Holy !,Nikon Coolpix P900

would be useless without a tripod.

Please somebody buy me one. Please!

originally posted by: PhoenixOD
would be useless without a tripod.

DUH!

originally posted by: PhoenixOD
would be useless without a tripod.

At maximum zoom, definitely. If you watch the video, even with the tripod, you can see a lot of shaking because the tripod isn't sturdy enough.

However you'd be able to take non zoomed or even wide angle photos without a tripod.
I don't know if this camera allows interchangeable lenses, but that's an option 35mm cameras used to let you not have to lug a huge telephoto or zoom lens around when you want to take non-zoomed pictures.

The zoom range on this lens will cover non-zoomed pictures, but the lens is still huge.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Im a professional photographer. The lens is a gimmick, its completely unpractical to almost everyone who would be buying the low-mid end of the cannon product price range. Theres going to be 1000's who will want the camera because of the zoom but will probably almost never use it.

At that zoom level you cant move the camera in any direction, you would need a tripod with controls like a microscope for that. It would have to be super sturdy as well and something like that will weigh a lot unless you get a top of the range carbon fiber model..to use a bottom of the range camera.

Taking a picture at full zoom during a warm day will produce a warped picture because of accumulated heat shimmer.

The picture will be milky without definition so will never produce a good photograph, just something that your going to have to explain each time.."it looks like that because its was at full zoom".

The pictures will be soft at wide angle and at full zoom. you wont get a crisp picture at either end of the scale. As with most zoom lenses the best focal range will be in the middle of the range.

You can only use the zoom by motor power and that takes 4 seconds! So don't think your going to be using it to take pics of anything moving, especially as it apparently suffers from a huge amount shutter lag (3/4th of a second).

There's no lens hood so you are going to get sun flairs and refractions when shooting into the sun. Also because the aperture has only 6 sides the lens flair you will get will be very unattractive (kind of blurred fuzzy hexagon) and cheapen the look of any picture shooting into bright light spots. You wont want to use this lens for sunset or sunrise shots. Also went shooting pictures with back lit bright light any bokeh will look just awful.

There is no RAW mode so all pictures will be jpgs which is great for the facebook generation but no good for producing editable photographs at you will want to send to print.

Because of the small sensor size (1:2:3) the camera will preform badly in low light at the wide and long ends of its range. So you are limited to using it in very bright daylight and if at full zoom not a very warm day.

Because of the 1:2:3 sensor size coupled at 16mp you wont be using it for prints larger than 8"x10" because they will lose definition and look fuzzy. Really not great for wildlife photography at close to full zoom.

It can shoot at 7fps at full picture size but then takes almost 5 seconds for the buffer to clear before you can shoot again! lol. The buffer increases to 60 shots for the 60fps and 120fps burst rates, but image size is reduced to achieve this, 1920×1080 for 60fps and 640×480 (eek nasty!) for 120fps.

Overall it will appeal to a bunch of people who wish they were James Bond.

a reply to: PhoenixOD

I'm pretty sure you absolutely destroyed this camera with one solitary post... and with accurate information. Well said.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Kapusta
Have any of you seen the Zoom capability if this cam ?

Have you seen how big that lens is?

Not only do you have to lug that huge lens around, but you can't take that kind of telephoto shots hand-held so you've also got to lug around a tripod. Professional photographers do this all the time so it can be done, but it's a little cumbersome for most amateurs to carry around something that big.

I like it though. I hate all the miniaturization of cameras with crappy lenses that take 4 megapixel photos, but the lens is so tiny and bad they look more out of focus than a 1 megapixel pic taken by a camera with a good lens.

It's like a 40 power telescope (the 83x magnification must be from a wide angle view). One thing to watch out for though is sometimes extreme zoom telephoto lenses have a lot of distortion, especially at the edges of the picture, but with better computer aided design of lenses maybe this can be minimized, as I didn't notice a lot of distortion in the video.

I hope some UFO photographers get these and put them on tripods so we can see more than a fuzzy dot for a "UFO" picture or video.

Actually, you can shoot hand held with an ultra zoom lens, especially on a point and shoot such as this...You get used to holding the camera and, after a while, get a feel for how to do so in order to get your shot. It is a consumer camera and Nikon knows that most people who use this camera want it for vacations, family get togethers, etc. and not for pro or even semi pro use.

Just takes time to learn is all. That, combined with the camera's image stabilization features, makes it possible.

But, a monopod or tripod will make it much easier and a better shot, of course. Also, the size of this is nothing compared to my full frame Nikon. That camera combined with a ultra wide lens or a 2.8 70-300 is heavy, especially when out hiking and camping, etc.

If this shoots NEF (RAW) files, it may be my next camera as we are moving out west and I am looking for something smaller and lighter for all the exploring in my near future!

a reply to: lovebeck

it doesnt shoot raw.

originally posted by: PhoenixOD
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Im a professional photographer. The lens is a gimmick, its completely unpractical to almost everyone who would be buying the low-mid end of the cannon product price range. Theres going to be 1000's who will want the camera because of the zoom but will probably almost never use it.

At that zoom level you cant move the camera in any direction, you would need a tripod with controls like a microscope for that. It would have to be super sturdy as well and something like that will weigh a lot unless you get a top of the range carbon fiber model..to use a bottom of the range camera.

Taking a picture at full zoom during a warm day will produce a warped picture because of accumulated heat shimmer.

The picture will be milky without definition so will never produce a good photograph, just something that your going to have to explain each time.."it looks like that because its was at full zoom".

