Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
I received a review copy of the Nikon Coolpix A on Monday and finally got a chance to put it to work today. I spent the morning and early afternoon in Philadelphia doing my usual mix of street photography and some streetscapes/scenic shots. I took the Coolpix A and the RX1, which I've had for almost two weeks now and hadn't done enough shooting with it. And I've gotta say right off the bat, taking both of these cameras for the day really wasn't fair to the Nikon because as good as it seems to be, it suffers by comparison. As do my X-Pro, OMD, GXR, and every other camera I've owned. The RX1 is in the process of making my head turn circles on my neck like the girl in the Exorcist. Its really dis-orientingly good in a number of ways. So, the Nikon had a tough job to do on its first day of real use. And I'd say it did very very well. But it still suffers by comparison.
First, a few impressions of the Nikon (some repeated from a post or two buried in a previous thread about the camera's availability). Its a small camera. Its not a TINY camera like an S100, but it pretty small. Its essentially the size of the Panasonic LX7, but without the protruding lens. I Icarried it a lot of the time today in the pocket of a heavy shirt and it was quite comfortable there. It would be a bit much for a light dress shirt pocket, I'd say, but any heavier shirt or pants pocket should carry it easily, not to mention any coat pocket. Second, despite being quite small, it feels pretty good in the hand and the controls are definitely large enough to operate confidently and easily. The camera has two wheels/dials, a thumb wheel on the rear of the camera's top panel, right behind the shutter button, and a dial around the OK button on the camera's back. The thumb wheel does almost all of the work, the OK button dial has very little to do except in manual mode, or to navigate the menus when you call them up. The camera has two programmable fn buttons, one on the front near the bottom right edge of the lens, and one on the left side of the back - this second one is set up as an ISO button by default, but can be programmed away from ISO to do any number of other tasks. There's a focus ring around the lens that controls manual focus. And there's an "I" button that pulls up all of the key settings on the rear screen much like the way the "Q" button works on the Fuji cams and the "super control panel" work on the Olympus bodies. All in all its easy to get around on this camera.
The AF has been getting mixed reviews - I've found it very good. I guess its not an OMD level speed demon, but its pretty fast and seems to be quite accurate in all but the lowest light. I guess its about expectations - after reading some of the negative comments I'd seen, I was very pleasantly surprised by the reality. After reading this positive comment, some of you who try the camera will undoubtedly expect wonderful things and be disappointed. It certainly isn't bad, but I guess in the eye of the beholder just how good it is. The manual focussing isn't in the same league with the new X100s, but its not bad for a compact camera. The focus ring is by wire and there's no automatic magnification, but you can push a button to magnify the view to several levels if you're trying to use the ring for critical focus. There are no aids like focus peaking, however. But at a 28mm EFL, the focus ring appears to be there largely for zone focussing and its a pretty nice implementation. Any time the camera is switched into manual focus, a reasonably detailed distance scale shows up along the right edge of the screen and based on some informal testing it seems quite accurate. There's no DOF scale, but most electronic DOF scales are conservative to the point of uselessness to me, so I'm just as happy not to have it there confusing matters. The bad news is that once you've set your manual focus distance, its not sticky when you turn the camera off and on, so you have to reset it whenever you turn the camera off and back on (or switch to auto-focus and back). The good news is the ring is very responsive and it takes about a second to move the needle from infinity to the 3-6 foot range one would generally use for zone focus. I was concerned about this but found it to be a non-issue in use.
