Great if you need an inexpensive camera

I am a photographer and use Nikon cameras exclusively. My main camera is a Nikon D-SLR (the D70). On a recent business trip my husband lost my compact Coolpix 5200. I won't go into the details, but finances won't allow me to replace the 5200 with the Nikon camera I really want at this time. We had a credit at Office Depot so I opted for this camera, since it was on the cheap side and I have never been disappointed with Nikon. Until now. I guess you really get what you pay for, and since this camera was only $150 I should have realized that.

If your subject is in good light, and is perfectly still, you can get a great photo. Otherwise, forget it, especially in low/indoor lighting. The shutter lag is ridiculously slow and the camera is almost impossible to focus in low light. I really expected more from Nikon, especially since my older 5200 was both fast and worked quite well in low light.

To make matters worse there is no viewfinder on this camera! You have to exclusively use the LCD screen which is nice and large (2"), I might add, but if you're outside in bright sunlight you really need that viewfinder. It is also a battery drain to have to use the LCD all the time.

I also don't like that I have to use AA batteries versus a lithium ion battery.

My specialty is photos of animals, and so far I haven't taken one decent shot with this camera, which is extremely frustrating. I will probably end up keeping it since I do need a compact for those times my large D-SLR is inconvenient, but I will definitely be replacing it as soon as I can afford to.

I am still learning about all the features of this camera, since I just got it today, but they are basically the same as every other compact camera in this price point out on the market right now. There is nothing spectacular about this camera.

If you are taking basic landscape photos, or need a small inexpensive camera you can probably make this work for you. But if you need something fast for taking pictures of children, animals or sports, I really can't recommend this one.

I estimated a shutter lag time of about 8-9 seconds between shots for indoor shots with regular inside lighting in the evening. That is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion. In sunlight the shutter lag is almost non-existent, maybe a second or two, which is normal. So, I will definitely be using this as an outdoors camera and hope for sunlight with every shot! The pictures have excellent color and brightness.

One other feature that is a little cumbersome is that they have the white balance and exposure settings in the menu instead of on the toggle button, as with my 5200. I use those features a lot for situations where the lighting is not optimal. This is not a huge deal, but one worth mentioning if you think you might use these features often.

I do like the fact that there are several color shooting options with this camera, which is fun. You have 5 to choose from - standard color, vivid color, black and white, sepia, and cyanotype (which gives everything an artsy blue cast).

There is also a Best Shot Selector (BSS) mode, in which the camera takes a series of shots and selects the sharpest one to save.

One tip to make the startup time faster is to go into the menu and disable the animation at startup. This will knock a few seconds off the start-up time, but it still doesn't solve the shutter lag between and during shots.

There are many great features on this camera that make it worth owning, but if you plan to use it inside in low -medium light situations you might want to look elsewhere because I don't care how many bells and whistles the camera has - if it's slow and you miss the shot, then none of that matters.

Key features include: 3X Zoom (4x digital zoom), 15 scene modes including 4 with scene assistance, 2 inch LCD screen, In camera red eye fix, D-lighting, Face-priority AF, TV size movies with audio, Internal Memory/SD card compatible, PictBridge compatible for direct printing.

UPDATE: After some research on compact digital cameras it seems that focusing in low light seems to be a common problem, even with the "latest and greatest" cameras on the market right now. And what happened to the viewfinder? Another look suggests that their absence is another common phenomenon. For those reasons I am changing my recommendation to a "yes." For the money (I just saw this camera on sale for under $125) you get an average camera, that takes excellent, high quality photos in OPTIMAL lighting. In this price point I think you would be getting a great camera. If you want something high quality with a lot of bells and whistles you be better going to a D-SLR, but if you want something compact and easy to use while still taking some decent shots, this one does the job.