Nikon Coolpix P7100: Review

I was able to get my hands on a Nikon Coolpix P7100 compact digital camera for a couple of days this week , thanks to Trang and Trang (!), and I thought I’d put down my thoughts in a full review on this product here today. The Coolpix P7100 is one of Nikon’s current high-end compact digital camera, and although it has just been replaced by the new P7700, it remains one of Nikon’s premium compacts in the Coolpix line-up. You can get yours here for around $350, or check out some of the awesome deals on Coolpix cameras at B&H Photo:

I recommend these stores very highly. And of course, when you get stuff from these links, it helps me keep this blog going, as you probably know by now! So please, think about it!

Like other premium compacts of this kind, the P7100 is loaded with plenty of manual features, lots of buttons and dials to control said manual features, a nice Nikkor zoom lens (with a very nice long zoom range), and a decently sized image sensor, although all this comes not-so-tightly packed in a pretty large and chunky body that makes calling it compact rather awkward. It reminds me (and everyone else) a lot of the Canon G11/G12/G15 digital compacts, with the bulky body and long zoom lens

Alright, so let’s get into the details of this camera:

Nikon Coolpix P7100: Specifications You Want To Know

• Body: Large compact
• Resolution: 10.1 mega pixels
• Sensor Size: 1/1.7”
• Sensor Type: CCD

• Lens: Nikkor 6.0-42.6mm f2.8-5.6 (28-200mm equivalent) ED VR
• Image Stabilization: Yes (VR)

• Shutter Speed: 1/4000 max, 60 sec min
• ISO Range: 100-3200 (expandable to 12800)
• Video: 720p (24fps)
• Video Format: MOV

• Metering Modes: Center-weighted, spot, multi-area
• Exposure Modes: Auto, P, A, S, M, Scene, Custom (3 custom modes), Effects
• White Balance: Many automatic options, three custom presets
• Built-in flash: Yes
• Flash Modes: Auto, fill, slow sync, rear curtain sync
• Hot-shoe: Yes
• Built in ND filter: Yes

• Autofocus: Contrast detection
• AF Modes: Single area AF, multi-area AF, macro, infinity, tracking AF, face detection
• Number of AF points: 99
• Manual Focus: Yes
• Macro Focus Range: 2cm (at wide angle end)

• Screen: 3” LCD (921k dots) tilt-articulated non-touchscreen
• Optical Viewfinder: Yes (approx.. 80% coverage)

• Max Drive Speed: 1.2fps
• File Formats: RAW, JPEG

• Connections: USB 2.0, HDMI (mini)
• Memory Card Types: SD, SDHC, SDXC

• Dimensions: 116x77x48mm
• Weight: 390g (including battery)

First Thoughts

Ok first thought that popped into my head when I saw it: it’s big! It really is. There are micro four thirds or other mirrorless camera bodies that are around this size, with a sensor that’s, what…4 times larger? So yeah, maybe some people like this bulk as it allows great grip and handling, but I personally prefer something more compact if its being branded as a compact

Apart from that, on first glance, I had no other complaints. The lens range is excellent and it’s fairly fast…the macro range is WONDERFUL (more on this later), some of the automatic picture settings are fun to use, it’s got a built-in ND filter which can be very useful…and as with any camera with an articulated screen, this tilt-LCD was a pleasure to use (even though it only tilts). The optical viewfinder, like many similar others, well…I had no use for it. Even in bright sunlight, the screen worked well enough for me…and if I was low on battery, I’d be carrying an extra battery – I’d avoid using it. Just not accurate or bright enough for me

Build quality is pretty good. I’m not sure what it’s made of, and I’m not certain it’s got much (or any) aluminum/magnesium alloy or whatever, but it feels very sturdy, and I’m very pleased with the quality of its build overall

Another thing that I really liked about this camera is the sheer amount of controls that are available. I’m not talking about the settings that you are allowed to adjust – no, I’m talking about the physical controls that are available for me to adjust those settings! There are no fewer than four control dials of sorts on this camera – and I lost count of the number of other buttons! It really is fantastic. The body is large, but the space is well used – and after using my RX100 with its limited amount of external buttons, I found the Nikon very nice to use

However, after using it a while, I started to notice a few performance issues, in the menu system as well as when shooting – more on that later – but all in all, picking up this camera and using it was a good experience. At this stage, I’m definitely ready to recommend it to people! 

