The IT Nerd

During our recent road trip, my wife and I had with us the Nikon Coolpix P1000 which is an insanely versatile camera as we were able to take great pictures in all sorts of situations. It has a 16MP image sensor with an absurdly big and long 125x zoom lens. This makes it a big and heavy SLR sized camera with a non replaceable lens. Right off the top I will say that there are some things that I will mention that may make it not suitable for every photographer. But I think that a lot of people will find it something that they want to put in their camera bag. One plus that I will point out to more advanced photographers, it supports RAW. Just make sure you have a big enough SD card if you go that route. In my case, I went with a 128GB SD card to make sure that I was covered

So since I talked about the fact that it is big and heavy, I will also mention that it is easy to hold which is a bit of a surprise given how big this camera is. And as long as you haven’t got the lens fully extended, the balance is decent. There’s a hot shoe (for an external flash or microphone) and a pop-up flash, both centered behind the lens, on the top plate. The pop-up flash is big, and rises a couple of inches above the body when opened for use. That allows you to use the hot shoe for an external microphone which makes this an ideal rig for vloggers seeing as this camera also does 4K video.

You can select from a number of modes for your photographic needs. Auto, Progam, Aperture, Shutter, and Manual exposure modes are onboard. But the P1000 includes a Scene recognition setting, a Moon mode, a Bird mode, and a number of Instagram-style filter effects, ranging from desaturated bleach bypass to a high-contrast black-and-white. I have to admit that I left it in auto most of the time. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—Nikon calls its Wi-Fi system SnapBridge. The P1000 can send images to your smartphone automatically or on demand via Bluetooth, and it can be remotely controlled via your phone via Wi-Fi with a live feed to your phone’s screen. Nikon also offers a wireless Bluetooth remote for remote image capture. Battery life is rated at 250 shots. But I got about 300 before needing to charge it. Strangely, I was unable to charge it with any third-party AC adapters or power packs. I tried a few, including the plug that came with my iPhone, but only the Nikon adapter worked for me. That is a bit limiting as you can’t do an emergency charge in the field. Thus you need to ensure that it is fully charged before you go out or have a spare battery pack on hand. I should also note that autofocus speed is very quick when shooting at a wide angle. But it does slow down when zoomed all the way in. Finally, there’s an LCD screen that you can position at a variety of angles to accommodate your shooting needs. Plus there’s a viewfinder that also has a LCD screen that I found to be better to use in bright sunlight.

So, what do the pictures from this camera look like? Here’s a few examples in a variety of lighting conditions:

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From a zoom perspective, here’s a couple of examples which were pretty impressive:

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And here’s a 4K video that I shot with the Coolpix P1000:

The bottom line is that this is versatile camera. There’s a ton of functionality on hand that allows you to take pictures in any condition, or allow you to express your creative side. Other than the size and weight of the camera, not to mention the inability to charge it easily, I really have nothing negative to say about the Nikon Coolpix P1000. It goes for $1400 CDN. My suggestion is that if the Nikon Coolpix P1000 appeals to you, I would visit your Nikon dealer to try one out and make sure it’s right for you.

This entry was posted on August 15, 2019 at 9:00 am and is filed under Products with tags Nikon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.