Nikon CoolPix 880Advanced features, and "Assisted Creative Photography" in a compact 3.3 megapixel package!<<Reference: Datasheet :(Previous) | (Next): Print-Friendly Review Version>> CoolPix 880 Sample ImagesReview First Posted: 8/26/2000 |
| We've begun including links in our reviews to a Thumber-generated index page for our test shots. The Thumber data includes a host of information on the images, including shutter speed, ISO setting, compression setting, etc. Rather than clutter the page below with *all* that detail, we're posting the Thumber index so only those interested in the information need wade through it! ;) |
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Outdoor portrait: (1018k) The extreme tonal range of this image makes it a tough shot for many digicams, which is precisely why we set it up this way. The object is to hold highlight and shadow detail without producing a "flat" picture with muddy colors and the Coolpix 880's white balance system does a very nice job. We shot this image in the automatic (1018k), daylight (1031k) and manual (973k) white balance modes, selecting the automatic setting for our main series. The daylight setting produced similar results to the automatic, although just a hint warm, and the manual setting resulted in a very warm, magenta-ish image. Color is vibrant and fairly accurate, although the blue flowers and pants do have a somewhat purplish hue. (Many digicams seem to have problems with this particular hue. The 880's response is fairly typical.) The image seems slightly soft, but there's a lot of detail visible throughout. The shadow areas show a lot of detail, and only a small amount of noise. Our main image was taken with a +1.0 EV exposure adjustment to get the best exposure on the face without losing too much detail in the highlight areas. We compromised a little here, allowing the highlight areas to be slightly blown out get a good exposure on the shadow areas of the face. The table below shows the results of a range of exposure settings from zero to +1.7 EV in the manual white balance mode. Exposure Compensation Settings:
White Balance Adjustment Series The Coolpix 880 also allows you to fine tune any of the white balance settings, from -3 to +3, which alters the color balance somewhat. Using the daylight white balance mode, we also shot a series with each of the fine tuning white balance adjustments. As you progress from -3 to +3, the image goes from being very warm to very cool and blue. We really liked this adjustment, particularly if you're having trouble with the manual setting or if one of the automatic settings comes close to the proper white value but doesn't quite nail it. We suspect most users will quickly develop preferences for certain variations, always using (for instance) Daylight at +2 for their normal sunlit shots. A very nice feature! Exposure Compensation Settings:
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Closer portrait: (807k) The Coolpix 880 does a nice job on this closer portrait shot, thanks in part to its 2.5x zoom lens. We again shot with the automatic white balance setting, with our main shot requiring only a +0.3 EV adjustment (we generally find that this closer portrait shot requires less exposure compensation than the wider Outdoor Portrait). The image looks much crisper and clearer in this close-up shot, particularly in the strands of the model's hair. Noise remains very low in the shadow areas, which again show a fair amount of detail. The table below shows the results of a range of exposure settings from zero to +1.3 EV. A very nice performance. Exposure Compensation Settings:
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Indoor Portrait, Flash: (1012k) The Coolpix 880's built-in flash does a nice job of illuminating the subject, without many odd-colored highlights. For our first shot, we kept the camera in automatic white balance, and fired the flash with a +1.0 EV exposure adjustment, producing this (1156k) very evenly lit image. Color balance is slightly magenta (making the blue flowers a little purplish), but the highlight areas are in-check and the lighting isn't too harsh overall. Next, we kept the +1.0 EV exposure adjustment, but switched the white balance to the flash (1150k) setting. Color balance seems only slightly warmer than the automatic setting, and the overall lighting is again not too harsh. Finally, we switched back to automatic white balance and kept the +1.0 EV adjustment, but shot with the flash in slow sync (1012k) mode. Even though the color balance is a little warm, we chose this for our main image, since the slower shutter speed produces a brighter overall image and a better balance between ambient and flash illumination. Overall, the Coolpix 880 performed very well in this test! |
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Indoor portrait, no flash: (1151k) This shot is always a very tough test of a camera's white balance capability, given the strong, yellowish color cast of the household incandescent bulbs used for the lighting, and the Coolpix 880's white balance system successfully handled the tough lighting beautifully. We tested the automatic (376k), manual (363k) and incandescent (372k) white balance settings, choosing manual for our main series. The automatic setting produced a very warm image, as did the incandescent setting, though it was slightly less. As with the Outdoor Portrait, we used the Coolpix 880's white balance fine tuning adjustments to tweak the incandescent setting, snapping images at the -3 (371k) and +3 (367k) settings (both with a +0.7 EV exposure adjustment). We noticed that the +3 setting cooled down the incandescent's warm cast quite a bit, making it almost as accurate as the manual setting. (Let us say again, this "fine tuning" of the white balance settings is a GREAT feature!) For our main shot (1151k), we chose a +1.0 EV adjustment. Color balance looks very nice and accurate, although the blue flowers appear a little dark. We also tested the camera's ISO settings, shooting at 100 (1017k), 200 (1165k) and 400 (1160k). Brightness actually seems to decrease slightly as the ISO increases. As expected, the images do get noisier with the 200 and 400 settings. Still, while the noise level at ISO 400 is fairly high (particularly in the blue channel), the tight pattern of the noise makes it much less distracting than it might be otherwise. Overall, a very nice high-ISO performance. The table below shows a range of exposure adjustments from zero to +1.7 EV using the manual white balance setting. Exposure Compensation Settings:
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House shot: (1099k) NOTE that this is the "new" house shot, a much higher-resolution poster than we first used in our tests. To compare the image of the Coolpix 880 with previously tested cameras, here's a shot of the original house poster in the manual (1099k) white balance setting. We shot this image with the automatic (1163k), daylight (315k), cloudy (306k), fluorescent (313k) and manual (305k) white balance settings, ultimately deciding on the manual setting for our main series. The automatic and fluorescent settings produced very similar results to the manual setting, though both produced slightly cool results. The daylight setting was also nearly accurate, though a hair warm, and the cloudy setting resulted in a very warm image. The image appears quite crisp, with a nice amount of fine detail visible throughout the image. The roof shingles show a moderate level of noise, and the in-camera sharpening is seems to coarsen high-contrast details by only pixel or two (noticeable as a tiny halo effect around the light and dark edges of the white trim along the roof line). An excellent performance! The table below shows the full range of resolution and quality settings for the Coolpix 880 in the manual white balance mode.
