Nikon Coolpix 5400

Reviewed by Oki Monsoon from USA on 2004/07/21
This camera is one of the highest quality cameras out there, outside the professional SLR category. But, I recommend this camera for serious photographers, not for the average photo-taker. There are many different settings that can be dialed into the camera to take the photo, and one has to learn the correct camera setups, to get the best pictures. The camera has an excellent engineering design, but to get the most out of this camera, you have to take a lot of time out, to learn this camera thoroughly. The good points for this camera are: 1)Wide Angle Lens 2)Fast Shutter Speeds - use 1/000 or 1/2000 in sunshine 3)Compact Size - roughly 2x3x4" 4)Good Battery Life - I average 125 pictures per charge 5)No noise in the images - at 50 to 150 ISO 6)Excellent color in sunshine - and manual white balance settings, low light photos. 7)Image sizes up to 2592x1944 pixels. 8)Optical Zoom to 4X 9)Very low lens distortion. The bad points for this camera are: 1)Auto focus can fail under dim light conditions - but, this is not common 2)ISO 400 not useful - too noisy 3)Image processing speed, by the camera, is slow for the 5 megapixel size images - but, switch to the 1600 x 1200 JPG Fine mode, and you get a decent processing speed 4)Built in flash has a limited range; but, 8 - 10 feet works well. Picture quality for the camera: I achieve good to excellent picture quality for 90% of my photos, and that is done without the use of a tripod. If I put more setup work into each shot, then the average picture quality would be even higher. And, with photo-editing, I have produced perfect pictures using this camera.
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