Nikon COOLPIX P300 12.2 CMOS Digital Camera with 4.2x f/1.8 NIKKOR Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Full HD 1080p Video (Black)

I have used this camera about 8 months ~ 2300 pics.Semi AutoOnly 'auto scene' with 'auto select' is fully automatic.This is your point and shoot setting. No other dialsettings are automatic. You will have to turn on themacro for close ups and set the shutter speed andaperature when the camera tells you it needs youto change something in order to get a good picture.It does this by flashing a red box if the camera cannotfocus. At first I wanted fully automatic point and shootuntil I tried to focus a Panasonic S3 (which has verygood reviews) on a nearby object. The S3 would notlock onto the nearby object but always selected a faraway object. After that I considered keeping the P300.Lens/Low Light/Wide angleOne of the main reasons to buy this camera. Low lightpics inside dont require a flash unless really dark!Take a shot in an almost dark room and this camera willsee it all without a flash! 'Night scene - tripod' withouta tripod, was not good until I set it for 'night scene''hand held' the results are verygood night shots.(Hand held setting turns on anti shakeand best shot functions) The resulting night shot letsyou read a street sign about 75 feet away using only 3Mpixels and street lighting only. I have used the flash a fewtimes out of hundreds of pics. Wide angle lens capturesa lot of area, nice!Quality/CostYou pay more but get more. Feels like quality in yourhands, body, knobs, dials, buttons are all metal.Solid build not much plastic.The dials make everything fast.This camera is designed to get the aperature and shuttersettings out of the menus and onto the dials so youhave quick access to them.FeaturesThis camera has many useful features. Menus changefor dial settings revealing more options. Fireworks setting isno good w/out tripod. smeared firework photos. Auto settingsare not as automatic as other brands. Ex. Macro only comeson after turning it on, and only turns off after turning it off.Even if the camera is turned off it stays in macro mode untilyou turn it off. I like this as you can continue your macroshooting without having to reactivate the macro evertime.But other brands (Canon and others) automatically set themacro just by getting close to a subject. At first I did not likethis but now I like it.SizeNot a super compact camera and not a large camera. Fitseasily into a mans shirt pocket with room to spare but not avery small camera either. The right size to hold in your handswith well positioned rubber grips. Camera is light weight.MiscFast start up and shutter. Beautiful hi res display, Batterycharges inside camera. Good if you dont want to removebatteries not so good if you want to have two batteries forquick changing. (you would have to buy an external charger)Compression may be a little high - sharp photos but could itbe sharper? The 'scene' setting with auto select is better than'auto' mode most of the time. Battery life is 200-300 pics butbattery meter goes from full to dead in only 15 minutes.'Special' USB charge/download cord, it is propietory, Not goodas the cord takes more room than a short USB cord. Cord onbottom of camera, so camera rests on its face or back whilecharging or downloading. Zoom is 4.2X which is all I need.Wide angle and low light is more useful to me than a big zoom.Color saturation could be more, you can add more manually.PanoramaMuch better than other cameras. You can panorama horizontalAND vertical, cooool. Vertical panoramas are great for city shotsof tall buildings, etc. Not enough time for 180 sweep, 120 deg.is most you can do with 180 deg setting. 360 deg sweep is toolong for 180 deg. Manual panorama assist is difficult. Thoughnot perfect I use panorama frequently.SummaryThis camera is for anyone who wants a Quality LOW LIGHT portableFAST camera with WIDE angle and full control. Not for someone who wantsjust a point and shoot (although it can be a point and shoot in 'autoscene' ) I was going to return it for the high cost until I experimentedand discovered it is worth the money. Would have given four and a halfstars because of special cord and not enough time for panorama.Low cost point and shoot cameras feel cheap. I like quality thingsbecause they last...I hope it does last a long time.

