Nikon Coolpix 5400A solid update to Nikon's upper-midrange Coolpix. 5 megapixels, 4x zoom, tons of features!<<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 6:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 07/12/2003 |
Exposure
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Like most of Nikon's digital cameras, the Coolpix 5400 provides a lot of exposure control, with choices of Full Auto, Program AE, Flexible Program AE, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual exposure modes, in addition to an extensive Scene mode. A wide range of shutter speeds are available, from 1/4,000 to eight seconds, and a Bulb mode for longer exposures up to 10 minutes. Through the Record menu, you can replace the Bulb mode with a Timed Release option, offering timed exposures of 30 seconds and 1, 3, 5, and 10 minute duration. In Ultra High Speed Continuous mode, the maximum shutter speed increases to 1/8,000 second. One of my favorite exposure-control features is Flexible Program AE, which lets you select from a range of equivalent exposure settings by turning the Command wheel while in Program exposure mode. - Simply turn the Command wheel on its own while in Program mode, and an asterisk appears next to the "P" in the LCD display. Further rotation of the Command wheel will cycle through the available combinations of shutter speed and aperture. This lets you choose between a faster shutter speed or a smaller lens aperture than the camera's automatic program would otherwise select. Personally, I find this more useful than the more common aperture- or shutter-priority metering options, as it gives the camera more latitude to get the shot you want, while letting you express a preference for larger or smaller aperture settings. The camera's full Auto mode also controls both aperture and shutter speed settings, but does not offer an exposure menu or many other exposure options.
The camera's Scene mode offers a selection of 16 preset "scenes," useful for shooting in less than optimum exposure conditions. The available scenes are Portrait, Party/Indoor, Night Portrait, Beach/Snow, Landscape, Sunset, Night Landscape, Museum, Fireworks Show, Close Up, Copy, Back Light, Sports, Panorama Assist, and Dusk/Dawn. The Scene menu appears in place of the Record menu when the Menu button is pressed in Scene mode.
Four metering options are available on the Coolpix 5400: 256-Segment Matrix, Center-Weighted, Spot, and AF Spot. The 256-Segment Matrix setting determines the exposure by examining 256 separate areas across the frame, evaluating their brightness and the range of contrast between them to determine the best overall exposure. Center-Weighted metering measures light from the entire frame but places the greatest emphasis on a circular area in the center. Spot metering is pretty self-explanatory, taking a reading from the dead center of the image (particularly useful in conjunction with the AE Lock function). With AF Spot the spot metering centers on the specific focus area selected rather than the center of the image, giving you the option for off-center spot metering. (See the previous Optics section of this review for a discussion of the 5400's AF Area focusing mode.) Exposure compensation on the Coolpix 5400 is adjustable from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third step increments, and is controllable in all exposure modes except Manual. The Auto Bracketing feature takes three or five shots of the same subject with varying exposure values determined either by the photographer in Manual mode or by the camera in all other modes. Exposure settings for bracketing can vary from -2 to +2 EV (values are added to the already chosen exposure compensation value), with step sizes of one-third, one-half, or one EV unit.
ISO can be set to a range of values, including Auto, 50, 100, 200, and 400. White balance can be set to Auto, Fine (daylight), Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Speedlight, Shade, or Preset (which allows you to manually adjust the white value by using a white card or object as a reference point). All white balance settings can be adjusted from -3 to +3 units on an arbitrary scale. (This is a feature Nikon pioneered, but which is now beginning to appear on cameras from a few other manufacturers. In my experience, I very frequently find that I'd like to "tweak" the preset white balance settings of a camera, so I find white balance adjustments of this sort particularly welcome.) There's also a White Balance Bracketing mode, which captures several images at different white balance adjustments, allowing you to pick the best image later, when you're able to view the images on a computer screen.
Another signature Nikon feature is the Image Adjustment menu, which lets you increase or decrease contrast. Additionally, the 5400 provides a range of color saturation options, as well as a sharpness control. I really like this sort of camera adjustment, but encourage Nikon to offer both finer gradations and a wider range for control for both contrast and saturation. - Finer grained adjustments would support shifting the default behavior of the camera to suit one's individual preferences.
One of the more unique Nikon digicam features, the Best Shot Selector (BSS) causes the camera to snap several images (up to five, as long as you hold down the shutter button), automatically selecting only the sharpest (least blurred) to be saved to the memory card. Best Shot Select makes it feasible to handhold the camera for surprisingly long exposures. - I've routinely used BSS to get sharp handheld photos with half-second shutter speeds. You can also check your own work immediately as the camera gives you a quick preview of the captured image (when shooting with the LCD monitor) and gives you an option to delete or save the image.
The Coolpix 5400 allows you to save two sets of user settings for focus, exposure, and other camera options, for rapid recall via the setup menu. This can be a real time saver in rapidly switching between widely different sets of shooting conditions. The 5400's Self-Timer offers a three or 10-second countdown before firing the shutter, allowing you compose images and then jump into the exposure.
Long Exposures & Noise
I mentioned earlier that the Coolpix 5400 has a Bulb exposure mode that allows exposures as long as 10 minutes. This is an exceptionally long exposure time, but would normally be almost useless due to the amount of CCD noise that can accumulate during that interval. Like other recent Coolpix models, the 5400 uses a noise reduction technology that appears to use a form of "dark frame subtraction," whereby a second exposure is snapped immediately after the first, but with the shutter closed. The pattern of noise in this "dark frame" is then subtracted from the image itself, resulting in a significant reduction in apparent noise levels. Noise Reduction is enabled via a menu option, and applied to any exposure longer than 1/4 second when active. The net result is that even multi-minute exposures are surprisingly free of noise and quite usable. (I suspect the 5400 would make a great choice for astrophotography.)
