Nikon Coolpix 4300 > Reviews > 'A beginners eye view' through the lens!

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Excellent
Range & Quality of Features	Excellent
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Overall Look & Design	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Easy to use, great quality pictures, attractive appearance, value for money
Disadvantages:	Can be slow to reset  for follow up pictures, needed to buy extra accessories .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Although it took beautifuI photos, I finally got fed up with lugging my bulky, though well loved camera about, and decided to invest in a new Digital camera. However, being a novice I did not really know much about what I should look for.

I spent lots of time comparing the descriptions of several models, prices, appearance, quality etc, and ended up with my Nikon Coolpix 4300.

This camera is compact, lightweight, and attractive.
It has:-
4.0 megapixels
3x optical zoom
12 easy scene modes
One touch upload to the pc
4x stepless digital zoom
Autofocus, manual, scene and movie shooting modes

If all that spec hasn't bored you too much, I can tell you that I have taken some lovely pictures, using the menu to chose
'BACKLIGHT' when taking pics of my daughter performing on stage in her band,
'SUNSETS' on a camping holiday,
'BEACH' on hols,
'NIGHT PORTRAIT'
'INDOOR PARTY' at a wedding reception,
'PORTRAIT' for my children and to make passport photos,
'CLOSE UP' on poppies and a lovely dragonfly- which shows every fibre of the expanded wings,
'NIGHT LANDSCAPE' 'MUSEUM' etc.
I have tried the black and white menu, this made the pictures look very classy and modern, in a dated sort of way! This is really a versatile camera, with plenty of scope for a beginner to learn more.

I have used the self timer, which is easy to set up, and resulted in getting some lovely pics of my friend and I together in the same frame! The duration of the self timer can be 3 seconds or 10 seconds. Its amazing how quick you can move when you want to!

The recycle bin is there to send the pictures to, that people take of you when you are not expecting it!

My camera came with a rechargeable battery and charger, but I bought an additional battery to carry around just incase the one in use runs out, it does happen!

I also bought a camera package with an additional 256MB compact flash card, as I wanted to make sure I could take plenty of photos of high quality, without worrying that I would run out of space on the 16MB compact flash card that came with the camera itself.

I bought my camera online over a year ago, I am still learning about its features, I later bought a carry case to protect it, and hold spare battery & flash card, though it is not a nikon case, it does a good job.

I would recommend this camera to anyone who likes to make their own choices, but does not know much initially about digital cameras, there is plenty of scope to learn about its vast capabilities, I am still learning myself!