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(More customer reviews)UPDATE: 1/11/2011 - Because there are so many comments asking the same question I decided I should add this to the beginning to save you agony. This camera is poor in low-light and not the greatest for taking shots of kids running around or in situations where you need to quickly take multiple shots. Having said that, this camera has an absolutely amazing zoom, optics are top notch, macro mode is incredible and great video recording is possible as well. I've taken thousands of beautiful photos with this camera. You need to work with this camera and it will reward you handsomely. But read through as many comments as you can because there is a lot of discussion that may interest you. And now on to my original review...
I have two types of cameras that I generally use, small point & shoots, like the Canon Canon PowerShot SD600 6MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom for "take anywhere" convenience and DSLR's which for me currently is the Nikon D300 DX 12.3MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
If you have any questions about the camera, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer you. Please note that I have updated my review with some additional observations on 3/29/2010 based on my continued experiences with the camera.
I wanted to get a camera that was SDHC compatible (the SD600 is not SDHC compatible, while the D300 uses CF cards) so that I could use the Eye-Fi wireless card Eye-Fi 4GB Share Video SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE-FI-4SV with it. I've had excellent results with small Canon point & shoot cameras over the years but the Nikon L110 caught my eye and I decided to buy it. It is substantially larger than the svelte Canon SD600, yet much smaller and lighter than my D300. It's called a "bridge" camera by some people since it has some qualities reminiscent of a DSLR at the expense of being as small and pocketable as a typical "point & shoot" camera. Consequently, depending on where you are on the scale of novice to professional photographer and how pocketable you need your camera to be, this camera may either thrill you or leave you wanting something else. I'm somewhere in the middle.
There is a lot to like about this camera. It has a very nice feel in the hand and the rubberized grip makes you feel secure holding the camera. The large 3" LCD display is gorgeous... it is bright, sharp and has excellent dpi not normally found in a camera of this price range. It also works quite well outdoors due to the fact that it has an anti-reflective coating on it. However the camera lacks an optical viewfinder which I do miss as I am more accustomed to using a viewfinder than not. The lack of a viewfinder is not a deal-breaker for me though. 12.1 megapixels gives you ample file size to make huge enlargements or lots of room for cropping. And the awesome zoom, from the 35mm equivalent of 28mm-420mm gives you an amazing range. It's not normally even possible to hand-hold a camera and expect a very sharp image if you are zoomed to 420mm, or even 300mm, but with the great VR and Motion Detection incorporated into the camera, you can actually hand-hold at that extreme and get usable images. I was impressed with that. If you use a tripod at those extremes, then be sure to turn off the VR or you will get poor pictures. This is always the case with electronic VR... you never want to use it when also using a tripod since it is intended to compensate for your hand shake and when you're on a tripod, there is no hand shake to correct so it is not necessary or desirable to have VR on.
The L110 has a minimal number of buttons and control pads which makes it a very approachable camera to use. Of course, the downside to that is you need to delve into the menu to get to some other features or controls that you may want to fiddle with. Again, coming from the D300, I found this a bit frustrating but someone more used to a point & shoot might not mind or even think about that as much.
What I like specifically about the camera is that I can take stunning photographs with little thought. Using the default "easy auto mode" lets you get started taking photos with little to worry about. Just frame your subject and press the shutter button. But you may not want to keep the camera in that mode all the time because it does come with some limitations that you need to be aware of. Easy Auto Mode automatically determines what you are trying to accomplish then sets the "scene" to what the camera thinks is the appropriate setting... it may not always be correct. And I noticed that auto-focus may not always work correctly especially when trying to shoot closeup images in easy auto mode. So in those cases you can switch to "auto mode" or manually select the "scene" to the mode you specifically want, such as "close-up, portrait, landscape, backlight, etc"
The macro mode on this camera is excellent. You can get as close as .4 inches from your subject and this is fantastic if you are into macro photography. I will post some sample photos in the customers images area for you to see.
I like that the camera can be turned on directly in playback mode simply by pressing the playback button instead of the on/off button. The advantage to doing this is that if you just want to view photos/videos on the camera, the lens remains retracted. Otherwise if you turn the camera on using the on/off button, then press the playback button, the lens first extends then goes into playback mode.
The flash does not automatically flip up when needed like some cameras of this style. That's not a bad thing, just something you need to know. If the camera determines that flash is necessary, it does display a message on the LCD screen informing you to "Raise The Flash."
The buttons on the back of the camera only require a very light touch. At first this annoyed me a little bit as they felt overly "touchy". But I quickly grew accustomed to the lighter touch and now must say I like it.
