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Back to Full Coolpix 800 Review
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(Sorry, full review not ready yet, only partial comments on pictures page.)

Nikon Coolpix 800 Digital Camera Most of the features of the Coolpix 950, at a (much) lower price! ("First Look" review date: 27 September, 1999)

	*	1,600 x 1,200 pixel resolution
	*	2X optical zoom, + 2.5X digital
	*	Optical and LCD viewfinder
	*	Matrix, Spot or Average light metering
	*	Excellent manual focus option
	*	Improved power management

Preface
Nikon's earliest forays into the digicam marketplace weren't markedly successful, as they tried for a consumer-electronics approach, rather than one built around their core strength of photography. With the introduction of the Coolpix 900 almost two years ago though, they returned to their roots, producing a camera first and foremost for the serious picture-taker. In early 1999, they followed the tremendously successful Coolpix 900 with the Coolpix 950, a 2 megapixel version boasting a host of new features. At the same time, they came out with a scaled-down version, the Coolpix 700, which had the same 2.1 megapixel sensor, but a fixed focal-length lens and fewer features. Neither Nikon nor the public ever seemed to make much of the 700 though, and it forever lived in the shadow of its bigger brother, the 950.
Now though, Nikon is revisiting the concepts behind the Coolpix 700, this time with a dramatically full-featured 2 megapixel model that owes much more of its heritage to the 950 than to the 700. The new Coolpix 800 boasts a wide range of features that let it play very well at the upper end of today's (September, 1999) prosumer digicam market, while selling for roughly $200 less than the Coolpix 950. (List price at introduction is set at $699.) We'll be posting a full review of the Coolpix 800 shortly, but wanted to get this "First Look" up as quickly as possible, given the significance of the new camera.
Major features:
The Coolpix 800 sports a long list of features, many of which will be immediately recognizable to people familiar with the Nikon 950. Herewith a list of important characteristics, in somewhat arbitrary order of importance:

• 2.1 megapixel, 1/2 inch
• Image sizes of 1600x1200 and 640x480 pixels
• Base ISO of 100, automatic or manual adjustment to 100, 200, or 400
• Newly designed 2x zoom (38-76mm equivalent) f/3.5-4.8 Nikkor lens
• Digital zoom for magnifications of 1.25, 1.6, 2.0, and 2.5x
• Three JPEG compression modes, plus uncompressed TIFF for maximum image quality
• 480 step autofocus, including the macro range
• 45-step (!) manual focus adjustment
• Macro focusing to 2.8 inches
• Autoexposure, with optional manual adjustmentof +/- 2EV in 1/3 EV steps
• Three metering modes: 256-segment matrix, spot, and center-weighted
• Built-in five-mode flash (Auto, Off, Fill, Slow Sync, and Red Eye Reduction modes)
• Flexible white balance includes new "Preset White" option
• Best Shot Selector automatically selects sharpest of up to 10 shots
• Five-mode tone compensation (standard, contrast plus or minus, lighten, and darken)
• Pause display mode allows up to 10 second image review without switching to play mode
• Auto file numbering to avoid overwriting files when copied to the host computer
• Store and recall up to three different sets of user options
• Reduced power consumption, improved power management
• Quick start from "sleep" mode of ~2 seconds
• 1.8 inch 112,000 pixel low-temperature polysilicon TFT LCD (sharp LCD display)
• CompactFlash memory for image storage, ships with 8MB unit
  

Where'd they cut costs? (relative to the Coolpix 950)
Given the popularity of the Coolpix 950, we thought it would be useful to begin by describing the Coolpix 800 in terms of the differences between it and the 950. (We suspect that many 800s will find homes with people who've been yearning for a 950, but who couldn't manage the price.)

• Aluminum/Plastic body - One of the hallmarks of the Coolpix 950 is its die cast magnesium-alloy body, one of the most rugged bodies in the digicam marketplace. This is doubtless contributes significantly to the 950's manufacturing cost though, so in the 800, Nikon has reverted to a combination aluminum/structural-plastic body common among other manufacturers. (The front side is aluminum, putting more strength where the camera's likely to take harder knocks against the lens barrel, etc, plastic is on the back.) The unit still feels very nice, but doesn't convey the same sense of bulletproof construction as does the 950.
• Lesser Lens - No two ways around it, a zoom lens is a very worthwhile feature on a digicam. Recognizing this, Nikon designed the 800 with a zoom lens, albeit one with a smaller wide/tele ratio (2x vs. 3x zoom range), and with a "slower" maximum aperture opening of f/3.5-4.8 (depending on zoom setting).
• Less Exposure Control - The 950 is clearly a camera for the devoted enthusiast, with program automatic, aperture-priority and shutter-priority exposure modes. The Coolpix 800 has only the program automatic exposure option, although it does allow manual exposure compensation over a +/- 2EV range, in 1/3 EV steps.
• No External Flash Option - The 950 has a sync connector for use with an external flash unit (including most particularly Nikon's own dedicated speedlights, which allow for on-camera metering of the exposure from the external flash unit). The 800 lacks this option.
• Less "Microscopic" Macro Function - The 800 boasts very good macro focusing, able to come within 2.8 inches of the subject. This is still a notch down from the 950's astonishing microscopic macro capabilities.

