Nikon Coolpix 4300: My New Addiction

(Wow. I haven't been on Epinions in a while. We can write 20 word reviews now? I guess I'm done . ;) *That was twenty exactly! How 'bout that?*)

Well, anyway ... The reason we "went digital" is because my husband and I just had a baby and I have an undying love for photography. Knowing how hard it is to photograph a baby, and knowing what a raging perfectionist I am, I knew I would need to take like 12 pictures to get a decent one and then we'd have to pay for reprints and doubles for two grandmothers, two grandfathers, a step-grandmother, and a great grandmother .. and never mind the aunts and uncles ... and buying more film ... and yadda-yadda-yadda. Needless to say, this camera has already just about paid for itself in its wee three months with us.

I've been raised by photographers and have always sworn by Nikon. My old 35 mm never steered me wrong, so I knew that was the path I was going to choose.

The Nikon Coolpix 4300 was a great choice for us. My husband is a "point and click" kind of guy and so is his side of the family. I am more of an enthusiast who likes to experiment with the "modes."

The "modes" include Portrait mode (just before the flash, a small light shines briefly on the subject, giving more of a "portrait studio" radiance and clarity), which is my favorite right now obviously. I also had good luck with the snow/ski mode; I took a picture of my black dog in the snow and you could see every snowflake on his snout, and you could vividly see his paw depressions in the snow behind him -- it's unreal. There is also a "fireworks" mode, but I made great use of it in December with our Christmas lights. I slowly moved and manipulated the camera while the shutter was open, ending in a chaotic display of streaking lights (but I realize it's intended for actual fireworks: light traveling quickly through darkness). Likewise, I used the night landscape mode for our illuminated house and it came out nicely. There is also a beach mode for sunny days with glaring water. This is just to name a few, but needless to say it is capable of a lot.

It even has small perks like the capability of filming a silent film that lasts just a few seconds but I don't recommend splurging a few extra bucks for this feature; our short films were rather grainy and erratic.

On the automatic setting you don't need to think about anything and no matter who takes the picture, we are left with clear and "undigital" looking photos (none of those fine, wavy, jagged lines surrounding everything). The camera automatically focuses and the flash goes off if the camera feels the need. And we actually, as an experiment, took a picture of our dog in our bedroom with the lights completely off (WE couldn't even see him) and the flash is so powerful it didn't look the least bit dim and the flash is balanced enough not to leave the subject with that "spotlighted" look surrounded by a halo of darkness. If the photographer makes poor use of space (photographing the four feet of wall above our heads) we can crop it with the accompanying software. You can be absolutely mindless and get great pictures. For once I don't object to people saying "your camera takes great pictures" (usually I incredulously grumble that the photographer takes great pictures! )

The software is even user-friendly. You simply double click on the image you want and then hit the edit icon just above. You can change the contrast, the color contrast, and it will even correct red eyes (though that option is a bit ornery at times). You can even convert your photos to black and white or sepia -- the antiqued brown look. Cropping is easy and you can shrink the pixels so you can email it without your friends downloading your pornographic .. I mean ... the pictures of your doggie ... for hours on end only to wind up with a gigantic picture that they have to scroll around to see in its entirety. There is also a "sharpening" feature that corrects photos that are blurry; this only works real magic if the photo is more "soft focus" blurry. I don't recommend sharpening photos that are already ... sharp. My husband is wont to do this and then you can see every strand of hair on my head and the sharp glistening of the flash in my eyes ,etc. It looks surreal, it's so SHARP it's blinding. But that's my two-cents. Our new game is to beat eachother at "dumping" the pictures into the computer and being the first to edit them.

If you're planning to have your prints done by an online company (which is wonderfully easy and convenient) I would recommend using their software to crop photos. I had trouble with Shutterfly.com (specifically) decapitating me and my loved ones or sending us really broad and distracting borders around our photos. I sent a letter of complaint and they kindly gave me a credit, but beseeched me to use their software and to carefully look at the print preview. They gave me some crazy explanation involving digital pictures coming out "square" and that they can only print part of it and some other obscure things that made no sense to me. But after following their advice, I had no more issues and highly recommend them (but now we have our own printer which we love).

But I've gotten off on a tangent!

I love the Nikor lens and its versatility. It zooms in three times but doesn't have that "grainy" look that some zooms do, and the zoom doesn't inhibit light at all like some do.

The only quirks I can think of so far is the view-finder. You can either look at the bigger monitor on the back or through a more traditional view-finder like you would find on any other camera. The quirk is the use of space. You think you have a nicely compacted photo of your subject with no erroneous space only to find a little bit of "things" or space surrounding it, stuff that you thought wrongly you'd excluded. Not too big a deal; like I said, you can always crop it.

The other tiny quirk is that after you take a picture it is immediately displayed on the monitor. I think the owner's manual says for fifteen seconds. Maybe I'm slow to take a photo, but it seems like by the time I look at the monitor the picture is either gone or actually there so briefly, for a mere millisecond, long enough to just bleed into my subconscious. On the other hand, if they displayed it much longer, then it may interfere with my ability to take my next photo and if I wanted to take a bunch in rapid succession -- a sporting event for example -- then it may impede that capability.

The camera itself came with a memory card that holds a mere twelve photos (what the heck is that going to do?), so we shelled out a few bucks for one that holds 54. Not a biggie, really, but I seriously believe it should be included. We also paid extra for the rechargable battery option, which I do so highly recommend, since the battery life is rather short; I'd say it needs a charge every time we "dump" the pictures, the 54, but we're jerks about carrying it around while it's turned on and showing everyone in the room the pictures we took so far, etc. I'll bet its life expectancy is more like 100 - 150 photos. A little warning light in the monitor comes on far before the camera begins acting sluggishly, so that's a perk.

The one other thing, I think I'd mentioned before, is the red-eye correction. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That seems to be it. There are two icons to click: one automatically fixes the red eyes, and the other is for you to manually click on the red eyes yourself. Both are equally ornery. It either works magic or does nothing at all but blink defiantly at me near the red eyes. Having a blue-eyed husband and baby, who are such red-eyed victims, makes this quite annoying.

Those are my only minor complaints so far.

My husband likes the camera's lightweight weight. I, on the other hand, am more accustomed to a meatier camera that sits heavily in my hands, keeping them steady (and my pictures that much sharper) but I'm getting used to it.

It doesn't have a neck strap, but the camera is so small that its wrist strap provides ample protection from getting lost on a whale watch or what-have-you. We have a small purse-like case that easily rests on the shoulder, too, if you want to carry it in a less cumbersome way.

I wouldn't trade my Nikon for the world. We explored online and at local department stores and found that Best Buy had the Best Price ($430 approximately) and it was in stock -- no ordering and waiting.

If you're reading this, then you're either thinking of going digital or you're considering an upgrade. I highly recommend this camera in terms of capability and ease of use. I don't think either of us even read the owner's manual and we've had nothing but success (with the expected five days of trial and error that you would come to expect from any new camera). :) Best of luck and thanks for reading.

PS My profile photo above was taken with the Nikon Coolpix 4300, if you're wondering. I converted it to fewer pixels, however, so the website would accommodate it. To see more, check out my AOl profile, Skufse.