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January 27, 2009

Nikon Coolpix P6000 review

Product Code: VMA250B1

The 13.5Mp Nikon CoolPix P6000 is a compact camera pitched unashamedly at the high end of the market, an area previously dominated by arch-rival Canon, with its highly capable G9 and G10 compacts.

With pocket-friendly dimensions and high picture quality, we like the Nikon Coolpix P6000.

As well as another million and a half pixels using the same size 1/1.7-inch sensor, the Nikon Coolpix P6000 sports a wider 4x zoom range (28-112mm equivalent) that's handy for both interiors and portraits. Like earlier offerings, the lens is optically image-stabilised and retracts into the part magnesium-alloy, part plastic body almost entirely.

Other compelling features of the Nikon Coolpix P6000 include the addition of Raw capture, geo-tagging with a built-in GPS locator, standard ethernet LAN connectivity for uploading stills and video clips and a new, larger 2.7in (but still 230k dot) screen. All this looks good on paper, but isn't very well implemented.

First, the Raw file is a new .NRW format, which requires development using only utilities that support the WIC (Microsoft's Windows Image Component) codec. Although it's not supplied on disc, only the Windows-based Nikon View NX can be used to develop the new Raw files, and as yet Nikon isn't saying whether it will support the format with its Capture NX2 utility.

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Fortunately, Adobe's Camera Raw (from version 4.6) can be used to fully edit and convert the new format for use with Photoshop and Lightroom, and it looks like an opportunity for others - but this seems to suggest that Raw was an afterthought.

Geo-tagging using the built-in GPS transceiver should be a neat addition, but in the time we had with the camera (a week and a bit in all), we couldn't get the Nikon Coolpix P6000 to locate a single satellite. Left to record GPS data, the P6000 will drain the small but potent battery, even when you think it has powered down completely. So in our view it would be best to manually update when needed.

A rubber bung covers the ethernet socket on the underside of the Nikon Coolpix P6000, but it's used to exclusively upload re-sized snaps and video clips to Nikon's complimentary My Picturetown server. It seems a little extravagant to us, but it could be transformed into a useful option with a future firmware upgrade.

Fortunately autofocus operation is quicker, but it's still a little sluggish at the longer end of the zoom where the maximum aperture drops from f/2.8 to f/5.6. Accuracy appears much the same - that's to say it's good, with the Nikkor-branded zoom delivering pin-sharp shots with only marginal fringing. We can't get too excited about the huge sensitivity range (64-6400 ISO): if you go above ISO 400 the speckles look like confetti.

Digital Arts

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Independent customer reviews from

Nikon Coolpix P6000 [pc] scored:
9.1 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 14 reviews:

29 Nov 2008 Anonymous verified purchaser

10

Good Points

the camera body is made of metal and not plastic, the overall quality of the images is high

Bad Points

Menus are not intuitive to use, and the menu features available with each button vary a lot between manual and other user settings

21 Mar 2009 Richard, Dyserth, Denbighshire

10

Good Points

Excellent quality camera, often use instead of heavyweight D300. Sometimes large pixel sensors equals reduced quality, big isn't always best!! In this case it's the opposite. Raw or jpeg, equally as good. A really great camera. GPS is also efficient and a fun addition.

Bad Points

Only that the lens barrel protrudes into the viewfinder when on wide angle, not a problem when on zoom.

See more Nikon Coolpix P6000 [pc] reviews on Reevoo.com

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