Image Adjustment Series The Coolpix 880 also provides an image adjustment menu, where you can lighten or darken the image, as well as increase or decrease the image contrast. There's also a black and white shooting mode for monochromatic images. Each of these settings seemed to do a good job of altering the image, although the lower contrast setting seems to affect the brightness as well. We also included an image in the table below shot with Normal Mode setting, which applies the normal image adjustment.
Sharpness Series We also tested the Coolpix 880's sharpness adjustments, which do an excellent job of increasing and decreasing the sharpness without altering the image contrast or introducing undesirable artifacts.
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Far-Field Test (1085k) This image is shot at infinity to test far-field lens performance. NOTE that this image cannot be directly compared to the other "house" shot, which is a poster, shot in the studio. The rendering of detail in the poster will be very different than in this shot, and color values (and even the presence or absence of leaves on the trees!) will vary in this subject as the seasons progress. In general though, you can evaluate detail in the bricks, shingles and window detail, and in the tree branches against the sky. Compression artifacts are most likely to show in the trim along the edge of the roof, in the bricks, or in the relatively "flat" areas in the windows. For this test, we shot with the automatic (1085k), daylight (1091k) and manual (1046k) white balance modes, choosing automatic as the most accurate. The manual setting resulted in a slightly warm, magenta cast, and the daylight setting appeared a little cool. This is the strongest test of detail of any that we do, with the fine pine needles and foliage of the trees behind the house providing very fine detail indeed. The Coolpix 880 does a nice job picking up the details both in the foliage, and also in the very strong highlights of the white paint on the bay window in the front of the house. As part of preserving that highlight detail though, the overall image is a little dark. Resolution and detail look very good, although with just a hint of softness in the shrubbery. Color balance looks very nice throughout the image and the roof shingles display only a moderate amount of noise. The table below shows the full resolution and quality series in the automatic white balance setting.
Image Adjustment Series We again shot with the Coolpix 880's image adjustments, achieving very nice results.
Sharpness Series We also shot with the variable sharpness adjustments, which again produced subtle results.
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Lens Zoom Range We've received a number of requests from readers to take shots showing the lens focal length range of those cameras with zoom lenses. Thus, we're happy to present you here with the following series of shots, showing the field of view with the lens at full wide angle, the lens at full 2.5x telephoto and the lens at full telephoto with 4x digital telephoto enabled. At full wide angle, the Coolpix 880 provides a very wide shot, with little distortion visible. The 2.5x telephoto setting does a nice job of zooming in and increasing sharpness slightly, while the 4x digital telephoto zooms in very close, but with a much softer resolution.
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Musicians
Poster (884k) We shot this test with the automatic, daylight, cloudy, fluorescent and manual white balance settings, choosing manual as the most accurate overall. The automatic setting produced slightly warm results, as did the daylight setting. Cloudy produced very warm results, as you might expect. The fluorescent setting turned out slightly cool, with a bit of a magenta cast. The Coolpix 880's white balance system does a good job with this sometimes difficult target, accurately representing the blue of the model's robe. The skin tones also look about right. The image appears crisp and full of detail, with excellent detail showing in the bird wings and silver threads on the blue robe, as well as in the flower garland. A very modest level of noise exists throughout the image, most noticeably in the background (some of which may be from the actual poster). Below is our standard resolution and quality series in the manual white balance setting. Resolution/Quality series
Image Adjustment Series We tested the Coolpix 880's image adjustment settings with this target as well, again producing consistent results.
