I got my hands on a Nikon P6000 to review on my blog. As the second review of the “Real World Review” series I was excited to get started. The P6000 really is the closest camera to Canon’s G10 that Nikon has to offer. Here is what makes this camera stand out:
- Slightly smaller then the Canon G10
- High ISO up to 6400
- 4x optical VR lens
- Hot shoe
- BUILD IN GPS!!
- LAN port on the bottom of the camera
- It feels like a camera
- Big screen
- Viewfinder
When I am using the camera to review I really want to put it in situations that the average consumer would be in. For one week I carried the P6000 with me everywhere. I shot video, stills at night, during the day, macro, landscapes, portraits and even fireworks.
In this first photo of the leather case packaged with the camera, you can see the fine detail you get when shooting on macro. Although not the sharpest macro photo I’ve seen, it is definitely a good photo for the average person.
While selling in things at the Englishtown Auction I decided to take some snapshots as well. Here you can see that in the lowest ISO (64) the photos have great colors and the images are very clear
The most common feature used by photographers is the zoom. Sometimes we are even forced to use the digital zoom. It’s rare to find a camera that takes perfect photos in digital zoom, and the P6000 unfortunately is not a perfect camera. Have a look at these photos and you will see that when zooming the images lack detail and quality.
The biggest problem with digital cameras is ISO noise. This is something that the manufacturers are slowly fixing. The Nikon D700 and D3 have practically no ISO noise until you get higher than 6000 ISO. But when it comes to point and shoot cameras, ISO noise is still a hassle. The P6000 has terrible noise over 800 ISO.
I took the P6000 to the Freehold Raceway on July 4th for the fireworks. I decided to try out the Fireworks Scene mode and although the delay was a little long, the photos came out good.
On the walk back home from the Fireworks I took a snapshots at night. I used flash sometimes because it’s something people would do at a party. I am pleased with the results.
See the purple blue flower? Well, it’s suposed to be purple. Slight color shift
My thoughts on the Nikon P6000
The RAW processing time is about 2 seconds, which is 1.8 seconds longer than I’d like but it is a point and shoot camera so most people will be shooting on JPG. The colors shift quite a bit depending on the light. The ISO noise above at 800 is unusable even for a soccer mom. The pop up flash and hotshoe are keepers! Remove the LAN port as it is a complete waste of space. The GPS took 2 hours to find signal for the first time. From there on it takes between 2 and 10 minutes depending on how far you’ve traveled. Love the zoom, but don’t use digital zoom unless it’s a last resort.
As a professional I would use the Nikon P6000 as a scouting camera, just like the Canon G10. I would never use it professionally. It could also come in handy for those who want a pocket camera and not a GPS, but still want to Geotag.
As a consumer I would say it is an overall good camera. If most of the shooting you do is outdoors or inside with flash then the image quality is great, and the file sizes are HUGE!
The Real World Review Score: 7/10
View the photos on Flickr, all photos are available to download
Reason for four star, not five. Mainly two problem caused this final grade. The first is the GPS, it can't work that fancy as you imagine, and it will use lots of battery life to maintain this function. Second,the optical viewfinder is totally useless without doubt.
The gps really is not that fancy but it does find the long/lat as it is designed to. Also, most of the point & shoot cameras optical viewfinders for the past few years have all been pretty useless. They are all very small. Thanks for commenting!
The gps really is not that fancy but it does find the long/lat as it is designed to. Also, most of the point & shoot cameras optical viewfinders for the past few years have all been pretty useless. They are all very small. Thanks for commenting!