Nikon Coolpix P7000 Preview

Normally I stay away from gear reviews on the blog.  Mainly because I don’t want to be labeled as one of “those kind of photographers” that sit around all day testing gear without actually doing any practical shooting.  But, it’s been a long, long time since I purchased a point and shoot digital camera.  My last purchase in that department was the Canon SD500 back in 2004.  I’ve been pretty happy with it for most of my compact shooter purposes, plus Nikon keeps me busy buying big gear that I usually don’t get around to keeping up with the compacts.   A few times this year I managed to get my hands on a Canon G11 from Lens Rentals; that really put me on notice as to how obsolete my SD500 was.

Nikon P7000, 37mm (~173mm FX equivalent), f/5.6 ISO 100 

After a little research I decided I’d go for the Nikon Coolpix P7000.  There were three main features that sold me.  Five shot bracketing, support for Nikon CLS with a commander unit (such as a SB-900, SB-800, SB-700 or SU-800) and a built in intervalometer.  Thanks to Juan Pons I’m now getting hooked on doing some time-lapse work so that last one was a biggie.  The Panasonic LX5 finished number two in the race with the G11/G12 coming in third.  I’ve shot a little with the P7000 this week and so far it’s been a mixed bag.  Here’s a brief list of what I’ve encountered:

Pros:

1. Solid construction, feels tough.  It’s also fairly lightweight for a camera in this class.
2. Optical viewfinder.
3. The rear screen is crisp and usable in almost any lighting conditions.
4. Very low noise, especially for a compact.  ISO 1600 is very good for web use.  I can’t attest to the print quality just yet.
5. Five shot bracketing.
6. Great image quality even at the long end of the zoom range.
7. Stereo microphones, a stereo mic in and pretty nice looking 720p video.
8. If you use Nikon Speedlights it has a hot shoe and is CLS capable.

Cons:

1. Unusable RAW mode.  Much to slow.  Around 23 seconds to write a five shot NRW bracket to a Class 10 SDHC card. The same SDHC card in a G11 recorded 1 RAW image per second, so it's definitely something with the P7000.  I don’t recommend using the RAW mode at all. 
2. Slow response in the menus.
3. A little too much reliance on menus instead of dedicated dials like the G11/G12
4. Distortion Control is a must on the wide end.
5. No articulating screen.

I do have some mixed feelings about the P7000.  Overall I feel like it's a very capable compact camera that's hampered by a few flaws.  Hopefully the sluggishness can be addressed in a firmware update ending my biggest gripe with it.  Not having a usable RAW mode make the bracketing pretty much useless by extension if you’re doing HDR work.  As a regular JPEG shooter it’s great however.   I’ll do a more in depth review when I get some more quality time with the P7000.  I'm going to be doing some CLS work with it too.  It does look pretty ridiculous with an SB-900 mounted on it, but doing off camera lighting with a compact will be neat to try. However, for now the wife is making me take a vacation.  ;-)