|
Up
| |
What is the Coolpix 775?
- The Coolpix 775
is a 2 Megapixel Camera. Don't know about Megapixels?
- It is a small camera - designed to fit into small pouches,
handbags, pockets, briefcases.
- It is a convenient camera - it is highly automatic
"point and shoot" - people who want the "normal" manual
control over shutter speed, aperture, focussing, external flash will be
disappointed.
- It is compatible with some interesting Nikon Accessories
What are the advantages of the Coolpix 775?
- Low Price - the 2 Megapixel class is being replaced by the
3 Megapixel cameras as technology and manufacturing costs come down.
- High portability - it is likely that you would have it with
you than not when the picture taking moment suddenly presents itself.
- It focuses very close for macro work - you can shoot
flowers, extracted teeth, coins.
- If the rechargeable Li-Ion battery runs out, you can use
off the shelf, disposable equivalent - 2CR5 - this is not cheap and not that
common but it's better than having no equivalent.
- It has a 3x optical zoom.
- It has red-eye reduction when you use the built-in flash.
- The 15 second silent Quicktime movie capture is quite fun
and useful for family moments. Particularly if you can edit the movie - Bink
and Smacker freeware tool
- It has USB connectivity to PC (Windows ME, 2000, XP do not
require drivers, Windows 98 needs a driver, Windows 95, NT - not worth
trying). It appears as an external solidstate drive - cool to put non
picture files in the camera and use it as a drive.
- It has RCA output to NTSC or PAL to TV / VCR.
- It has a self timer and tripod socket.
What are the disadvantages of the Coolpix 775?
- It is not 3 Megapixel.
- Under normal focal length, in bright light, the small iris
/ aperture accounts for some diffusion. On the other hand, this could affect
other small cameras.
- The shutter activation has a time lag from your actual
pressing of the shutter release button. In some cases, this time lag is
minimal. In other cases, it can amount to a few seconds as the camera hunts
for the correct focus or is thinking of something else. To make it worse,
there is no synthetic "click" sound unless you have set flash off
and gone into multi-shot mode. Some higher cost Canons have a
"click" sound.
- There is no manual control of aperture, shutter speed,
flash, focussing. You can control a combination of these using the Scenes
selection and some other controls but you can't control any directly.
Attaching and using an external electronic flash is not possible. To attach
and use external electronic flash, you need to make a bigger camera. To
offer manual settings, the manufacturers want more money.
- It cannot take uncompressed TIFF, there are only three
compression settings for JPEG.
- Compact Flash Type 1 is good and common but SD would be
nice because Palm can use that. CF-2 would be nice if you want to hook it to
an IBM Microdrive - but you are looking at $$$ for the Microdrive and
battery consumption.
- It is only ISO 100 sensitive so no-flash shooting indoors
is prone to camera shake and subject movement. Other more expensive cameras
offer ISO 400.
- The movie capture has no sound and is limited to 340x240
pixels for 15 seconds regardless of the size of the CF card that you are
using. More expensive cameras capture to MPG with sound.
Nikon Resources
NikonTechUSA
- You can get firmware updates and Coolpix 775 driver update for Windows 98
(Windows 2000 and Windows ME don't need it). However, this is the driver update
- you still need to grab files off the root of the CD that came with the Coolpix. Nikon
Accessories
My Background
I used to be quite an avid amateur photographer in my Uni days. Had a Minolta
XE-1 SLR with some lenses. When I started work, I got myself a Minolta
X-700 SLR with some more lenses. I was still shooting some, until I married
and my hobbies evolved from audio/hifi and photography to mostly computers, some
audio and a little photography. Since that time, I found that my lifestyle and patience had become
incompatible with SLRs - they're too formal, too big to lug (I also carry my
external Vivitar 283 and lenses etc... So I got to using my wife's Olympus AF-10 compact. That was pretty useful but
has no zoom. One day, we thought we had lost it and for emergency use, bought a
fixed focus, always flash compact - a Kodak
KB18. This is about the cost of one of those disposable cameras, takes good
snapshots and there is no feeling of guilt if you lose it. January 2002, I bought my first quality digital camera, the Nikon
Coolpix 775. I'd previously played with two webcams - both needed an
umbilical cord to a PC and were pretty low quality devices.
A few Provisos
- Like in film cameras, buying an expensive digital device
does not make you a world class pro photographer if you are not one. The age
old knowledge of photography - the difference in light sources, angles, form
the ifs and buts.
- Cost IS an indicator of camera type and capability because
these modern devices are built in commercial factories from electronic
components (CCDs, ICs) that come from the same source.
|
