Product Reviews

When digital cameras first began to appear a mere three years ago, they had a long way to go to catch up with traditional photography. They still aren't at that point yet, but the biggest barrier - quality - has been overcome by ever-increasing resolutions, even though prices for the top-end cameras have remained high.

Nevertheless, in recent times digital camera resolution seems to have taken a step back rather than forward: for example, while the Fuji MX-2700 (reviewed issue 56, p176) was able to boast a 2.3 million pixel CCD, the picture quality was compromised by excessive and occasionally ugly JPEG compression in order to keep file sizes down to a manageable level.

Nikon's CoolPix 950 boasts a similarly high resolution of 2.11 million pixels, giving pictures of 1,600 « 1,200 resolution. More importantly, it manages to maintain a high level of quality while keeping file sizes small. In fact, at its highest quality setting, the CoolPix 950 manages to compress its full resolution images by a ratio of around seven to one without sacrificing quality. This allows you to fit an average of ten shots onto the supplied 8Mb CompactFlash card. Unlike the MX-2700, the CoolPix 950 can save and store images in uncompressed TIFF file format. However, at around 5.5Mb per image, you'll only be able to fit a single shot at a time on the card.

Even with the compression turned on, the CoolPix 950 is capable of extremely impressive results. In terms of sheer detail captured and image quality, it easily outstrips not only the MX-2700 but also the Minolta Dimage EX Zoom 1500 (reviewed issue 53, p177) and the Olympus C-900 Zoom (reviewed issue 54, p174).

In fact, the only cameras that come close are the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-55E (reviewed p167), which is slightly below it in terms of quality, and the Canon PowerShot Pro 70 (reviewed issue 54, p165), which is slightly higher up the rankings thanks to its fantastic colour, crisp focus and overall image quality.

Nikon has also managed to pack a more bewildering array of features into the CoolPix 950 than we've ever seen in a digital camera. Like many 35mm cameras, the 950 features two main shooting modes: A-Rec (automatic) and M-Rec (manual). The first of these is simply a point-and-shoot

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mode allowing you to select your flash mode - automatic, fill, red-eye reduction and off are available - and choose between normal, infinity and macro focus modes. Aperture size, shutter speed, white balance and sensitivity settings are all dealt with automatically.

In M Rec mode, things become a little more complicated. Here you can choose between aperture or shutter priority exposure modes, matrix, spot or centre-weighted light metering, and set the sensitivity level. You get a total of three aperture settings to choose from, in the range f-3.9 to f-11, and the shutter speed can be adjusted from a 500th of a second right up to eight seconds. There's also the option to pick from a list of preset white balance settings or you can manually set your own.

Even more clever than this, however, is the CoolPix 950's best-shot selection feature. With this mode turned on, the camera takes a series of shots, compares them and then picks the one with the most detail.

Unfortunately, the 950's extensive range of adjustments and features can make things confusing. Some functions can only be accessed by the fiddly process of holding one button down while turning a small dial at the front underneath the shutter button. This means important adjustments to shutter speed or aperture size are more awkward to make than they should be.

Fortunately, the rest of the CoolPix 950's ergonomics are up to scratch. It feels solidly built and, like its predecessor the CoolPix 900 (reviewed issue 48, p164), the 950 is split into two halves with a joint in the centre. This allows the 3x zoom lens (38-115mm equivalent), optical viewfinder and flash to be rotated independently of the main camera body, which houses a decent 2in TFT screen. It may sound gimmicky but the design means you don't need to crouch, contort your body or crane your neck in order to take pictures from different angles, and it makes overhead shots particularly straightforward.

When it comes to transferring the images to your PC using the 115Kbits/sec serial link, the CoolPix 950 does its best to thwart you. Quite apart from the fact that it doesn't support TWAIN, I found that the supplied NikonView software, which works by mounting the camera as a virtual drive in the Windows Explorer, worked intermittently at best. I only managed to download one image at a time before having to restart the software and re-establish the connection, which was really annoying. At least the inclusion of a copy of Adobe Photoshop 5 LE goes some way to redeeming the situation.

This problem, and the camera's over-fiddly controls mar what is otherwise a high-quality digital camera. Image quality is only bettered by Canon's Powershot Pro 70, which costs considerably more than the £681 Nikon. It's also well built and boasts more features and adjustments than you can shake a stick at.