Lou
- Comment
I am a serious photographer and have been such since the year 2000. Although I travel with and shoot with a big Nikon D 7100 for important photos, I have used a small, compact Nikon Coolpix S8200 camera for fun and to sneak a small, but very good, camera into concerts and performances that do not allow photography. As a result, I have been able to take GREAT pictures, and some videos (at a distance of 200+ feet) of Cher, Santana, Eric Clapton, Andrea Bocelli, In Volo, and other celebrities. The S 8200 is a 16 MP camera and has a 14X zoom (4.5 - 63mm) and has served me VERY well for a camera that--at the time--cost less than $300.00 and is small, came with a handy leather case, and captures images almost as sharp and with the accurate colors as my big Nikon D7100! Then, about a month ago, I saw the Coolpix A900 on the Nikon website and decided to upgrade to a better small compact camera. I was NOT disappointed! The A900 is just as good (in terms of sharpness and color accuracy) and is only slightly larger than the S8200 but has more megapixels (20 MP) and more zoom (4.3 - 151mm) with almost the same aperture range as the S8200. Additionally, the A900 has WiFi and Bluetooth capability and, after downloading the free Nikon app, I can set my A900 to send my images to my iPhone in the event that I want to instantly send a picture to someone (but, obviously a better image than I could have captured with my iPhones 8 MP, tiny lens camera) without waiting until Im in front of my home computer or laptop in my hotel room (when traveling) to send as an email attachment. The only thing that I wish the A900 has that my S8200 has, is the ability to easily see the metadata of an imageat the push of a dial, and the ability of the S8200 to automatically raise the flash when the camera is set to automatic; Im not sure that I like the fact that I have to manually raise the flash on the A900 if I need to use flash, although, in a way I like the fact that I do not have to remember that my A900 camera will accidentally flash if Ive forgotten that I had left it in either automatic or force flash mode (like with the S8200). The A900 does, however, have some very nice features that my Coolpix S8200 lacks: If I have captured an image in portrait orientation, I can see it at its full length when reviewing an image simply by turning the camera sideways (as I would with any other digital camera) , but I can still view the SAME image (albeit smaller) without having to turn the camera sideways. I also really like the fact that the A900 has a moveable LCD screen that enables me to take pictures from down low next to the ground to over my head, while viewing what the lens is seeing from a comfortable position. All in all, I really like my Nikon Coolpix A900 camera BETTER than my great Coolpix S8200 and will be sneaking it into future concerts that also forbid taking pictures or videos! (SUGGESTION: Why doesnt Nikon make a similar camera with a small viewfinder and a way of turning OFF the LCD screen on the back of the camera? I say this because, when I try to surreptitiously take photos in a darkened environment, the bright LCD is annoying to others sitting behind me, and, it is a dead give-away (while sitting in a concert where I am taking photos or videos) to the staff in a performance venue who will run over to me and tell me to put my camera away!)