One other technical observation before getting into the photos - the auto-ISO implementation is wonderful and works the way all auto-ISO should work in modern cameras with these ultra capable sensors. You can set the basic ISO, which then becomes the minimum ISO when you're using auto-ISO, much like the original X100 - not sure if the X100s continues this or not - the other Fuji cameras did not. And then for auto-ISO you can set the maximum ISO and the minimum shutter speed and the minimum shutter speed can be set to anything from 1 second to 1/1000 of a second. With the Coolpix and the RX1, I never left auto-ISO all day today and I think that's a first for me. But both of these cameras just WORK in this mode. AND, the exposure compensation control works in manual mode with auto-ISO, which is a key feature missing from too many cameras, but thankfully there in these two new models. One very strange quirk though - the Coolpix has its default exposure compensation button located on the upper left of the camera's back. Because the camera doesn't display the current status of the exposure compensation setting, you have to push the button to see where its set and, once pushed, you can change the setting using the thumb dial. To make this a one-handed operation, I also assigned exposure compensation to the fn1 button on the camera's front, so I can work that with my right ring finger and then turn the dial with my thumb and I don't need to reach for the other button with my left hand. The truly WEIRD thing is that in manual mode, the normally assigned exposure compensation button does NOT bring up the exposure comp setting or let you change it - it doesn't do anything that I can tell. So one would be forgiven for thinking that Nikon didn't mean to enable the exposure comp setting in manual mode with auto-ISO. BUT, the secondary exposure comp button that I programmed for that purpose DOES bring up exposure comp and allow you to change it in manual mode with auto-ISO turned on. And it definitely changes the actual exposure too, so it works. The inability of the default exposure comp button to work in manual mode with auto-ISO turned on has GOT to be an oversite, or else they wouldn't have put the functionality in the other button when its programmed for exposure comp. Firmware update anyone?!?!?
OK, to shooting. There's no raw support for this camera yet, so I'm shooting everything in jpeg and, unlike Fuji's jpegs, which I prefer to raw, I'd really love to be able to work with these raw files. The jpegs are fine, but I almost always prefer raw and I don't trust the high ISO results in jpegs because some sort of NR is always applied and I don't like the way the files look on close inspection. So, screw close-inspection, the files look pretty good at any normal viewing mode and size. So, without further ado, first a couple of scenic shots.
Nice colors (these are mostly in Vivid jpeg mode, so sort of a Velvia look) and pretty good dynamic range. Not bad in the corners, but not razor sharp in the most extreme corners. I shouldn't even comment on this stuff because I really don't see it or care about it, so feel free to click through and look at the full size files if you'd like to.
View attachment 67013
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Again, nice DR - these had the shadows and highlights adjusted slightly in Lightroom:
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
This was cropped down to 4:3 from 3:2 to avoid a bunch of cars on the left. So if you're pixel peeping the corners, the ones on the left aren't the true corners.
View attachment 67014
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
No problems with street shooting in good light:
View attachment 67015
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
View attachment 67016
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
View attachment 67017
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
I did something I never do on this one and asked the guy's permission to get a shot of his beard. Hence, up even closer than usual, and a bit of accentuation in Color Efex Pro:
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Moving into lower light, the camera did fine, but some of the higher ISO files are semi-ugly at full size. I can't judge them though because they're jpegs. I'm guessing working with the raw files, once supported will be a lot better. They almost always are:
View attachment 67019
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
View attachment 67020
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
We got hockey action YO!
View attachment 67021
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Have some grain with your ISO 6400 noise.
View attachment 67022
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
A word on ISOs and comparison shooting - I did some back to back messing around with the Coolpix, the Ricoh GXR-28 (which maxes out at 3200) and the Fuji X-Pro with the 18mm lens. So three APS sensor cameras, three roughly 18mm (28mm equivalent) lenses. I shot them all at the highest of the max aperture ratings, which is the Nikon's f2.8 (compared to f2.5 on the GXR and 2.0 on the X-Pro). The Nikon and the Ricoh exposed identically for the same low light scene at the Ricoh's max ISO of 3200. And the Nikon basically halved the necessary shutter speed at its useable 6400. The Fuji agains seems to have a serious case of ISO inflation because its shutter speeds at 3200 were almost twice as slow as the Nikon and Ricoh and its shutter speeds at 6400 were almost the same as the Nikon and Ricoh at 3200 - usually just a small percentage faster. The Fuji is the cleanest at any given ISO, but its 3200 appears to be roughly equal to 1600 on the other two cameras and its 6400 appears to be roughly equal to 3200 on the other two cameras. While the Nikon doesn't look quite as good (at least in the jpeg only files) at 6400 as the Fuji, but its 3200 files are easily as good as the Fuji at 6400, and its 6400 files are still useable where the Fuji's are getting pretty funky at 12,800. So, I'd have to say that the Nikon acquits itself quite well at high ISO in low light considering that equal numbers are not always equal. We'll have to see the results with raw files, but I'd hazard a guess that this will be as good a low light machine as the X-Pro at the same aperture. The Fuji obviously has a one stop faster lens, which makes up for the inflated ISO somewhat, but not when you're pushing the boundaries of zone focussing in so so light, where the maximum aperture doesn't come into play.