Video quality is very very good, especially in outdoors and well-lit situations. Low light results in more grain than I would like to see, but since this is not a dedicated video camera, nor expensive, it is acceptable. The audio recorded in video mode (stereo by the way) is very good too.
UPDATE: I've been using the movie mode more extensively since my original review and have changed my opinion of the audio and video quality. The low light performance of video recording is not very good at all and results in -very- noisy (grainy) video. I've also noticed a significant muffled quality to the sound that is especially noticeable when just a persons voice is recorded. Recording where the ambient noise levels are high, such as when outside, masks this somewhat. But when recording video in more quiet surroundings, a single sound source such as voice will present the distortion, hiss or whatever you want to call it, at much more noticeable levels and is not what I would call good quality at all. On a scale of 1-10 I'd have to rate the audio quality about a 4. There is no capability to attach an external mic, nor would I expect that for a camera in this price range. The audio quality is quite disappointing to me now though, especially when compared to my Canon SD600 that has extremely clear, distortion free (mono) audio. Finally, I also heard some zoom induced mechanism noise while zooming and recording video.
One feature that really appeals to me is the "small picture" option. If you take a lot of photos that eventually end up on the web, you can have the camera make a smaller sized copy of any photo that you have taken... either 640x480, 320x240 or 160x120. I find this really helpful because if you take your original photo at a lower resolution, then that's what you're stuck with forever. But with this feature you can take your photos at the highest resolution then have the camera make a re-sized copy of the photo at the resolution you specify. I build websites so this is very helpful for me as I don't have to spend as much time in Photoshop resizing photos destined for the web.
There are a slew of other features, such as "blink warning", automatic red-eye fixing, smart-portrait mode, sport continuous mode (pretty cool feature that will take up to 20 continuous photos at 11.1 fps) and even more. Regarding the Sports Continuous Mode; this mode reduces the image quality/size to a maximum of 3Megapixels and is not going to give you razor sharp images that you would get in other modes. But consider it's purpose... to get a shot that would otherwise be nearly impossible using this level of camera. It takes a burst of photos to enable you to hopefully get a decent action shot out of a series of shots taken at a moment in time. The ISO is also increased to 640 in this mode which does inject more noise into the final image. This is common to small sensor cameras such as this. You really want to keep the ISO at as low a value as possible to reduce "noise" in the photo. Increasing the ISO increases the sensitivity of the sensor and this is what causes the increased noise... think of it as distortion when you turn the volume up to high.
I'd have to write a book to cover all the features in detail. But one more feature that I'll mention is Panorama Assist which is handy when composing a series of shots intended to be a panorama. It provides a ghost image of the previous shot to help you align the next shot you want to take in your series of photos destined to be a panorama.
Nikon includes several software titles including Panorama Maker Pro by ArcSoft. I was happy with the...Read more›
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Nikon Coolpix L110 12.1MP Digital Camera with 15x Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Red)Zoom in on your passion with Nikon's Coolpix L110, with 12.1 effective megapixels and an incredible 15x optical Zoom-Nikkor glass lens for stunning prints as large as 16 x 20 inches. The camera's new huge bright 3.0-inch high-resolution (460k-dot) LCD lets you compose and share your pictures with family and friends. The Coolpix L110, with Nikon's 5-way VR Image Stabilization System takes incredible pictures, incredibly easy plus you can take HD (720p) video with stereo sound! Nikon's Smart Portrait System which; automatically detects your subjects face, takes a picture when they smile and warns you if they blinked.FEATURES:
12.1 Megapixels for stunning prints as large as 16 x 20 inches
Incredible 15x Optical Wide-Angle (28-420mm) Zoom-NIKKOR Glass Lens - quality optics provide exceptional images throughout the zoom range. The lens is built on a proud heritage of producing precision camera optics that delivers superb color and razor-sharp results. This incredible lens offers versatile compositional freedom with its wide-angle (28mm) to super telephoto coverage (420mm). Sweeping landscapes can be captured as well as those zoomed-in close-ups of the action on the baseball or soccer field!
Big, Bright 3.0-inch High Resolution HVGA (460,000-dot) Clear Color Display makes it easy to compose and share your pictures with a wide-viewing angle and Clear Color Display anti-glare coating
HD Movie with HDMI Output 720p HD movie recording at 30fps with optical zoom and autofocus capabilities during recording. Recording made better with stereo sound built-in microphone, dedicated movie-record button and HDMI output for easy in camera playback or on your TV or computer
5-way VR Image Stabilization System - VR Image Stabilization by sensor shift minimizes the effect of camera sh
Click here for more information about Nikon Coolpix L110 12.1MP Digital Camera with 15x Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Red)