Sharpness Series We also shot with the sharpness adjustments, which again did a nice job of sharpening the image.
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Macro Shot (1120k) The Coolpix 880 turned in an excellent performance in the macro category, capturing a minimum area of only 1.55 x 1.16 inches (39.38 x 29.54 mm). Color balance, detail, and sharpness are all very good. The 880's built-in flash (970k) unfortunately won't throttle down far enough for such close work, producing a rather washed out image. Otherwise, it does a reasonably good job of illuminating this tiny test area. |
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"Davebox" Test Target (1123k) We shot this test target with the automatic (151k), daylight (151k), fluorescent (152k), and manual (334k) white balance settings, again choosing manual for its accuracy. We also shot a sample in black & white mode (272k). The Cloudy option produced a very warm cast overall, but all the other color modes were surprisingly close. Auto, manual, and daylight had a very slight magenta cast, but color balance was very good overall. Color in fact is excellent, the only fault we find being a somewhat dark and under-saturated yellow swatch on the MacBeth(tm) chart. The other colors are all excellent, as is tonal range. Shadow and highlight detail are both excellent, with very little noise in the image, even in the darkest shadows. Overall, a very impressive performance! Resolution/Quality series
Image Adjustment Series We tested the Coolpix 880's image adjustment settings with this target as well, again producing consistent results.
Sharpness Series We also shot with the sharpness adjustments, which again did a nice job of sharpening the image.
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Low-Light Tests The Coolpix 880 does a very good job at low light levels. In fact, it's an indication of how fast digicam technology is progressing that we rate it merely "very good": Six months ago, we would have called it "amazing." The low light performance seems to scale pretty consistently with the ISO setting: At ISO 100, we obtained dim but usable images at light levels of 1/8 foot candles (1.3 lux), good ones at 1/4 foot candle, and bright, clean ones at 1/2 foot candles. At ISO 200, we got usable pictures at 1/8 foot candles, and bright but somewhat noisy ones at 1/4. At the ISO 400 setting, we got a usable but very noisy image at 1/16 foot candle, a bright but noisy one at 1/8, and a surprisingly good one at 1/4 foot candle, with surprisingly little noise. All the low light shots were characterized by excellent color balance, a relative rarity in our experience. Since typical outdoor city night scenes under average street lighting correspond to about 1 foot candle of illumination (11 lux), the Coolpix 880 should have no problem with typical after-dark photography: If you can see reasonably easily, its likely that your Coolpix 880 will also. The table below shows the best exposure we were able to obtain for each of a range of illumination levels, at all three ISO settings. Images in this table (like all our sample photos) are untouched, exactly as they came from the camera.
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Flash Range Test (New) (This test was added in August 1999, so cameras tested before that time won't have comparison pictures available. As we go forward though, all the new models will have similar tests available). Nikon estimates the Coolpix 880's flash range from 1.4 to 12.2 feet (0.4 to 3.7 m) in normal mode. In our testing, we found the Coolpix 880's built-in flash to be reasonably effective all the way out to 14 feet, without getting too dark. While the flash does maintain its strength from eight to 14 feet, we did notice that the overall intensity was a bit dim. The table below shows results obtained at a range of distances from eight to 14 feet.
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ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test (291k) The Coolpix 880 turned in an excellent performance on the resolution test. Its images were crisp and sharp, with a "visual" resolution that really appears to extend beyond the theoretical "Nyquist" limit. (Geek term) Visually, the 880 shows 750-800 lines per picture height of resolution in both vertical and horizontal directions, with clear detail extending all the way to 1000 lines. Virtually no color aliasing is present at any spatial frequency in the test target. Very impressive! The tables below show our usual series of size and quality combinations. Chromatic aberration looks like about two or three pixels on either side. Digital telephoto looks like 300 lines and very fuzzy.
Resolution Series, Telephoto
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Viewfinder Accuracy/Flash Uniformity The Coolpix 880 boasts both a real-image optical viewfinder and a color LCD monitor for composing images. Nikon estimates that the optical viewfinder represents about 80 percent frame accuracy. In our own testing, we measured the optical viewfinder accuracy at 85% in wide angle (671k) and 82% in telephoto (693k). This is on the lower edge of average among digicams we've tested, and we'd generally like to see the optical viewfinder a bit more accurate, although most digicams come in somewhere around 85%. Nikon estimates the LCD monitor as showing about 97 percent frame accuracy,which almost exactly matched our measurements of 98% at telephoto (693k) and 97% in wide angle (698k). Optical distortion on the Coolpix 880 is a bit high on the wide-angle end, as we measured a 1.0 percent barrel distortion. On the other hand, the telephoto end showed about a 0.4 percent pincushion distortion, which is about average. Chromatic aberration was very low, showing only a pixel or so of coloration on each side of the black target lines. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.) Flash distribution appears very even at telephoto, but has some falloff at the edges and a general blotchiness at the wide-angle setting. |
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