I'll add shots to this thread as I take more. And will add observations as I observe 'em...
Maybe sometime tomorrow I'll be able to more fully wrap my head around the wonderfulness of the RX1 files I got today and will share some of those. I'd have probably been ecstatic with the Nikon if the Sony hadn't come along for the ride today...
-Ray
First, a few impressions of the Nikon (some repeated from a post or two buried in a previous thread about the camera's availability). Its a small camera. Its not a TINY camera like an S100, but it pretty small. Its essentially the size of the Panasonic LX7, but without the protruding lens. I Icarried it a lot of the time today in the pocket of a heavy shirt and it was quite comfortable there. It would be a bit much for a light dress shirt pocket, I'd say, but any heavier shirt or pants pocket should carry it easily, not to mention any coat pocket. Second, despite being quite small, it feels pretty good in the hand and the controls are definitely large enough to operate confidently and easily. The camera has two wheels/dials, a thumb wheel on the rear of the camera's top panel, right behind the shutter button, and a dial around the OK button on the camera's back. The thumb wheel does almost all of the work, the OK button dial has very little to do except in manual mode, or to navigate the menus when you call them up. The camera has two programmable fn buttons, one on the front near the bottom right edge of the lens, and one on the left side of the back - this second one is set up as an ISO button by default, but can be programmed away from ISO to do any number of other tasks. There's a focus ring around the lens that controls manual focus. And there's an "I" button that pulls up all of the key settings on the rear screen much like the way the "Q" button works on the Fuji cams and the "super control panel" work on the Olympus bodies. All in all its easy to get around on this camera.
The AF has been getting mixed reviews - I've found it very good. I guess its not an OMD level speed demon, but its pretty fast and seems to be quite accurate in all but the lowest light. I guess its about expectations - after reading some of the negative comments I'd seen, I was very pleasantly surprised by the reality. After reading this positive comment, some of you who try the camera will undoubtedly expect wonderful things and be disappointed. It certainly isn't bad, but I guess in the eye of the beholder just how good it is. The manual focussing isn't in the same league with the new X100s, but its not bad for a compact camera. The focus ring is by wire and there's no automatic magnification, but you can push a button to magnify the view to several levels if you're trying to use the ring for critical focus. There are no aids like focus peaking, however. But at a 28mm EFL, the focus ring appears to be there largely for zone focussing and its a pretty nice implementation. Any time the camera is switched into manual focus, a reasonably detailed distance scale shows up along the right edge of the screen and based on some informal testing it seems quite accurate. There's no DOF scale, but most electronic DOF scales are conservative to the point of uselessness to me, so I'm just as happy not to have it there confusing matters. The bad news is that once you've set your manual focus distance, its not sticky when you turn the camera off and on, so you have to reset it whenever you turn the camera off and back on (or switch to auto-focus and back). The good news is the ring is very responsive and it takes about a second to move the needle from infinity to the 3-6 foot range one would generally use for zone focus. I was concerned about this but found it to be a non-issue in use.
One other technical observation before getting into the photos - the auto-ISO implementation is wonderful and works the way all auto-ISO should work in modern cameras with these ultra capable sensors. You can set the basic ISO, which then becomes the minimum ISO when you're using auto-ISO, much like the original X100 - not sure if the X100s continues this or not - the other Fuji cameras did not. And then for auto-ISO you can set the maximum ISO and the minimum shutter speed and the minimum shutter speed can be set to anything from 1 second to 1/1000 of a second. With the Coolpix and the RX1, I never left auto-ISO all day today and I think that's a first for me. But both of these cameras just WORK in this mode. AND, the exposure compensation control works in manual mode with auto-ISO, which is a key feature missing from too many cameras, but thankfully there in these two new models. One very strange quirk though - the Coolpix has its default exposure compensation button located on the upper left of the camera's back. Because the camera doesn't display the current status of the exposure compensation setting, you have to push the button to see where its set and, once pushed, you can change the setting using the thumb dial. To make this a one-handed operation, I also assigned exposure compensation to the fn1 button on the camera's front, so I can work that with my right ring finger and then turn the dial with my thumb and I don't need to reach for the other button with my left hand. The truly WEIRD thing is that in manual mode, the normally assigned exposure compensation button does NOT bring up the exposure comp setting or let you change it - it doesn't do anything that I can tell. So one would be forgiven for thinking that Nikon didn't mean to enable the exposure comp setting in manual mode with auto-ISO. BUT, the secondary exposure comp button that I programmed for that purpose DOES bring up exposure comp and allow you to change it in manual mode with auto-ISO turned on. And it definitely changes the actual exposure too, so it works. The inability of the default exposure comp button to work in manual mode with auto-ISO turned on has GOT to be an oversite, or else they wouldn't have put the functionality in the other button when its programmed for exposure comp. Firmware update anyone?!?!?
