Product Reviews

Nikon appears to have taken over from the prolific Fujifilm in its unrelenting drive to release new digital cameras on to the market every few weeks. This latest is a good-looking consumer model for simple point-and-shoot operation, but with a mix of manual and clever automation features to give it extra clout.

The Coolpix 2500 is a classic compact camera, weighing well under 200g and shaped to slip snugly into a pocket or handbag. The raw specification won't blow you away, though: it's a two megapixel camera with built-in flash and 3x Nikkor optical zoom (plus an inevitable but pointless 4x digital zoom function). The lens is rated as F=5.6 to 16.8mm (f/2.7 to f/4.8).

It's possible to buy this kind of hardware from other camera manufacturers for the same price or less. However, don't underestimate the importance of physical hardware design when it comes to consumer products.

For example, the lens is mounted on a swivelling block, which also acts as an integral lens cover when you twist the block flush with the unit. The swivelling action allows a certain variety of angular shots, as well as letting you turn the lens back to face you for those classic me-in-front-of-landmark tourist pictures. Unusually, there's no optical viewfinder on the Coolpix 2500, just a 1.5in LCD monitor on the back. Forcing you to use the LCD monitor uses up more battery power, but the lack of an optical viewfinder saves a great deal of space on the camera itself.

Memory lapse

The battery is a small, flat, removable lithium-ion pack, which is recharged separately in a little cradle. The battery slots under a chunky, lockable cover at the right edge of the unit, along with a Compact Flash memory card. An 8Mb card is provided in the box, but you would be advised to buy a few more cards or one of higher capacity. Nikon says the camera accepts 128Mb Compact Flash cards. The 8Mb capacity is enough to store eight 1600 x 1200 pixel images in Fine mode or up to 113 images in

ADVERTISEMENT

Basic mode at 640 x 480 pixels .Between these, you can choose to shoot at 1280 x 960 pixels and 1024 x 768 pixels and select from Fine, Normal or Basic quality (JPEG compression) modes.

A video capture function is also supported. This records a 320 x 240 pixel movie lasting up to 15 seconds at 15fps, without sound. There's a Continuous mode but it's fairly slow at around three frames every two seconds. Even single shots seem to suffer from an annoying delay between pressing the shutter and the image being captured, but maybe we're just impatient. Much more fun is the Multishot feature which captures 16 consecutive 400 x 300 pixel frames and combines them into a single-image collage measuring 1600 x 1200 pixels.

If you're used to extensive manual functions in a digital camera, you won't be wildly impressed by the Coolpix 2500, although you can still adjust the white point and exposure. In most cases, you'll want to leave the device at its Automatic setting, which usually does the job rather well. However, Nikon has bridged the gap between automated and manual settings by letting you choose between 12 'scene' presets, so you can quickly optimise your shots for Beach/Snow, Museum, Night Portrait and so on. There's even a macro mode for taking pictures as close as 4cm from the lens, and damn good it is too.

For us, the only drawback is the design of the control system. Despite having clearly labelled buttons on the camera and a friendly menu appearance on the LCD, the Coolpix 2500 isn't very intuitive. It wasn't so much a case of being unable to find special effects or advanced functions, but of getting hopelessly lost and unable to work out how to change basic settings if you pressed the wrong buttons. You'd be advised to carry the manual around with you.

Shooting star

The camera comes supplied with a useful collection of software, including the nifty Nikon View, a fun but basic PanoramaMaker, and the Classic-only FotoStation Easy. There's a problem with running Nikon View under Mac OS X on dual-processor Macs, but Nikon says a fix will arrive shortly. Otherwise, downloading images is fast and unfussy, triggered the moment you plug the camera into any USB port, including those on your Mac keyboard. The camera is fully compatible with Apple's iPhoto.

Having pointed out its speed and usability shortcomings, we still think the Coolpix 2500 is a great point-and-shoot camera. The 'scene' presets make things a lot easier, and it's undeniably fun to play around with. Buy yourself a soft case and more memory, and you'll love it.