Nikon Coolpix 3200

Nikon Coolpix 3200 - I have been looking for a digital camera for months. I have researched and read just about every review I could find about this camera and many others that are comparable. This is my first digital camera and I wanted to get my moneys worth. I know that I did it with this camera. It is so easy to operate - I took it out of the box and almost immediately began taking pictures before even looking at the manual. If you need something compact and easy to use this is the camera for you!!!

I was looking for a digital camera to replace my old Olympus C2 which had been showing signs of its age and heavy use before it was stolen a few weeks ago (farewell my good and faithful servant).

For the replacement camera, I wanted something that was pocketable, had at least a three times zoom, some scene modes and at least a 3 mega-pixel sensor. My preference was for it to run on AA batteries, have a "Sport/Moving objects" scene mode and a panorama feature.

After shopping around I plumped for a Nikon 3200 and am quite pleased about my choice.

Although it is not the thinnest camera around (not even the thinnest that takes AA batteries) It is very compact and slips easily into a pocket. It is also nice and easy to hold. Build quality is high, albeit in plastic.

The 3200 runs on two AA batteries, which keep it powered for a fair amount of time. My family uses a lot of hand-held devices (walkmans, gameboys, radios etc) which use AA batteries so we have a healthy stock of NiMH rechargeables. I also like the ability to use normal alkaline batteries in extremis. The camera has a small amount of internal memory but is sold without an SD card; I managed to get a 256 MB card for under £20 which will hold over 300 pictures at the default quality settings (3.2 M, normal compression).

Direct control over image attributes for the 3200 is limited to size of image in pixels, amount of JPG compression used, white balance, colour and exposure compensation. The exposure compensation stays at whatever you last set it to, even following power-off, but this only gets indicated if you have the monitor set to "show information".

In addition to these direct settings the 3200 has a shed-load of scene modes. The 6 main scene modes are selectable from the little dial on the back of the camera, others are just one menu down when set to "Scene". 'Scene' defaults to the last item you selected in its sub-menu, so if there is just one item under here that you use a lot, it almost becomes the 7th mode on the dial.

I was quite impressed that the camera switches on and off features such as "Best Shot" as you change mode. Although there are not a lot of settings you can specify while in these scene modes, the 3200 does remember them from the last time you used that mode (whether or not you use continuous focus in movies, for instance). The following scene modes have proved particularly useful already:

Moving objects: chooses a high shutter speed switches off the flash and switches into continuous shooting mode.

Museum: Turns off the flash and turns on the "Best Shot" feature which saves the least blurred from a serried of pictures.

Panorama: The 3200 does this quite nicely, showing a faint overlay of the edge of the last photo for you to line up on. Panoramas can go left to right, right to left, down to up or up to down - very versatile.

In addition to the above there are also portrait and flash portrait modes, landscape, movie with sound (don't forget to turn off continuous focus or you will wonder what all the clicking is about), party, beach/snow, sunset/sunrise, dusk, night landscape, close macro, fireworks, document copy (in monochrome) and back-lit subject. Some of these may turn out to be more useful than others.

The software also seems good, Viewing, rotating and stitching images is quite straightforward. I didn't install the image editing software as I already have a favourite suite that I got with my scanner. The camera can be attached to a PC as "Mass Storage" or as a "PTP" device. PTP seems to have the advantage that you don't need to stop the USB device on the PC before you unplug the camera.

What I'm not so keen on:

I would have preferred if the flash had been located on the other side of the lens, allowing a 'portrait' flash photograph to be taken with the flash above the lens while positioned with the shutter release at the bottom of the camera (this is personal preference, as I find it easier to hold a camera steady in this position).

The only way to change the monitor display (which can be set to show information, no information, have a framing grid superimposed or set to "off") is to put the camera into setup mode and pick the monitor settings in the menu. This is not as easy as having a button which cycles through monitor settings; with a cycling button, a maximum of three stabs of the display button would be required to turn off the monitor while using the viewfinder, while the 3200 requires the turn of a dial, six presses of three different buttons and then the twist of a dial again to get back to shooting mode. In practice I think I'll put up with the annoyance of having the monitor on while I look through the viewfinder.

Bought this camera just prior to a holiday ... had a few days to learn the basics and have learnt much more while on holiday. It is simple to use, though it is worth taking the time and trouble to learn and test out usage of different modes in different circumstances

Having returned from holiday and looked at the images on screen, I am generally very impressed.

I bought the Nikon Coolpix 3200 camera (from Amazon - fantastic, quick service) because it was a 'Which' magazine 'Best Buy'. It supplements my two Pentax SLRs, but is great for slipping in my pocket when I don't want to lug the bigger cameras around. The Nikon has not disappointed me in any way. I am surprised that people have found problems with battery life - I followed the instructions in the handbook exactly, and found the two Nikon rechargeables supplied last around 1-2 weeks depending on use. A work colleague bought one of these having seen the results I achieved.

I got a Nikon Coolpix 3200 as a second, "go everywhere" camera for those occasions where taking my Olympus C5050 would be impractical. After taking about 200 pictures, I have to say that I like the small Coolpix 3200. The camera is compact but all controls are well placed and easily accessible. Although it's made of plastic it feels well built and quite sturdy.

There is only a limited amount of manual overrides. It is a point and shot camera. If you like manual controls the 3200 is probably not for you. The scene modes, if used cleverly can give you some additional amount of control, but overall it's a fully automatic camera aimed at users with limited experience in photography.

The camera delivers sharp well exposed pictures most of the time. The metering and auto white balance work well. The 3x zoom lens is also of high quality, as can be expected from Nikon. I couldn't find a single frame that showed purple fringing, that's impressive. Distortions are also kept well under control save for some mild barrel distortion at the wide end of the zoom. The camera focuses very well in low light due to the focus assist lamp.

The 3200 is powered by 2 standard AA cells. This is IMO much better than the LiIon batteries used on so many cameras today. First batteries are cheap and second you can always use single use batteries in case of emergency (although don't expect them to last very long).

On the negative side, I wished the camera would display some exposure information (speed, f-number). The display is only average. It is nice and sharp but difficult to view in bright sunlight. It could have been bigger too. Many users have complained about the auto ISO gain that automatically sets the camera to ISO 200 in low light, which in turn yields grainy images. While I would have preferred a manual ISO control, there is a way to cancel this auto gain by setting the camera to twilight or sunset mode.

All in all a nice camera, perhaps not the best 3MP camera out there but considering the price and overall performance not bad at all.