OK, to shooting. There's no raw support for this camera yet, so I'm shooting everything in jpeg and, unlike Fuji's jpegs, which I prefer to raw, I'd really love to be able to work with these raw files. The jpegs are fine, but I almost always prefer raw and I don't trust the high ISO results in jpegs because some sort of NR is always applied and I don't like the way the files look on close inspection. So, screw close-inspection, the files look pretty good at any normal viewing mode and size. So, without further ado, first a couple of scenic shots.
Nice colors (these are mostly in Vivid jpeg mode, so sort of a Velvia look) and pretty good dynamic range. Not bad in the corners, but not razor sharp in the most extreme corners. I shouldn't even comment on this stuff because I really don't see it or care about it, so feel free to click through and look at the full size files if you'd like to.
View attachment 67013
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Again, nice DR - these had the shadows and highlights adjusted slightly in Lightroom:
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
This was cropped down to 4:3 from 3:2 to avoid a bunch of cars on the left. So if you're pixel peeping the corners, the ones on the left aren't the true corners.
View attachment 67014
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
No problems with street shooting in good light:
View attachment 67015
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
View attachment 67016
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
View attachment 67017
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
I did something I never do on this one and asked the guy's permission to get a shot of his beard. Hence, up even closer than usual, and a bit of accentuation in Color Efex Pro:
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Moving into lower light, the camera did fine, but some of the higher ISO files are semi-ugly at full size. I can't judge them though because they're jpegs. I'm guessing working with the raw files, once supported will be a lot better. They almost always are:
View attachment 67019
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
View attachment 67020
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
We got hockey action YO!
View attachment 67021
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Have some grain with your ISO 6400 noise.
View attachment 67022
Nikon Coolpix A - Philly by ramboorider1, on Flickr
A word on ISOs and comparison shooting - I did some back to back messing around with the Coolpix, the Ricoh GXR-28 (which maxes out at 3200) and the Fuji X-Pro with the 18mm lens. So three APS sensor cameras, three roughly 18mm (28mm equivalent) lenses. I shot them all at the highest of the max aperture ratings, which is the Nikon's f2.8 (compared to f2.5 on the GXR and 2.0 on the X-Pro). The Nikon and the Ricoh exposed identically for the same low light scene at the Ricoh's max ISO of 3200. And the Nikon basically halved the necessary shutter speed at its useable 6400. The Fuji agains seems to have a serious case of ISO inflation because its shutter speeds at 3200 were almost twice as slow as the Nikon and Ricoh and its shutter speeds at 6400 were almost the same as the Nikon and Ricoh at 3200 - usually just a small percentage faster. The Fuji is the cleanest at any given ISO, but its 3200 appears to be roughly equal to 1600 on the other two cameras and its 6400 appears to be roughly equal to 3200 on the other two cameras. While the Nikon doesn't look quite as good (at least in the jpeg only files) at 6400 as the Fuji, but its 3200 files are easily as good as the Fuji at 6400, and its 6400 files are still useable where the Fuji's are getting pretty funky at 12,800. So, I'd have to say that the Nikon acquits itself quite well at high ISO in low light considering that equal numbers are not always equal. We'll have to see the results with raw files, but I'd hazard a guess that this will be as good a low light machine as the X-Pro at the same aperture. The Fuji obviously has a one stop faster lens, which makes up for the inflated ISO somewhat, but not when you're pushing the boundaries of zone focussing in so so light, where the maximum aperture doesn't come into play.
I'll add shots to this thread as I take more. And will add observations as I observe 'em...
Maybe sometime tomorrow I'll be able to more fully wrap my head around the wonderfulness of the RX1 files I got today and will share some of those. I'd have probably been ecstatic with the Nikon if the Sony hadn't come along for the ride today...
-Ray