The pictures will be soft at wide angle and at full zoom. you wont get a crisp picture at either end of the scale. As with most zoom lenses the best focal range will be in the middle of the range.

You can only use the zoom by motor power and that takes 4 seconds! So don't think your going to be using it to take pics of anything moving, especially as it apparently suffers from a huge amount shutter lag (3/4th of a second).

There's no lens hood so you are going to get sun flairs and refractions when shooting into the sun. Also because the aperture has only 6 sides the lens flair you will get will be very unattractive (kind of blurred fuzzy hexagon) and cheapen the look of any picture shooting into bright light spots. You wont want to use this lens for sunset or sunrise shots. Also went shooting pictures with back lit bright light any bokeh will look just awful.

There is no RAW mode so all pictures will be jpgs which is great for the facebook generation but no good for producing editable photographs at you will want to send to print.

Because of the small sensor size (1:2:3) the camera will preform badly in low light at the wide and long ends of its range. So you are limited to using it in very bright daylight and if at full zoom not a very warm day.

Because of the 1:2:3 sensor size coupled at 16mp you wont be using it for prints larger than 8"x10" because they will lose definition and look fuzzy. Really not great for wildlife photography at close to full zoom.

It can shoot at 7fps at full picture size but then takes almost 5 seconds for the buffer to clear before you can shoot again! lol. The buffer increases to 60 shots for the 60fps and 120fps burst rates, but image size is reduced to achieve this, 1920×1080 for 60fps and 640×480 (eek nasty!) for 120fps.

Overall it will appeal to a bunch of people who wish they were James Bond.

Ya.....I am not a professional and you are correct and I have the 40x zoom model. When I zoom out all it is very shaky in hand. I have never used the whole 40x I usually pull back 20-30x range.

in the United States hundreds of millions of cameras and nothing really important you have not photographed, and it's not about the price and not zoom 83

Dude, seriously, you posted this in 2015 and I'm buying this camera in 2017 and I plan to take it up to Tikaboo Peak near Area 51 to utilize the zoom. I'm also a pro-photographer, probably beyond your skill level and plan to utilize atmospheric distortion, heat waves, mirage distortions as creative effects. An effective photographer, or one that is creatively skilled can push the limits and maximize any piece of equipment if they are skilled enough to work within any restrictions. A skilled photographer can pull gallery quality images from a lousy iPhone camera and get them shown in a New York Gallery. A lousy photographer can't take an award winning photograph with a $50,000 camera if they don't know what the hell an F-stop is or don't have the basics down regarding 2-dimensional design. The Nikon Coolpix F900 is a very capable camera in the right hands of a skilled photographer and it's very capable of producing excellent results even without RAW. Many pros use Jpeg as their end product as well especially for online color-corrected printing from printing houses like White House or Bay Photo. So no, you didn't pulverize this camera in one fell swoop. In fact, I joined ATS to address a response to your incredibly biased and slanted post.

I shoot with Full Frame Sony A7Rs and know the limits of the cameras that I invest in. You can't beat the focal length you get in the P900 unless you want to invest tens of thousands of dollars in a telephoto lens to get anywhere near that equivalent. For $500 or $600, nobody could go wrong with this camera.

Nate

originally posted by: PhoenixOD
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Im a professional photographer. The lens is a gimmick, its completely unpractical to almost everyone who would be buying the low-mid end of the cannon product price range. Theres going to be 1000's who will want the camera because of the zoom but will probably almost never use it.

At that zoom level you cant move the camera in any direction, you would need a tripod with controls like a microscope for that. It would have to be super sturdy as well and something like that will weigh a lot unless you get a top of the range carbon fiber model..to use a bottom of the range camera.

Taking a picture at full zoom during a warm day will produce a warped picture because of accumulated heat shimmer.

The picture will be milky without definition so will never produce a good photograph, just something that your going to have to explain each time.."it looks like that because its was at full zoom".

The pictures will be soft at wide angle and at full zoom. you wont get a crisp picture at either end of the scale. As with most zoom lenses the best focal range will be in the middle of the range.

You can only use the zoom by motor power and that takes 4 seconds! So don't think your going to be using it to take pics of anything moving, especially as it apparently suffers from a huge amount shutter lag (3/4th of a second).

There's no lens hood so you are going to get sun flairs and refractions when shooting into the sun. Also because the aperture has only 6 sides the lens flair you will get will be very unattractive (kind of blurred fuzzy hexagon) and cheapen the look of any picture shooting into bright light spots. You wont want to use this lens for sunset or sunrise shots. Also went shooting pictures with back lit bright light any bokeh will look just awful.

There is no RAW mode so all pictures will be jpgs which is great for the facebook generation but no good for producing editable photographs at you will want to send to print.

Because of the small sensor size (1:2:3) the camera will preform badly in low light at the wide and long ends of its range. So you are limited to using it in very bright daylight and if at full zoom not a very warm day.

Because of the 1:2:3 sensor size coupled at 16mp you wont be using it for prints larger than 8"x10" because they will lose definition and look fuzzy. Really not great for wildlife photography at close to full zoom.

It can shoot at 7fps at full picture size but then takes almost 5 seconds for the buffer to clear before you can shoot again! lol. The buffer increases to 60 shots for the 60fps and 120fps burst rates, but image size is reduced to achieve this, 1920×1080 for 60fps and 640×480 (eek nasty!) for 120fps.

Overall it will appeal to a bunch of people who wish they were James Bond.