooting, a Voice Recording mode, and a host of color filters and effects. The P5000 makes a fun digital camera for point-and-shooters looking to hone their photography skills. It is only a somewhat serious digital camera for those who have Speedlight flashes and Nikon conversion lenses laying around. Basically, point-and-shooters will be pleased, but those who wish to actually utilize all the serious features on the P5000 will be disappointed.
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