Fen's Digital Photography Page: Overview

So I started looking for a new camera to do most of my shooting with, and in January of 2000 I traded up to the Nikon Coolpix 950. A great little camera! Elaine and I love to use the swivel feature to take quick and easy hand-held self-portraits where ever we go.

Nikon's newer update of the 950, the 995 is out now. Though it has some useful features, in my opinion (and there may be a touch of sour grapes here ;-) the 995's best feature is that it's dropped the price of the 950! First, you probably don't need the 995's three megapixel resolution. I can print pix from my two megapixel 950 at 5"x7" and they look great. (Remember that most computer screens display less than one megapixel!) Do you need bigger shots that take more memory (and thus require large memory cards)? Probably not, unless you're a professional, in which case I'd recommend a Nikon D1x or Kodak DCS 620 professional level camera starting at around $4000 - without the lens! And do you really need the ability to record low-grade sound or movie snippets? If you want to do that, I recommend a digital video camera. If what you want is simply great pictures at a great price, the Nikon Coolpix 950's for you! (The new Nikon 880 is a less expensive version of the 995 with most of its features and is slightly smaller, but lacks the handy swivel.)

Caveat: OK, there's one thing that bugs me about the Nikon 950, and I wish they'd fix this in a future firmware update. When the camera is shut off or goes to sleep, the lens reverts to a zoomed position. I usually like to frame a picture starting from a wide angle setting and then zooming in, so this is annoying. I have adapted to this mis-feature by automatically hitting the wide-angle button whenever I turn the camera on.

And finally, there are many more good cameras these days. Canon (particularly the cool PowerShot G2), Fuji, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus and Sony make some of the best. Check out the review sites (below) for more information and suggestions.