Controls and Handling

Naturally, with the bulk of the P7100, handling is great. If there’s one real benefit of adding bulk to a camera body, it’s this. You can grip it nicely with one hand, the buttons and dials are nicely spaced out, they obviously never feel cramped, and it just feels nice using it. Like on any well-designed camera, your hands simply find their way – you don’t really need to think about what you’re doing when you hold the P7100

Before I get into the array of controls here, which will take a while, I’m sure, I’ll just quickly say that the quality of the buttons and dials on the Nikon are good. Nothing fantastic like the dials on the Fuji X10 (or even the Sony RX100) but good enough; never felt cheap or loose…everything was firm, clicks felt satisfying, the button presses were comfortable…all good

Ok, and NOW the controls. Oh boy, this will take a while. First let’s check out the top panel:

There’s a power button, of course. There’s a shutter button (of course). There’s a zoom rocker, there’s a mode dial…there’s an exposure compensation dial, there’s an Fn2 button (Fn1 is on the front). And there’s one more dial on the left side of the top panel called a “Quick Menu button”) which is really a dial with a button on top

You know what they all do, except maybe the quick menu dial: this dial allows you to quickly access a set of functions, namely Image Quality, ISO, WB, auto bracketing, Picture Control (picture styles like Vivid, Monochrome etc.) and My Menu (a customized menu). You select one of these options from the dial, and that particular setting’s menu loads onscreen. If you want to access the same feature again, press the button on top of the dial. Very nice

The Fn2 button could’ve been better – it allows you to choose one of a very few options. I set mine to toggle the ND filter, but I know many people who would like to use to set other stuff

Ok, now the main one, the back panel:

There’s a flash release button, a diopter adjustment dial, and a Display button (which has to be used to turn the LCD off manually when using the optical finder or toggle display info). There’s a dial just below the shutter button called the main command dial… there’s an AEL/AFL button, playback, menu, and delete buttons – and of course there’s a 4-way directional controller, which doubles as another dial, the ‘rear command dial’ (there’s an OK button in the middle, yes)

The 4-way controller is used to control self-timer, flash, autofocus mode, and focus area

The rear and main command dials are used interchangeably to adjust settings, such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO…you know what these do. I think the rest is all pretty self-explanatory

The front of the camera has a couple of buttons too, unusual and very useful:

First, there’s a little button that releases the little ring around the lens so that the filter adapter can fit in. Then there’s the Fn1 button (I’ll explain how this is used)

Then there’s this other fantastic dial that’s just below the shutter button on the front panel. This sub-command dial, as I believe it’s called, is perfectly placed for your shutter-button-finger to reach, and it basically sets aperture, in aperture priority or manual modes. I don’t think it has any use in other modes – so I consider this the aperture ring of sorts. And in case you’re wondering, shutter speed is controlled via the command dials on the rear. But this dial is so easy to use, and feels so natural – your finger just rests there naturally – I think it’s a much better idea than the lens ring that most compacts go for these days

The Fn1 button works together with either the shutter button or the rear command dial. Hold down the Fn1 button and turn the rear command dial and you can adjust flash compensation, use it as a manual focus dial, change metering modes, etc. Yes, it’s customizable. Quite a cool idea, I think

With the shutter button, well…you can temporarily change one setting for a particular shot. For example, you can set the Fn1+shutter to change white balance to Auto…so if you’re shooting custom WB, but you hold the Fn1 button while taking the shot, the camera uses Auto WB instead of custom WB…for that single shot. You can also set the Fn1 button to take a RAW image instead of JPEG

And I think that covers all the important controls. I went on a bit there, but I really liked how these controls worked. I also loved the amount of dedicated controls as well, much like the Fuji X10 – there are dedicated controls for exposure compensation, AEL/AFL, aperture (via the ring) and fast access to other settings via the Quick Menu dial. Very nice control layout. Full marks!

Performance

When I talk of performance, I mean how the camera operates in general, not the performance of the lens in terms of image quality – and this sort of performance is the only area where the camera really disappoints. The P7000 was reportedly sluggish in performance too, and I hear that the P7100 is an improvement in this area, however I fail to see how this could be an improvement. In general, the camera is slow

First of all, it takes around 4-5 seconds to power on. That’s pretty slow. Secondly, operating performance of the camera is sluggish. The menus don’t feel really zippy, although the menu system is good…it just feels sluggish, it feels like its slowing you down. Deleting pictures takes forever, be it single pictures or multiple, although this might be helped by a faster SD card than the one I had on hand – deleting a single picture took up to 3 seconds, while multiple images (over 10) took around 20 seconds or more

AF speed is average. Again, not as fast as I would’ve liked, but not bad either. So yeah…average. In low light, it can be quite slow indeed, especially once the AF lamp is turned off. With the lamp, it’s much better. In daylight, it’s very acceptable for a compact camera. Just…nothing special. But bear in mind that the focusing was accurate, and even if it took time it rarely failed to lock AF

Shot to shot speed was not great either. It takes nearly 2 seconds before its ready for the next shot. Slower in RAW. Combine this with the not-so-fast AF and fast shooting is not really possible

Talking of fast shooting, the continuous shooting mode is dreadful. It takes up to 90 JPEGS at a very, very slow 1.2fps. And on this Class 6 SD card that I had with me, once I took a burst of 20 shots, it took a full 20 seconds to write to the SD card before it was ready to do anything else. It should write faster on a Class 10, but I’d completely avoid this camera if you need fast shooting modes. The new P7700 has a much faster 8fps and I’m sure it should perform much better

Overall, the camera is not fast, in any sense. Power-on is slow, AF is average/sluggish in dim light, shot to shot speed is average, continuous shooting is almost unusable, and even using the menus can be a bit slow (I keep using this word!)

