Britain used to be a Empire, ruled by an Emperor, then a Kingdom ruled by a king, now its a country....
Britain used to be a Empire, ruled by an Emperor, then a Kingdom ruled by a king, now its a country......
Member since:25.07.2003
Reviews:64
Members who trust:60
This was the first rewiew i wrote on Ciao, and looking back at it, its not very good, so instead of updating it i have decided to re-write it completly, i will start off by giving you all of the technical details and then give you the real opinion, lets get started.
o0o0o0o The Price o0o0o0o
I purchased mine from PC world a couple of months ago now, and it had just been knocked down from £250 to £180, which is a real bargain!
It advises that you charge the batteries up for a minimum of 10 hours when first using them, a really, really long time, especially when you just want to get started taking pictures!! But, of course, i did what is reccomended, after spending so much money i didn't want to take any chances. After i had waited for what seemed like an eternity i finally got to play with it, i put the batteries in the camera, and put the Compact Flash card in the slot provided and i was away.
o0o0o0o The Camera o0o0o0o
The camera is very small, roughly 3cmx6cmx8cm, and very light, even with the batteries in. It has a 1.5 inchTFT screen, used for viewing and sorting you pictures. It has a built-in flash, and obviously the lense on the front, and on the back there are the menu buttons and the zoom buttons, (along with the screen). On top there is the 'mode dial' and the button used to take the photos, to turn it on there is a lever with the button on top which you simply push to the side.
Once you turn it on the lense comes out and makes a whirring noise, while it is turned off the lense automatically detracts and covers it self up. On the screen the 'Coolpix' logo is shown briefly and then it shows whatever it is pointed at. Thats basically it, if you want to take a picture you can then use the zoom buttons to zoom in and out, then press the button, it auto focuses and has an auto flash feature which makes it even simpler to use.
o0o0o0o Extra Features o0o0o0o
On the Mode dial at the top of the camera there are several different modes which you can choose from, including; Camera, Movie and scene. Camera mode is selected when wanting to take normal photos. The camera has a movie mode, which is 15 secs (max) without sound, not really sure what the use is for it, but is quite good fun. When using the scene mode you can select an 'environment' such as Part/Indoor, or Fireworks night etc, the camera then sets the variables to how it thinks it will work best in that environment, in camera mode you can change all of the things to suit your needs anyway you like, i dont have a great knowledge of how light effects pictures, so i just generally use the regular mode and dont change anything.
Every mode on the dial has a menu, where you can change the sttings of each individual mode. There is also a 'Set up' mode on the dial, where you can set the quality of the picture- 640, 1024, 1600. All of the menus are very easy to navigate, and it of course comes with the usual instruction manual which is the size of the new Harry Potter book, i have read (most) of it, but for what i want it to do for me i know how to use it.
o0o0o0o Uploading Pictures o0o0o0o
When you install the software onto you PC it installs Nikon View 6, and Arcsoft Panorama maker, Nikon view is where you can manage all of your pictures and where you control where they are uploaded to. The panorama maker is a very clever program where you can put in a few pictures you have taken of a building etc, that you have had to take more than one picture, it then puts all of them together to make one big, high quality, picture.
The camera comes with a 8mb card, which on high quality (1600) will take 15 pictures, this isnt many but i bought a 128mb card for £24 from e-buyer.com and it holds hundreds!!
The pictures are uploaded through a USB cable which connects directly to you PC, all you do is connect the camera, turn it on, and a menu automatically pops up and gives the name of the folder where they will go, which you can change, then you press the transfer button and it starts, to upload 30 reasonable quality pictures takes about 5 seconds, which is plenty quick enough!! It then opens Nikon view for you where you can manage or edit them.
o0o0o0o Main Features o0o0o0o
2.0 Effective Megapixels 36-108mm 3x Zoom-Nikkor Lens (35mm equivalent) 14 scene modes One touch transfer Accepts type I CompactFlash cards
Overall this is a very good camera, it is small, light and very easy to use, creates very good quality pictures which upload very quickly, it has basically everything possibly wanted from a digital camera. It also has the benefit of being made by Nikon, which are very high quality camera makers, and it feels sturdy enough to last for a long time. The only bad point i can make is that it doesnt come with a case, i bought one which cost £10 which does the job perfectly, but for nearly £200 you would have thought they could include one!! If you are looking for a camera i would definately reccomend for you to go out and buy this one!!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Nice. Tells you everything you need to know without being too techy about it! Thanks, Im on the lookout for a digital camera and will bear this in mind... mini
dkezzla 16.10.2003 03:19
nice op,ive got the coolpix 2000 it dont have as many extras as yours but i like it.read my op on it if you havent already!....kev
Advantages: Great price for a 5 megapixels camera, good battery life, easy to navigate menu Disadvantages: Poor picture quality, bad shutter lag,indoor pictures very poor, poor flash and so on...
adicos 26.04.2007 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of NikonCoolpix L3
Jul 25th, 2003
(Aug 30th, 2003)
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