In my own tests of very long exposures, I found that the 5400's noise reduction system was quite good at reducing image noise, and that there was relatively little hot-pixel noise in long time-exposure images to begin with. It does appear though, that the 5400's noise-reduction system involves only a basic dark-frame subtraction, as described above. This works well for the most part, but has the limitation that hot pixels which have saturated at their maximum value are converted to black pixels in the final image. To understand this, consider a pixel that's saturated at its maximum value of 255. Since it's saturated, there'll be no difference in value between that pixel in the image and that pixel in the reference black frame. 255-255=0, so the resulting pixel in the final image will be black. (A pixel value of 0.) Spurious black pixels are generally less glaringly evident than white ones, but will still be objectionable in light-colored areas. The solution to this is to cleverly substitute adjacent pixel data wherever a hot pixel has saturated. The resulting image therefore isn't an accurate representation of reality (in other words, don't use this approach for scientific imaging), but the image will look great to the casual observer. This more sophisticated approach to hot-pixel elimination can be found in some software programs, including Mike Chaney's excellent Qimage program.
In addition to the Bulb mode (in which the shutter remains open only as long as you hold down the shutter button), the 5400 also provides a timed exposure mode, with exposure durations of 30 seconds, and 1, 2, 5, and 10 minutes. This is nice, as it lets you get very long exposure times without having to worry about camera movement caused by the pressure of your finger on the shutter button. (The optional wired remote cable release accessory provides the best of both worlds, letting you open the shutter for as long as you want, but avoiding problems of camera shake caused by keeping your hand on it during the exposure.
Flash
The Coolpix 5400 features a built-in
flash with six flash modes available, including Auto, Flash Cancel, Anytime
Flash, Red-Eye Reduction, Slow-Sync, and Rear Curtain Sync. The Slow-Sync option
is useful when shooting subjects with dark backgrounds (such as night scenes)
because the camera actually leaves the shutter open longer and then fires the
flash before the shutter closes. This allows more ambient light into the image
and can provide a nice motion blur effect. Rear Curtain Sync times the flash
with closing of the shutter rather than the opening, for a slightly different
method of capturing movement (light trails from behind a car for example). Red-Eye
Reduction mode fires a pre-flash before the main exposure, to reduce the reflection
from the subject's pupils.
The Coolpix 5400 also features an external flash hot shoe for connecting a more powerful external flash unit, either a Nikon dedicated unit, or a generic third-party one. Nikon advises that the 5400 can be used with Nikon Speedlight models SB-50 DX, 80DX, 30, 27, and 23. In fact, it will work with a broader range of speedlights, but possibly with less functional integration. Through the settings menu, you can set the built-in flash and external unit to fire together, or disable the internal flash whenever an external unit is connected.
Continuous Shooting Modes
The Coolpix 5400 offers a number of "motor drive" rapid-exposure modes for capturing quick sequences of images. Five modes (Continuous L, Continuous H, Ultra High Speed Continuous, Multi-Shot 16, and 5-Shot Buffer) are selectable under the Continuous option of the settings menu. Continuous H mode captures as many as seven frames, at three frames per second. (The LCD turns off in Continuous H mode, so you'll have to use the optical viewfinder to frame your shots.) Continuous L mode captures images at a rate of about 1.5 frames per second. In Continuous L mode, you can capture as many shots in succession as your memory card has room for, but the capture rate will slow after the first 10-15 or so. (The number of images the camera can capture before slowing depends on the speed of the memory card used. - Faster cards will let the camera capture more images before it's forced to wait for the card.) In Ultra High Speed Continuous mode, the Coolpix 5400 captures as many as 100 frames at 30 frames per second, at QVGA (320 x 240) resolution. Multi-Shot 16 mode subdivides the image area into 16 sections and captured a "mini-movie" of small images (648 x 486 resolution), which are stored as a 4x4 array within a single high-resolution image. The frame rate in Multi-Shot 16 is about two frames per second. In 5-Shot Buffer mode the camera continuously captures frames at a rate of 1.5 frames/second, as long as the shutter button is held down, but saves only the last five frames the sequence. - This is handy for times when you want to capture a transient event, but the combination of shutter lag and your own reaction time might cause you to miss the key moment. To use 5-shot buffer mode, simply press and hold down the shutter button, then release it just after the event you're interested in has happened. (This is nice, but I'd like to see a faster frame rate for this mode.- It would be great if you could use Continuous H mode this way.)
Movies and Sound Recording
The Coolpix 5400 also records moving images with sound. In Movie mode, the camera captures movies as long as 180 seconds (depending on the amount of available memory space and the resolution selected). Movies are recorded either at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 pixels. The movie frame rate is 15 frames/second, regardless of the resolution chosen. Maximum recording time is 70 seconds at the 640 x 480 resolution, and 180 seconds at the 320 x 240 size.
The 5400 handles zoom with movies in an interesting way. Like most digicams that record sound with their movies, the 5400 doesn't let you use the optical zoom lens during recording, although you can set any desired zoom level before you begin recording. Once recording has begun, you can zoom in about another 2x digitally. Zooming during movie recording is thus somewhat limited (you can't choose to zoom out after starting recording, but it's still handy, compared to cameras that offer no zoom at all once movie recording has begun.
A Time Lapse Movie mode, available under the Movie menu options, lets you record images at specified intervals for a time-lapse effect. Available frame intervals range from 30 seconds to 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes, and you can set the AE lock to hold from the first image taken, or let the camera determine exposure anew with each shot. Once the series of images has been captured, they can be played back like a movie file to watch action unfold.
Finally, the +/- / Audio button on top of the camera lets you record up to 20 seconds of audio to accompany a captured image. Pressing and holding the button lets you record the clip, and a timer appears on the LCD display. After the clip is recorded, pressing the button once plays it back.
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