Camera Talk

I've been recording some videos about these Nikon Coolpix cameras and how they made everyone sit up and take notice when these were released in 1999.

I tested the Coolpix 700 as soon as it was released and ended up buying the camera from Nikon. I had planned to write a review, but the publication already had a tech writer.

I shot quite a bit with this camera for the next two years and was always happy with the results. I took personal photos and a lot of many photos of cameras for my website.

I later bought the 800 and 950, but I still have a special place for the 700.

It had a 2.11-megapixel CCD sensor, and it wasn't great for shooting at night. Nearly all of today's cameras use a CMOS sensor. I don't remember the size of the sensor, but it was small.

I had forgotten that these chewed through alkaline batteries very quickly, and so we turned to NiMH cells.

CompactFlash card capacities were tiny - measured in megabytes. I remember being happy when a 64MB card became available!

The other thing that I had forgotten was the amount of time involved. Startup time is about four seconds, and it takes about 8-10 seconds to write each image to the card. There was no RAW option, although you could select a high-resolution TIFF, which took 30-40 seconds to save.

Here are a couple of photos from the Nikon Coolpix 700. I still am impressed by the overall quality of this camera and its tiny sensor.Hong KongThe Great WallDisney World, Florida.

There was a photographer who started a studio in the local mall, and I was intrigued enough to set up an appointment to get a portrait done, as it had been quite a few years since the last one. I was expecting to see what kind of 4x5 or 8x10 camera he was using, but then he set up this itty-bitty Nikon 950 on the tripod. I asked if all the photos in his displays were done digitally, and he said he had switched as soon as the 900 came out, and after wearing out two of those he got the 950.

I was highly impressed by the quality of the photos, but after looking into getting one for myself it was a bit out of my budget at the time, and I also wanted something with a bit more zoom range. I didn't get a Nikon digital camera until the Coolpix P7700.

PF

No kidding- a 950 for portrait work? That's quite a leap of faith, although there was some excitement for digital photography at that time.