What's New?
While some features have been scaled back relative to the 950, others have been added or enhanced. Here are a few of those:

• Improved power consumption and battery management - While extraordinarily capable, the Coolpix 950 had a reputation as a bit of a power hog. (Pretty much all digicams are battery-eaters, but the 950's option for continuously-operating autofocus, zoom lens, LCD panel, and beefy processor electronics put it near the top of the list in terms of battery consumption.) In the 800, Nikon's engineers paid a lot of attention to power consumption, optimizing for it wherever possible, without compromising other aspects of camera design. From the measurements we performed on the evaluation unit we were sent, it looks like they've succeeded on a number of fronts: Power drain in most camera operating modes is 10-30% lower than that of the Coolpix 950. When the LCD is active, the continuously-operating autofocus mechanism combines with the drain of the LCD panel itself to produce a moderately high power consumption that fluctuates between 500 and 700 mA. (Figure an hour and a half of this on an average set of high-capacity NiMH rechargeables.) The big thing to note with this camera though, is that it draws essentially NO power when in capture mode with the LCD turned off! Since it wakes from this "sleep" mode so quickly (on the order of two seconds from when you press the shutter button in our first, informal tests), the trick clearly is to learn to use the camera comfortably with the LCD off. You should be able to go all day on a set of freshly-charged NiMH batteries, and even garden-variety alkaline cells should last a reasonably long time.
• Improved Manual Focusing - Only a very few digital cameras offer manual control over focus, and fewer still tell you what the actual focus distance is that you've set. Finally, many digital cameras offering manual focus intervention provide only a limited number of focus steps across the lens' range. The manual focus option on the Coolpix 800 answers all these concerns decisively, providing 45 focus steps ranging from 0.26feet (about 8 cm) to infinity. This is enough steps to insure adequate focus overlap, even with the lens wide open (minimum depth of field). Even better, the current manual focus setting is shown on the LCD panel, in your choice of English or metric units. This is very useful when shooting "blind" in very low-light situations, where you can't see the subject on the LCD screen, to determine whether you're focused correctly or not. With the direct distance readout, you can just estimate (or measure) the distance, set it, and shoot. We heartily applaud Nikon's implementation of manual focus on the Coolpix 800!
• Faster Processing(?) - We confess this is something we know more from Nikon's PR than from any direct experience. (Nikon told us the Coolpix 800 has an "improved ASIC" (application-specific integrated circuit) in it, although they didn't state the nature of the "improvement".) Shutter delay seems to be a little less than in the 950, measuring 0.70 seconds with full autofocus, and 0.13 seconds with prefocus. Nikon claims a time from startup to first picture of only 2 seconds, but the best we could do was about 2.5-3 seconds from "sleep", and about 4 seconds from the "off" position on the mode dial. Certainly fast compared to some other digicams, but about the same overall as the Coolpix 950.
• Ultra-high speed capture mode. This is an interesting mode, moving Nikon a bit in the "multimedia" direction. Besides the usual continuous-capture or burst modes, the Coolpix 800 includes a "Ultra High Speed" mode, in which the camera will capture 40 sub-VGA images (320x240 pixels) at roughly 30 frames per second. Perhaps useful for those studying golf or tennis swings, but probably of only passing interest to the rest of us. (And frankly, if you're that into your golf game, you'd probably do better to just buy a digital camcorder.)