However, bear in mind that I’m comparing this camera with very high performers, such as the Fuji X10 and Sony RX100 compacts, which can even compare with entry-level DSLRs. So if you’re coming from an ordinary compact and looking for an upgrade, and speed is not an issue for you, this camera is still something I’d recommend, because as you will see, the rest of the camera does much better!

Features

Tilt LCD: Probably not a very special feature these days as many cameras these days come with a tilting LCD or even a fully articulated one…but it’s still nice to have. Tilt is probably the most important articulation that the screen can have, allowing you to grab those low-angle shots without getting down ‘n dirty on the floor. I haven’t used a camera with an articulated screen for a while, and rediscovered this great experience – even on shots that weren’t too hard to get with a fixed screen, I was just flipping out this LCD and not bothering to bend over!

The screen is also of very good resolution (921k dots) and is bright enough to use in sunlight. Of course, there’s an optical viewfinder but like I said before, I wouldn’t like to use this inaccurate finder – especially since I had no problems with the LCD, even in pretty bright sunlight

Long Zoom Range: The lens is great. More on image quality later, but this 28-200mm equivalent Nikkor lens covers a fantastic range. Compared to the X10 and the RX100 which I used recently, having this much reach can be very useful – not that I shot much at the 200mm end, but this can be great to have, especially in a compact

The lens is fairly fast at the wide end, but slows down quite a bit at the long tele end. Pretty acceptable, I’d say…f5.6 at 200mm is very acceptable. I would’ve liked a slightly faster aperture at the wide end but still, I’d take this lens any day. No issues at all. Loved the range 

Oh and there’s a setting which allows you to set how fast the lens extends as you zoom in/out…quite useful, this…and I wish the RX100 had something like this for its control ring!

Built-in ND Filter: The built-in ND filter is a nice feature, but I didn’t really find I needed to use it – I doubt you would too, in normal shooting situations. As the maximum aperture isn’t really that wide, I was able to manage shooting at f2.8 at the fastest shutter speed without the ND filter, in bright sunlight at ISO 100 or 200. Of course, you can use this filter for long exposure style photographs in daylight, although, rated at 3 stops, it isn’t really that strong. Still, useful, and can be turned on/off instantly

Macro Mode: Ok, I seriously love the macro mode on the P7100. It’s rated at 2cm, but I was able to get focus while the lens was almost touching the subject! It’s absolutely fantastic. Of course, this is at the wide angle lens – but even at the tele end, you can get in fairly close, and with the 200mm equivalent field of view, this looks pretty close-up too! The best shallow depth of field effects can be achieved using this macro mode. The only thing that I don’t like (but is normal among most compacts) is the need to change the focus mode to macro, else you can’t get within 20cm of your subject. But yeah, fantastic macro mode!

Manual Focus: Like with most compacts these days, the manual focus mode doesn’t work great, but then again, it’s better than most – a much better experience than the manual focus mode on the Fuji X10. So I’d say if you really had to focus manually, this Nikon’s manual focus system is very useable and it will be possible

Panorama Assist: Unlike some of the newer models, with their ‘Sweep Panorama” modes, the Nikon instead kindly assists you in doing this process yourself, the good old-fashioned way…by taking a series of images and stitching ‘em together. Well, it doesn’t assist you in stitching – you need some app for that on your computer – but it assists you in taking the pictures so that the app can stitch it well enough

What it does is it lets you take the first picture, then overlays the end of that previous image on the viewfinder so that you know where to start your next frame, thus avoiding horrible gaps or distortions in your resulting panorama. Not the coolest feature but at least it spares you the trouble of figuring it all out yourself!

