Nikon Coolpix P300

After releasing the P7000 last autumn as a direct attack on Canon's long reigning G series, Nikon is back with another expert compact—the Coolpix P300—this time designed to rival the more compact Canon S95, as well as a whole host of ambitious upstarts like the Olympus XZ-1, Samsung EX1 and Panasonic LX5.

Handling

Like its competitors, the Nikon P300 is a boxy, black block of a camera with a relatively hefty lens (it opens to f/1.8 in wide angle) in a cylindrical mount that sticks out from the smooth front face of the camera. Unlike the others though, Nikon hasn't equipped this camera's bulky lens with a manual control ring. On the P300, your left hand will be pretty much redundant and will only really be used to control the flash. The pop-up flash is actually quite original: the cover slides back to let the flash pop out, then the rear part of the cover slides back into place to maintain the smooth lines of the camera's upper edge. In this respect, build quality certainly feels better than most competitors' alternatives.



On the back of the camera there's an LCD screen with VGA resolution and excellent viewing angles, and which can even be used reasonably well outdoors. The P300 actually has a very good screen as far as digital cameras go. Its average deltaE of 3.5 is the best score we've seen on a compact camera so far, and although the colour temperature is a little on the cold side (7350 K), it's extremely consistent, and a slight overexposure of light greys (they look white) is the only minor drawback.

The back of the camera is also home to several of the camera's controls, including the flash, exposure settings, macro mode and self-timer. For all other settings you'll have to use the internal menus. Note that this camera does have a thumb wheel and a click-round wheel around the D-pad, but that neither control can be effectively customised (see sidebar).

On the whole, the Coolpix P300 is a bit of a contradictory camera: in some ways it plays to expert users (thumb wheel, high-quality build, manual flash control, aperture to f/1.8 in wide angle and PSAM modes) but it still has some of the limitations of a consumer camera. That doesn't make the P300 unpleasant to use, but it does mean it's more suited to less advanced users, who won't mind having a camera that's not quite so jam-packed with controls and settings as some of its rivals. Note, for example, that the Nikon P300 doesn't have a RAW mode.

Responsiveness

The Coolpix P300 is very similar to other expert compacts in this field. All such models take between 1.8 and 2 seconds to start up, with an autofocus that works in about half a second in good light and a second in lower light conditions.

The time it takes to save photos therefore becomes the only real difference in responsiveness between the various models. With a photo-to-photo turnaround time of 1.6 seconds, the P300 isn't the fastest expert compact out there, but it certainly isn't slow. We were just disappointed to see that the only model to use a CMOS sensor is actually slower than several CCD models. On the other hand, the CMOS sensor really boosts the burst mode, as with 7 frames per second, the P300 crushes the competition (other expert compact can only manages 1 to 2 frames per second).

Picture Quality

The 12-Megapixel BSI CMOS is now a well-know sensor in the camera market. Nikon's image processing is nothing out of the ordinary, but pictures are impeccable up to 400 ISO and remain very good quality up to 800 ISO. Beyond that things get a little more complicated, but in spite of the sensor's small size (approximately 4.6 x 6.2 mm, compared with 5.7 x 7.6 mm for the 1/1.7" CCDs found in other expert compacts = 50% less surface area), the results have nothing to envy of the competition. Even if some expert compacts do better, others are much worse.



The P300 has a 24-100 mm zoom lens that's very fast at wide-angle settings, but which slides to a fairly average f/4.9 as you zoom. The lens is something of a nice surprise, as although quality isn't entirely consistent at wide-angle settings at full aperture (f/1.8, like the Samsung EX1 and the Olympus XZ-1, beating the Canon S95 and the Panasonic LX5), it ensures very good quality right to the edges where the slight softening won't be visible on an 8" x 10" (20 x 27 cm) print. At telephoto settings, the lens ensures sharp, clear pictures over the whole frame.


Note that the P300 does take pictures that have a more processed look than most expert compacts, with certain details highlighted to make them stand out. In the picture above, light borders are visible around certain patterns (where it says '25 cl' for example). This can be flattering at first glance and it'll look good on an 8" x 10" print, but the result isn't as natural as it could be. That's a bit disappointing, especially since the P300 doesn't have a RAW mode or any way to control the level of processing.

Video

Like most cameras with a BSI CMOS sensor, the P300 films in Full HD. Picture quality isn't quite as sharp as in certain competitors' cameras, which is no doubt due to greater compression (a 30-second video takes up 70 MB, compared with 110 MB on the Canon Ixus 220 HS, which has the same sensor). The stereo sound is no better than average and it's prone to whooshing and breathing noises. The result isn't very accurate and voices sound muffled.