Review: Nikon CoolPix 800 Has Superb Optics and Awesome Price

PRODUCT: Coolpix 800
DESCRIPTION: Digital Still Camera
MANUFACTURER: Nikon
RETAIL COST: $599.99 ($75 rebate expires 9/31/00)
CONCLUSIONS: Superb value; excellent optics; wimpy 8MB Compact Flash card included; manuals are not printed but in PDF format on CD-ROM; connector is serial, not USB; battery compartment door is awkward; no AC cable included; no lens cap strap; being replaced by the more expensive and improved Coolpix 880.

Ask most people about digital cameras and they'll tell you there are only two options: great quality but expensive or a cheap price but fuzzy, low resolution photos. Today that's no longer the case.

Nikon's Coolpix 800 is a premium camera, with quality Nikkor lenses, a high 1600-by-1200 resolution, and all the features a weekend photographer could need, but with a reasonable price. Just six months ago the 800 sold for close to $800, but now many retailer sell it for around $600, and with little effort you should be able to find it online for less than $450. Throw in Nikon's $75 rebate (expires 9/31/00) and you've got a terrific value.

The Coolpix 800 looks like a small 35mm camera. It's lightweight (9.5 oz. without batteries) and extremely easy to use. I was surprised at how little instruction non-technical friends or relatives needed to use the camera. They instantly caught on that the LCD screen on the back showed them what they were seeing, and with auto-everything (focus, exposure, etc.), pushing the shutter to take a picture was a no-brainer. Informal snapshots taken in automatic mode were nearly always perfect.

The LCD display on the back is excellent and you can use it to view your shot before you take it, or you can turn off the display to save batteries and just take snapshots by looking through the tiny viewfinder. Since the LCD uses batteries like mad (an hour will drain four AA alkalines), the camera shuts off after 30 seconds of non-use. With the LCD off, I was able to set the automatic off feature to 5 minutes without excessively draining my batteries, allowing me to leave the camera on, ready to shoot, just like a film camera.

In playback mode you can examine pictures you've already taken. There are two thumbnail modes (4-up or 9-up), and you can easily scroll through all your pictures. The camera displays a rough low-resolution preview of each photo instantly, and after a second, displays the photo in higher quality. This allows you to move through pictures quickly, without delay as each picture is displayed. Once a picture is visible, you can zoom in to see critical detail (like focus), but unfortunately you cannot scroll the zoomed-in picture (it zooms to the center of the photo).

Playback mode even has a slideshow feature (you can set how long it displays each picture), and you can delete individual pictures, folders, or all pictures. You can also protect pictures so they can't be deleted until you unprotect them, and you can hide pictures so they don't display in the slideshow or when you scroll through the photo list.

On the surface the Coolpix 800 seems to offer few image sizes: images are always 1600 x 1200 pixels with three levels of compression (which affect quality). Dig deeper, however, and you'll find that the camera supports VGA size (640 x 480), black-and-white mode, uncompressed TIFF, half-VGA at 320 x 200 (used for 30 fps recording), and a unique 16-up photo mode (which produces a sequence 16 photos at 400 x 300 each all put into a single large photo). Initially I was disappointed there was no mid-range size such as 800 x 600, but then I realized this really makes little difference; you can always downsize a larger image, and if you're just shooting for the web, the VGA size is more than enough. Fewer options simplifies camera operation.

Various sizes and formats are critical with a digital camera, as each format uses a different amount of memory, which controls how many pictures you can take at one time. The Coolpix 800 stores pictures on tiny Compact Flash cards, but Nikon only includes a minimal 8MB card, suitable for 16 high-resolution pictures at Normal quality, or a single uncompressed TIFF photo. Compact Flash cards cost about $2 per megabyte, and sizes range from 16MB to 192MB. Once a card is filled, you can quickly eject it and put in another and continue taking pictures. (A 64MB card will hold 128 pictures at normal quality, eight uncompressed TIFFs, and 256 at "basic" quality.)

To transfer your pictures to your computer, you have several choices. There's the old fashioned serial port approach, using the included NikonView software, which works fine and mounts the camera to your Mac's desktop so you can copy pictures from it. But transferring even a few pictures takes several minutes, and if you have a modern Mac with USB instead of serial, you can't use this approach. Even if you've got the patience to wait, transferring files via serial will run your batteries down unless you buy the optional AC adaptor. Best is to use a PC Card adaptor ($15) if you have a PowerBook, or a USB Compact Flash reader ($30-$80). Either approach mounts the Compact Flash card to your desktop and lets you easily copy off a full card of pictures in a few seconds.

With its excellent Nikkor lenses, the Coolpix 800 takes terrific pictures right out of the box. There's a modest 2x optical zoom (similar to 38-76mm lens on a 35mm camera), but don't even bother trying the 2.5 digital zoom, where the fuzzy results are worse than simply enlarging a photo in Photoshop. For the photography buff, there are a number of manual options, such as exposure compensation, white balance adjustment, three types of exposure metering, several continuous shooting modes (from 1.5 fps at full resolution to a high speed 30 fps for up to 40 pictures at 320 x 200). Unfortunately, there are no aperture- or shutter-priority modes (those high-end features are reserved for Nikon's more expensive Coolpix 950 and 990 models).

The Negatives
Now for the negatives. There are none. This is a filmless digital camera, remember? Okay, the Coolpix 800 isn't perfect, though it is an incredible value. The 2x optical zoom is better than nothing, but it doesn't really magnify your subject much. It's great for getting that extra person to fit into the frame in a group shot, but don't think you'll be taking a close-up of that lion from the tour bus.

Nikon seems to have a problem with doors. The battery compartment locks so solidly it's a pain to get into and tricky to close (use rechargable NiMH batteries so you won't need to get in there often). The Compact Flash compartment, on the other hand, opens easily but uses plastic hinges. I can just see myself ripping off the door in my haste to insert a new memory card to catch that picture of aliens landing on my lawn.

Designwise, the Coolpix 800 is almost perfect. There are some tradeoffs. The tripod mount is directly under the lens, ideal for evenly rotating the camera for a QuickTime VR panorama, but with the camera mounted you no longer have access to the Compact Flash compartment. Also, the self-timer and macro mode are mutually exclusive: it's one or the other, so your close-ups are often blurred by your action of pressing the shutter release (this wouldn't be a problem if the camera offered a remote release option, but it doesn't).

Otherwise, Nikon only seems to fall short in omission. There's a hand-strap for the camera, but no string for the very tiny lens cap. The camera's manual is strangely split between a small printed booklet and a PDF document on CD. Most awkward, the table of contents of the printed manual includes references for the PDF manual! Nikon doesn't include rechargable NiMH batteries or an AC adaptor, and of course I've already mentioned the stinginess of the included 8MB Compact Flash card (plan on using Nikon's $75 rebate to buy a 32MB card).

If you just want to be on the cutting edge of digital camera technology, expect to spend $1000 every three months on the latest gizmo. If, on the other hand, you just want an inexpensive digital camera with 35mm quality, look no further.