Some of the Same Great Features

• Variable ISO - One bugaboo of affordable digital cameras has been their rather limited light sensitivity. The Nikon Coolpix 950 was one of the first cameras to let you boost its effective "ISO" speed. The 800 continues this tradition. By default, it has a variable ISO speed that can range from 100 to 400 automatically, depending on what the camera thinks it needs for the lighting condition. Alternately, you can manually set the ISO to 100, 200, or 400. As of this writing, we haven't played extensively with this function, but it does appear that the 400 setting (as expected) introduces a significant amount of noise into the image. Still, the ability for the camera user to choose to accept a bit more noise in exchange for getting an otherwise unattainable shot is a great benefit! Besides the obvious impact of higher shutter speeds under low-light conditions, higher ISO values translate into greater flash range. Overall a very useful feature!
• Long exposure times (to 8 seconds) for impressive low-light shooting - Although you can't explicitly control the Coolpix 800's shutter speed the way you can that of the 950, it does provide for exposure times as long as 8 seconds(!). This lets you shoot in really dark conditions. In playing with both this camera and the 950 before it, we found low-light photography to be a tremendous amount of fun: It's very appealing to snap the shutter, and find the camera capturing more than you saw with your unaided eyes!
• Best Shot Select - A fantastically useful feature from the 950 that we're very happy to see repeated in the 800. With this option enabled, the camera will shoot between 5 and 10 frames (depending on the resolution & quality settings), as long as you hold down the shutter button. When you release the shutter, the camera's processor will examine the images and quickly determine which is the sharpest! This really makes it feasible to hand-hold 1/4 second exposures under low-light conditions, or macro shots that would otherwise require a tripod to achieve good focus.
• 56-segment matrix metering - In the film world, Nikon is famous for their highly sophisticated "matrix" exposure metering. Basically, this refers to a camera's ability to examine a large number of discrete points within the image and intelligently choose exposure based on subtleties of subject contrast. This approach works well with off-center subjects that would fool less-sophisticated exposure systems. The Coolpix 950 and 800 both employ an exposure system that evaluates no less than 256 separate portions of the image to determine best focus.
• Intelligent brightness/contrast adjustment - We haven't played with this function much, but again both the 950 and 800 have "intelligent" brightness and contrast adjustment controls that go beyond the simple +/- EVexposure compensation adjustments common to most cameras. It's our understanding that the brightness/contrast adjustment controls actually work internally by evaluating and manipulating the brightness histograms of the images, rather than just boosting or cutting overall exposure. The result is supposed to be much-improved in-camera control over these picture attributes.

A walk around the camera
OK, enough feature discussion, let's take a look at the new baby: We'll start with the obligatory front view, which isn't especially interesting. The lens is on the right, and is interesting in part because it doesn't telescope back into the camera body as do many current designs. While this makes the camera harder to just slip in a pocket, the advantage is that it allows filter/accessory threads to be added to the front of the camera. - That's right, the Coolpix 800 has the same filter threads as the 950, and will accept Nikon's Wide, Tele, and Fisheye auxiliary lenses!
Other details evident on the front of the camera are the centrally-located flash tube, as well as the window for the flash exposure sensor directly below it. The viewfinder window appears just above the lens.

Looking at the back of the camera shows a very simple set of controls. The up and down arrow buttons at upper right control the zoom lens, manual focus, or menu selections, depending on the mode the camera is in, and/or what other buttons you may be holding down at the moment. The "monitor" button at lower left turns the LCD screen on or off, and also controls the on-screen information readouts.

At upper left is the viewfinder eyepiece, which has a high enough eyepiece to be usable with most eyeglasses, but which does not include a dioptric correction adjustment for vision-impaired camera users.

The top of the Coolpix 800 is where all the action is, control-wise: At upper right, you'll find the mode dial, which controls both camera power and operating mode. Available modes include Automatic Record, Manual Record, and Playback. The shutter button is positioned in the middle of the mode dial.

At center is the LCD data readout, which provides status information on a variety of camera functions, including resolution, image quality, macro focusing, flash mode, exposure compensation, manual ISO status (just an icon warning you when a manual ISO setting is active), battery condition, self-timer setting, metering mode, shots remaining at the current resolution/quality setting, and manual focus setting! Phew! That's a lot of information for a little display, but the fact it's so complete allows you to rely on it for the most common option settings, greatly reducing use of the power-hungry LCD screen.

Just below the LCD data readout is a set of four buttons that control the most frequently used camera functions. From left to right, they include the following:

• Macro/Self Timer/Manual Focus button. Normally cycles between normal, macro, infinity focus, and self-timer mode. If you hold it down while pressing the back-panel arrow keys, you can adjust the manual focus as well though. (Our only quibble about this control, is that the combination of macro and self-timer on the same button means you can't use the self-timer function as a "cable release" for tripod shots, to minimize vibration. On the other hand, the Best Shot Select feature somewhat reduces the need for this.
• +/-/Trash button. Hold down while pressing the back-panel arrow keys to adjust exposure compensation. In playback mode, erases the current image. Will also delete the current image during the brief "review" period while the image is displayed on the LCD screen.
• QUAL/Thumbnail button. Press repeatedly in record mode to cycle through image quality settings. During image review immediately after taking a shot with the LCD screen enabled, this button will pause the recording process, giving you chance to inspect the image more closely and decide whether you want to keep it or not. In playback mode, it switches between thumbnail and normal display modes.
• Flash Mode/Magnify - In record modes, this button cycles between the various flash modes. In playback mode, it cycles between normal display, and two levels of magnification of the displayed image. Not having a manual with our eval unit, we couldn't figure out if there was any way to scroll around the magnified image: All we could see was the center of the frame.

