Great Pictures!

I decided to replace my Fuji MX-1200 with something more up to date and with a higher pixel count.

With very little research (but backed by a liberal return policy) I settled on the Nikon CoolPix 3200. It's got 3.2 megapixels, and comes with 16 megabytes of internal memory which can be expanded with SD type memory cards.

To help you get over the "how the heck do I use this" hurdle, it comes with an instructional video on CD that runs on your computer. The video takes you through the basics like installing the batteries and setting the date through how to email pictures.

The camera is powered by 2-AA size batteries. It can use any of alkaline, Ni-MH rechargables, or a CR-V3 lithium camera battery. If you leave the display on all the time, alkaline batteries are very short lived indeed. The the best over all power option is the rechargable Ni-MH AA size cells. The camera can't charge the cells so you'll need a charger but you can pick up a charger and 4 batteries for less than $20.

For most pictures just set the selector dial on automatic and click away. But if you’re in a place where normal settings won’t give the best pictures, it has several options. On the selector dial there are settings for sports actions shots, outdoor night scene shots, and a mode for portraits. Finally there is a Scene mode in which you can select one of 13 additional setups such as beach, snow, sunset, party, museum, etc.

In the sports setting there’s a sub-menu option to have the camera create a 16 frame collage of continuing action. There’s a similar function in the normal shooting menu.

There is a movie mode. Unlike many digital cameras, the length of a movie is only limited by available memory. You can choose 640x480, 320x240, or 160x120 size frames. The movies have sound, too.

The macro (close-up) option works very well. The camera can focus down to about 2 inches away, great if you sell small stuff on ebay or any time you want some fine details.

The white balance has several presets and an option to aim the camera at something gray and set the white balance based on the current lighting. There are color options for normal, vivid colors, monochrome, sepia, and cyanotone (like sepia but bluish instead).

In short there are lots of menus to play with but in the end what really counts is the pictures. I am happy to report the image quality is outstanding. The autofocus system seems to work flawlessly, the colors are bright and true, the flash is bright enough for normal work, and the exposure always seems right. With 3 megapixels you can crop and zoom in to what’s left and still have a good resolution picture.

When viewing pictures you’ve taken on the display, you can zoom in and pan around an image. If you like, you can even crop and save the new image. You can also resize an image to a lower resolution and save both copies.

Besides sound for the movies, you can use the built in microphone to record up to 20 seconds of sound to go with an image. The sound is stored in a separate .wav file.

With the included AV cable, you can connect the camera directly to a TV with video input and play a slideshow of the images, or use it as a giant viewfinder.

Like just about every digital camera sold, the supplied memory is only sufficient for about 20 photos at the default resolution (3 MP in this case). It uses SD memory cards which are relatively cheap – I got 256 MB for under $60. Buy lots of memory, this camera is too much fun to have to worry about taking too many pictures! When the memory card is in the camera, the built in 16 MB is not used. There are menu items to copy images between the card and internal memory if you need to. I took a nice closeup picture of my business card and left it in the internal memory, that way it’s usually not visible – perhaps it can help identify the real owner of the camera if someone accidentally picks it up and forgets to put it down.

The included Nikon View software is easy to use and doesn’t hog the system like software from some well known companies. It has an automatic red-eye fix that actually works. Other software includes a photo editor and movie maker from Arc-Soft. I can’t give a good review of that part of the package because all I installed was the necessary drivers (and I’m not even sure you need them). The camera connects to the computer through the included USB cable or if you use an SD card you can use it with an external reader which is often more convenient and well worth the $20 or so one costs.

The bad stuff. The default setting is for the display to be always on. You can turn it off with a few clicks into the menu and then it’s only off for picture taking in auto mode. I prefer to work with the viewfinder so I can save my batteries for more pictures. Alkaline batteries don’t seem to last very long at all, use Ni-MH rechargables and carry a pair of Energizer L91 AA lithium cells for backup – they have a long shelf life and will probably last through 4 sets of alkalines. The flash is very close to the lens so red-eye is common, especially if you forget to set the flash to the red-eye reduction mode, this is automatic if you use the indoor scene modes.

In conclusion, I like my Nikon CoolPix 3200 better than any digital camera I have used. I’ve seen it priced as low as $199 which is less than I paid for a 1.3 megapixel camera just 3 years ago. The bottom line and what counts is it takes excellent pictures.