Nikon Coolpix P80 Digital Camera

This camera gives you plenty of features for the money. I did a lot of research before buying, and I am well satisfied with my choice. The Nikon Coolpix P80 has performed well, is easy to operate out of the box, and is a great choice for those of us who want more performance than a point and shoot digital, but can't justify going the SLR route. I read online that it had a slow reaction time, but with the various modes, I have had no trouble snapping photos of my dog, birds, etc. I am still learning more about it's features using the manual, but I was able to figure most of it out on my own: the menus are easy. For some more specific advanced settings, it does take a minute to get it situated, but that doesn't often come up and is pretty standard. I would reccomend it to anyone in the market.

I bought this camera as an upgrade to my point and shoot. I wanted higher quality, greater creative control, and that 18x zoom without having to spend DSLR prices and carrying bulky lens. I was worried due to some of the negative reviews. After owning this camera 5 mos and taking thousands of primarily landscape and wildlife pics, I am very happy with my purchase. The camera does require reading the manual carefully and taking some time to experiment with the different settings. In the beginning I took some blurry pics, but with some patience and practice, I am getting great shots out of this camera. It is light weight, easy to use, and the ability to rapidly change from a wide angle shot to a closeup zoom in, is great. It is not a DSLR, but is a versatile, high-quality camera, that allows you to learn and expand your photographic skills and produce some great shots.

Pros- Takes easy pics that look great. Easy navigation. Cons- I guess if I had to pick one i would say that stupid lens cap, but overall not that big of an issue. I bought this camara for a trip to Tahiti for 5 weeks. Easy to operate on all the presets which does a great job to just point and shoot. Portrait shots are amazing. Cool panaramic assistance. Still playing around with some of the manual options but seems to be the perfect camera for me. A perfect hybrid camera for the in-between DSLR and the point and shoot babies.

I got tired of waiting for Canon to come out with a new superzoom, and decided to buy a P80 instead. Unfortunately, the P80 operation can be frustratingly slow and the pictures are noisy. When fixing the auto ISO to a range of 64-100 the pictures are still noisy. Even when fixing the ISO to 64 I regard the pictures as noisy compared to the results I can get with a Canon. Comparisons to pictures taken at the same time of the same subject with a P80 and a Canon SX100 show clean looking shots on the Canon and speckled noise in the clear areas (like the sky) on the Nikon P80 images when viewed at 100% in Picasa, for example. The P80 also appears to be very sensitive to electrical fields. When shooting near an AC distribution transformer (those green boxes you see in suburbs with buried power) the P80's computer went nuts, the colors in the viewfinder shifted to yellow and green only, and the camera couldn't even be powered off. Resetting the camera by removing and replacing the battery... Read more

It's overall good digital camera. I sold my D80 & Nikon 18-200 VR and got this. It has 18x zoom, which is great(about 480mm in 35mm camera). I love its custom white balance feature. Also, with its 'Vivid' feature, it's got nice contrast in pics. Manual features are little bit uncomfortable, I think it's becuz I used to use DSLR. But it's okay. Flash isn't bad. It's not like the one from those cheap camera. It actually works well enough that I wanna use it indoor. (I used to use SB800 though.) There's one BIG con about this product I think. Which is, the NOISE from ISO!.. I know it's nonsense to compare with D80 for noise reduction, but.... From ISO200, you can see a lot of noise in the picture. Even from ISO100, if you zoom in black color in pic, you can see noises. So, you might wanna stick to ISO64 and use flash, or get some noise. The size of P80 isn't that big, and not heavy. There's lens cap you can attach from strap so you don't lose. Overall, I think it's great ... Read more