Chances are that if you're even considering this camera you've already read tons of reviews that reiterate the camera's features and specs. Here's a practical review that I hope you find helpful if you're in the same situation I am.I own a Nikon D90 DSLR camera. I started photography as a hobby before my oldest child was born 4 years ago. I'm by no means a photography expert (that takes YEARS), but I've gotten very familiar with common photography techniques and controlling manual settings, i.e. aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, etc. My kids are currently 3 and 1.My primary goal in getting this camera was to replace an aging Canon SD500 point and shoot. I wanted something fast and light that I could take with me on day trips (and possibly traveling) instead of my DSLR, as well as something that wouldn't be too intimidating for my wife to use. I also considered the Olympus XZ-1 and the Sony HX9V (I know, they're all in different classes).What attracted me to the Olympus was the fact that it has the largest sensor, widest aperture across its entire zoom range, and hot shoe for attachments. What attracted me to the Sony was the fact that it had the best video and longest zoom range.I settled on the Nikon P300 because it appeared to offer a balance between the other two and it happened to be the cheapest of the bunch (at the time I bought it the price dropped to a REALLY low price so I just pounced on it).What I like===========================For a point a shoot, this camera is pretty fast, i.e. the time to take a pic after you turn it on and the time between shots. This is crucial with kids. You can also turn on continuous shooting which does something like 7 or 8 shots per second at full resolution, almost twice as fast as my D90 DSLR! Great for kids! Get every facial muscle twitch as they slide down that slide! Woohoo!Ergonomics are great. Love the rubber bumper on front.I love that it has a dedicated video button.I thought I would miss having a longer zoom range, but in practice I find that I don't really use it much anyway. With kids you're usually right there by them. Unless you're a bad parent, then boo on you.The large aperture is great for getting quick shots in low light. However, it's not magic. You can only do so much, even with a wide aperture. I still get blurry shots every so often, probably need to jack up the ISO. It appears that the auto settings max out the ISO to 800 (anything higher causes a lot of noise in the image), so to get higher ISO you have to be in one of the manual settings and set it manually. With kids, you tend to leave it on full auto because, really, you don't have time to fiddle with settings.Photos come out crisp and clear as long as you don't pixel peep (zoom in 100% to look for imperfections). Color reproduction is amazing, colors really pop without being unnatural and overly saturated. Metering is usually spot on, meaning it knows how to balance the contrast with different amounts of light in the frame.Love that it has a physical pop up flash so that you can control for a certainty whether the flash fires or not. Also like that it's a mechanical spring loaded mechanism rather than a motorized flash, one less thing to break.I love the boxy retro look and feel. Even though it's bigger than my old Canon SD500, it feels lighter. It fits great in my pockets, regular or cargo. I can use the same pouch from my Canon if I want, too.Screen is HUGE and BRIGHT and CRISP. No problems whatsoever seeing it outdoors with sunglasses on (except when turning it sideways if you wear polarized glasses, then you can't see it at all, blah).I like that it takes video in H.264 .mov file format. It seems to be more universal and can play on more devices without having to convert it or install a special codec. The Sony takes video in AVCHD format. The Olympus I didn't even bother to check because after seeing video samples, I didn't really care to even bother. I love that there's a dedicated exposure lock while taking video, but I wish I could set it before I start recording. Maybe there's a way, I just need to look it up.What I don't like===========================Yes, it takes 1080p HD video at 30 frames per second with stereo sound, woohoo! Buzz words galore! The videos come out crisp, the colors are great, BUT, the image stabilization SUCKS compared to the Sony, and the mics suck up wind noise like Charlie Sheen sucks up blow. Also if you pan too fast it gets choppy. Maybe I need a faster SD card, but I'd think that if the SD card had issues keeping up with the camera it would just stop recording altogether rather than skip frames. Who knows, I'll give it a shot.The autofocus doesn't always work right when recording video. I have it set to continuous autofocus, but it seems to have a hard time deciding what to focus on. In fact, even if you leave it pointing at a non-moving subject, you can sometimes see the focus going in and out on its own. If you're following your kids around and they go close to far to close, and you try to zoom in and out, the focus takes a while to catch up.Also, when you're recording video in a relatively quiet environment and you zoom in or out, you can hear the zoom motor in the video recording. zzzzzzz. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. zzzzzzz. That's what it sounds like.The camera can be quirky. Sometimes it doesn't turn on, or it turns on then off then on. Once, it locked up on me and I had to take out the battery. The battery door can be easy to open if you hit the release just right.It does not come with an external battery charger, you have to charge the battery in the camera. The connector is proprietary, not mini or micro USB. The battery lasts an OK amount of time, but I'd get a spare and an external charger if you can. The battery life indicator doesn't give much warning as to when it will die, it goes from full to low then off quickly.Other notes:===========================So the photos aren't as good as a DSLR or probably the Olympus. The video isn't as good as the Sony. But for the price, you really can't go wrong with this camera. It isn't perfect, but I think so far I'm impressed, and it's been a great camera to carry around and follow the kids with.