Nikon P80

The COOLPIX P80 represents Nikon’s first foray into the relatively new superzoom compact camera segment. It’s certainly up against some tough, mature competition from the likes of Olympus, Fujifilm and Panasonic, who all released comparable models over a year ago. Nikon has some catching up to do then, and on paper at least, the P80 looks like it can keep pace with the leaders. At the heart of the P80 is an 18x, image-stabilised, wide-angle zoom lens, which provides an incredibly versatile focal range of 27-486mm. Everything from countryside vistas, close-up buildings, head-and-shoulder portraits, sports and even wildlife and bird photography can be captured using one camera that weighs less than 400g and can fit inside a small camera bag. There’s no need to carry round a bagful of heavy lenses as with a DSLR system, and because the lens is fixed, there’s little danger of unwanted dust getting onto the sensor.

The P80’s lens is impressively fast too, with maximum apertures of f2.8 at 27mm and f4.5 at 486mm, although don’t expect to achieve DSLR-like blurred backgrounds due to the comparatively small sensor. As you’d expect with such a huge telephoto range on offer, the P80’s lens features Nikon’s VR (Vibration Reduction) image stabilisation system to help ensure that the majority of photos don’t suffer from lack of sharpness when hand-holding the camera. It’s also useful at more moderate focal lengths too, enabling you to take sharp pictures at slower shutter speeds than normal. Somewhat incredibly, Nikon’s engineers have also provided a 1cm macro mode – there really is very little that the P80 can’t cope with. Only the presence of some noticeable vignetting at the wide-angle setting detracts from what is overall a fantastic optical system.

The P80 mimics the look and feel of a DSLR camera, with that huge lens and chunky hand grip dominating the overall design. As part of Nikon’s Professional line-up of compacts, the P80 offers a complete range of exposure controls, with Auto, Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and fully Manual mode allowing you to progress as your skills improve. It isn’t quite as versatile as a DSLR, with a maximum shutter speed of eight seconds and aperture range of f2.8-8, but there is a control dial on the rear, which makes it easy to change the principal setting. There’s no second dial on the hand grip, though, which would have made Manual mode more intuitive. The general layout of the camera will please beginners more than experienced photographers – the uncluttered approach won’t scare anyone off, but the lack of dedicated controls for settings like ISO speed and white balance ultimately proves frustrating.

There are two ways of composing a picture with the P80. The 2.7-inch LCD screen on the back has a pretty standard 230,000 pixels, five levels of brightness, antireflection coating, wide viewing angle and offers 97 per cent scene coverage. The second method is an electronic viewfinder, which offers the same scene coverage and resolution, plus diopter adjustment for wearers of glasses. A button next to the viewfinder switches between the two. This is one area where the P80 doesn’t compare so well to a true DSLR. The LCD screen provides a brighter preview than the EVF, but holding an 18x zoom camera at arm’s length is only asking for trouble in the form of unwanted camera shake and blurred images. The EVF is better than most and allows you to hold the camera up to your eye, but the preview is dim and certainly no substitute for a proper optical viewfinder. On the other hand, you can’t view such a wealth of camera settings, the menu system and even playback images on an optical viewfinder!

At first glance, the ISO range of the Nikon P60 seems incredibly extensive, with nine settings from ISO 64-6,400. Closer inspection reveals that ISOs 3,200 and 6,400 reduce the image resolution to three megapixels, leaving you with a still very respectable range of 64-2000. At the slower speeds, noise is well controlled, but noise and unwanted artefacts start to rear their ugly heads at ISO 400, getting progressively worse as you push the speed higher, with 1,600 and 2,000 taking on an impressionistic feel. This somewhat limits the P80’s versatility in low light when using the telephoto focal lengths – you need to use the higher ISOs to maintain a workable shutter speed, but doing so comes at the cost of noisier images. The Nikon P80 isn’t any worse than its main competitors; just don’t expect DSLR-like performance. Thankfully, the P80 does an excellent job in the other key aspects of image quality. Colours are on the whole natural and accurate, and the Auto White Balance setting copes with all but the trickiest of mixed lighting conditions. There’s some pixel fringing in areas of high contrast, but that’s typical of the majority of small sensor cameras. There is some barrel distortion at wide-angle, but Nikon has thoughtfully provided a Distortion Reduction menu option, which straightens the image out again in-camera. On the whole, there’s little to disappoint in terms of the P80’s image quality.