The bottom view of the camera shows three things of interest, two of them not particularly good, IOHO (in our humble opinion).On the right is the (plastic) tripod socket, just under the lens. Two things we're less than crazy about with this. First, we're not big fans of plastic tripod sockets, as we think they're inordinately prone to damage relative to metal ones. On a positive note, the 800's socket appears to be designed for easy replacement. We're also less than crazy about the fact that the tripod socket is at the extreme opposite end of the camera from the mass-laden battery compartment. This puts further stress on the tripod socket, depending on the design of your tripod. The upside of the socket location is that it appears it may be pretty close to the "nodal point" of the lens, meaning the 800 could take good panorama shots without the need for a special tripod head.
The second thing we **really** don't like on the bottom of the 800 is the !@#! Compact Flash memory card slot. Nikon appears to have carried over everything bad about the card slot from the 950. The cover looks like the same flimsy soft-plastic affair the 950 used, which we can't imagine lasting more than a hundred or so open/close cycles. Also, the orientation of the card (see the photo below) is such that the little lip CF cards have on their backs faces toward the cover when it is opened. This makes it inordinately difficult to get your fingernail on the lip to extract the card. Finally, the bottom-mounted card requires unlimbering the camera from a tripod in order to remove the memory card. Believe us, this is a royal pain for studio work! The Nikon CF slot design brings to mind medieval craftsmen who would deliberately deface their works lest they be accused of the hubris of striving for perfection. It's hard to imagine how else a design process that produces such otherwise excellent cameras could result in such a devastatingly inadequate implementation of such a key feature. (Flame off...)

After our vitriol directed at the CF-slot designers, our readers will doubtless be pleased to hear that we actually like the Coolpix 800's battery compartment design. - We found the compartment cover easy and sure to operate, the cover latch positive-acting yet easy to operate, and batteries easy to load. - The photo below shows the cover open and the batteries bursting free from their laborious confinement. (Ok, I guess I really have spent too much time with batteries and cameras lately. ;)

Menu System
We're a little (well actually, a lot) short on time, since we only got our eval sample of the 800 a scant 3 days before the public release date. Normally, we'd try to include some screen shots of the user interface here, but the fact is that the menu design of the 800 is so similar to that of the 950 that interested readers can just tool over to that review (https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/C950/C950A.HTM) to see what it looks like.
We do have one quibble with the 800's menu system though: We often found ourselves wanting to change more than one setting at a time, but each time you actually make a change, you're dumped back out to the main camera operating mode (record or playback). We'd like to see the menus set up such that making a selection in a sub-menu drops you back into the main menu screen again, from which you could exit completely by hitting the "menu" button...
Test Results
Given the very short amount of time that we've had the Coolpix 800 in our hands, our comments here will be somewhat limited. We can say though, that the 800 appears to easily uphold the image quality benchmark established by the earlier 950. Resolution, sharpness, and color are all very good to excellent, although in side-by-side comparisons, it doesn't look like the 800's lens is as sharp as that of the 950. Macro performance is very good as well, although not quite to the microscopic level offered by the 950. See the pictures page for sample pictures and comments on what we found.
See for Yourself!
Take a look at the test images from the Coolpix 800 (at this point, a limited set, although representing nearly all of our standard test shots, albeit with a trimmed-back commentary), or jump to the Comparometer(tm) page to compare its reference images with those from other digital cameras.
Conclusion
While the Coolpix 800 doesn't offer quite the range of functions of it's big brother the Coolpix 950, it sports an impressive array of capabilities that place it comfortably in the top tier of current digicam offerings. In fact, if Nikon hadn't already created the 950, people would doubtless hail the 800 as a remarkable achievement of technology. It provides excellent image quality, useful features like the unique "Best Shot Select" function, great macro and low-light performance, and a broad selection of creative controls, in a surprisingly affordable package. It's deep user interface and extensive menu system in manual mode could prove intimidating to first-time users, but in automatic mode it's as easy to operate as any other point & shoot on the market. Even novice digicam users should find it approachable and easy to use, but the camera will give them room to grow as their expertise increases. Overall, an impressive continuation of the Nikon legacy!
Reader Comments!
See what other Imaging Resource readers have had to say about the Coolpix 800, or add comments of your own. (Read what's here, then add your own!)
Reader Sample Images!
Do you have a Coolpix 800 camera? If you'll post an online album of your samples with one of the online photo-sharing servicesand email us at [email protected], we'll list the album here for others to see!