Digital Trends

Nikon Coolpix P5000 July 16th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Testing and Use

The P5000 is ready to go in less than two seconds, slightly quicker than many competitors—as a matter of fact it’s the rare 2007 digicam or camcorder that takes more than two shakes to fire up. This Nikon takes 10-megapixel stills (3648 x 2736 pixels) and you have a choice of three compression settings—Fine, Normal and Basic. I started shooting in Auto at the 10MP Fine setting, and then moved to the many manual options. One thing I noticed right off the bat—this camera is slower than many of the new cameras I’ve handled recently. By that I mean it takes time to save the files to the card (an hour-glass appears, shades of Windows 98!). In fact, in Continuous mode, it takes less than a frame per second; compare this to cheaper 8MP Sony DSC-W90 that cranks out over 2 frames per second at full resolution. I know the resolution is less but this simply shows Nikon needs to crank up the processing power—or most likely they’d be happier if you a bought a D40 D-SLR for around $550 USD. Bottom line? If you plan to take lots of shots of the kids playing ball or running pets, this might not be the camera for you.

That on the table, I continued taking loads of images indoors and out, playing with the Scene mode dial as the subject required. One I really appreciated was the Back Light setting for shooting objects bathed in strong light. It did a fine job ensuring the subject (window blinds) weren’t totally dark.

Since it was July 4th, I had a chance to use the Fireworks Show setting. Here, the camera focus moves to infinity, the aperture goes to f/7.6 and shutter speed is four seconds. Other than the screen blacking out for the full time so you’re not sure what you’re shooting, the photos were fun—the typical cascade of color. The VR did a nice job dealing with camera shake as did my elbow resting on a table. Overall, the camera was very easy to operate, with no-brainer menus.

As noted earlier, there’s a good set of manual options once you decide to move beyond the Auto and Scene modes to spread your photographic wings. Since this is 2007, the camera has Face Priority AF as do so many other models. A box (or boxes) appears on screen that track faces in the viewfinder ensuring proper exposure and focus for human countenances. It too worked well. 

Image Courtesy of Nikon

Once finished, the Picture Project software easily transferred the files and then it was time to make some 8.5 x 11 full-bleed prints with no tweaking whatsoever. Note: this camera has several Nikon software enhancements built in including red-eye removal and D-Lighting that enhances contrast and brightness in dark areas. It works well. Better yet this feature is part of Picture Project so you can make these adjustments on your monitor rather than a 2.5-inch LCD screen. The LCD responded fairly well but it did wipe out in direct sunlight; the viewfinder is on hand for those situations.

In most instances, the prints were very good with accurate colors and nice detail. The camera had issues shooting low-contrast subjects, even with the AF Assist lamp. Snapping into sharp focus was not a strong suit. Close-ups of my cat’s face weren’t as crisp as I’d like and colors were a tad flat indoors. The P5000 has a Vivid setting to juice things up but I prefer avoiding that extra step. Most people will be happy with the prints, especially those shot in daylight. The flash is also more potent than the usual, an added plus for the camera. As for the highly touted Hi ISO setting of 3200, it was horrible as expected since only D-SLRs and select Fujifilm digicams handle those nose-bleed settings. High ISOs should be avoided just to eliminate as much digital noise as possible (stay at 400 or less).