Effects Mode: A separate mode on the mode dial, the Effects mode lets you, well…take pictures with different effects. Some of them are quite good, actually. And they’re all adjustable. There are effects like Creative Monochrome, Painting, Cross Process, Defocus, Soft, and Selective Color (among others)

They are adjustable right in the LCD while taking the picture – no menus necessary. For example, in Creative Monochrome you can adjust the level of grain and the level of contrast from four presets of each. In Cross Process mode, you can choose which color cast you want for your cross processed look. With Selective Color, you can obviously select which color you want to pop out in the black and white image

They all worked pretty well, and I’ve included samples of Creative Monochrome, Cross Process, and Painting…Painting is the only one which had a fake look about it…the rest did very well

Flash: A little pop-up flash is included, which can be controlled manually as well as automatically. I personally didn’t like the flash results, but then again I don’t really like any compact camera’s flash – even a DSLR’s built-in flash looks bad most of the time, I think. So nothing against the P7100’s built-in flash – I just wouldn’t use it unless I had to

Image Quality

And here we go, the big one! How does the P7100 perform optically? Well! Very well! The Nikkor 28-200mm f2.8-5.6 is a sharp little thing, and takes very nice images in all the conditions that I threw at it. Colors were natural, well saturated…contrast levels were good, skin tones looked natural, noise was very well controlled, and yes…the pictures were very sharp! Lots of detail too. Keep the ISO within a normal range (800 or less, I’d say) and your results should be excellent. Here’s the moment where I recommend this camera again

The lens performed very well in general. I hardly noticed any chromatic aberrations/color fringing, and while distortions are probably apparent, especially at the wide end, the camera includes a Distortion Correction feature, which can be turned on, and all JPEGs will be pretty much distortion-free. Nice

Color reproduction was very good. White balance was accurate, and in the event that it didn’t get it right automatically, you have the option of not one, but three custom white balance presets

Noise levels were very well controlled in JPEGs. I got very useable images up to ISO 800, and considering this isn’t a huge sensor, I’d say that’s impressive. Above 800, the noise levels really kick in severely. I wouldn’t use ISO 1600 or more…ever

Overall, considering the 1/1.7” sensor size, which is around 3 times smaller than the Sony RX100’s 1” sensor, the images produced are very good indeed. Like I said, they’re sharp, natural, bright, and noise-free most of the time. And it captures excellent detail. That’s plenty to be happy about

Less impressive is the video area, which I don’t really care much about…but 720p at 24fps is substandard these days, even in the day this camera was released. Lack of manual controls in video mode makes it worse. If you’d just be shooting the occasional video clip, like myself, you wouldn’t have a problem with this – just don’t buy this with the idea of making movies

Product Gallery

Sample Image Gallery

Nikon P7100: What I liked/didn’t like

Positives:

• Excellent image quality
• Very good noise control, especially considering the smaller sensor
• Superb macro mode
• Fantastic control layout, with lots of dedicated controls
• This is a control too, but a special mention is reserved for the sub-command dial on the front panel that controls aperture – genius
• Articulated LCD screen – good resolution too, and bright
• Built-in ND filter is good for long-ish exposures in daylight
• Optical viewfinder: not my favorite to use, but it’s a benefit for some, for sure
• Good battery life

 Negatives:

• Large, bulky body (although this allows a good grip which maybe a positive for some)
• Sluggish AF performance at times in low light
• Terribly slow continuous shooting capability
• Overall operating of the camera is slow and sluggish
• Not the most accurate optical viewfinder in the world (yes, it’s a positive and a negative)
• For what it’s worth, if they were making an articulated screen, they could’ve gone all out and made it fully articulating, not making do with just a tilt LCD
• Substandard movie resolution and manual controls

Conclusion

Coming to the conclusion, I think I liked more of this camera than I disliked. The image quality, the macro mode, the zoom range…the tilt LCD, the host of buttons and dials, the ND filter…all these positives against the biggest negative: overall speed of the camera, it’s general performance. This was the biggest problem I had with it – start-up was slow, AF could be slow, continuous shooting speed was horrible, deleting pictures took forever…even using the menus could be slow. The only other negative I can think of is the size…but this might be suitable for many photographers who don’t want to put this thing in their pocket

If you’re not bothered by all the performance issues, and the size, go get this camera. It takes very nice pictures, and has a bunch of fantastic features that are becoming commonplace in most of the premium compacts these days but are still wonderful to have – and all this can be had for a price that’s significantly lower than the new range of premium compacts being produced today. Oh and let me just mention that the P7100 has pretty good battery life…I used this camera a lot for a couple of days and I never had to recharge

Would I buy this camera? No. It’s not that it’s not a good camera – it is a good camera. It’s just not for me. If I’m buying a fixed lens compact, it has to go in my pocket, or at least look like it might! And to be honest, there are compacts out there that perform better, in overall speed as well as in image quality, and although these cost quite a bit more, they’re available. Anyway, remember that it’s the performance issues and the size that turned me away from the P7100 – and not the image quality, which is great – so if you’re going for pure image quality for a low price, this could be a good buy. I mean, it’s really not for me, but maybe it’s the right one for you. If it is, get yours here! You can also check out the newer, slightly improved Coolpix P7700 here. B&H Photo has some great deals on both cameras, check it out here and here! (please use these links if you’re buying!)

If you have any comments, thoughts, ideas…if you’ve used this or plan on using it, whatever! Leave a comment! Thanks for reading…until next time

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By Heshan Jayakody
All content in this review is my own

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