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Rangefinder Magazine
March 2002

Digital Photography: Nikon Coolpix 5000 by John Rettie

The Nikon Coolpix 5000 is much more conventional than the 995.

One of the most eagerly anticipated new cameras in the past few months has been the Nikon Coolpix 5000. That’s because it’s predecessors, the Coolpix 990 and 995, have become firm favorites with professional photographers. The 990/995 have proven to be ideal cameras for those who either don’t need to spend more than $2500 on a high-end 35mm-based digital camera body or who are looking for a compact point-and-shoot digital camera to carry around for everyday use.

Regular readers of this column will know that I have owned a Coolpix 990 for two years and a Nikon D1 for almost as long. I have been using the 990 for travel photography, coverage of auto shows and for most product photographs used in this column. Ironically I have had more pictures published that were shot on the 990 than on the D1 in the past year.

On paper the Coolpix 5000 looks like a significant upgrade to the 995. As its name suggests it has a 5.0 megapixel CCD instead of 3.3 megapixels in the 990 and 995 models. It produces images with a size of 2560x1920 pixels compared to 2048x1536 on the 990 and 995.

Some photographers will like the 5000’s flip out rotating LCD more than the revolving body on the 995.

In a major departure from the unique and generally well received swivel-body design of the 990, the 5000 has a more conventional camera body with a flip out LCD screen on the back for viewing at an angle. The overall look and design is very similar to the Canon G2.

The 3X zoom lens has a much wider angle of view with an equivalent range of 28–85
mm instead of the 38–152mm equivalency 4X zoom on the 995. It takes the same proprietary Li-ion battery that’s used in the 995 and likewise, it will accept the IBM Microdrive as well as CompactFlash cards. Another important change is the addition of a hot-shoe for using an external flash, such as one of the Nikon Speedlight flash units.

The Coolpix 5000 has a mind-boggling variety of settings to suit many needs that are activated via a menu or small buttons on the body. Anyone familiar with the 995 will feel comfortable with the 5000 although there are some differences. For example, the on/off switch is no longer used for switching from automatic to manual. Instead, manual settings can be saved in three user-defined sets, which are activated by pushing the function button and rotating the command dial. Although it takes a microsecond longer to switch modes increased flexibility is achieved as one can set up three different operational modes from the comprehensive list of options such as white balance, shooting speed (including movie modes), metering, focusing, noise reduction, bracketing, image sharpening, saturation, etc.

Nikon is promoting the 5000 as part of a system that includes four auxiliary screw-on lenses.

Nikon is promoting the Coolpix 5000 as part of a whole system. To that end it sent along four auxiliary lenses for review. These are 2X and 3X telephoto lenses, a wide-angle lens equivalent to 19mm and a fisheye lens. All except for the wide-angle are the same lenses that work with the 990, although adapters are required to fit the different size mount on the 5000.

In another big design departure from the previous cameras the 5000 has a lens that extends externally by over an inch when set to the record mode. There is no thread on the lens itself for mounting the adapters or any filters, instead the tube surrounding the base of the lens is threaded. However, it is much bigger than the lens on the 995 hence the reason adapters are required to use the same lenses.

Although the Coolpix 5000 appears to be smaller than the 990 it actually takes up more volume because the lens protrudes from the body, even when turned off. When switched on it’s obviously much less compact.

Ergonomically the Coolpix 5000 has some quirks, which is surprising, as the engineers seemed to have missed a beat. A note in the box warns one not to cover the flash sensor when taking flash pictures. It is located right alongside the hand grip beside the shutter button and is easily covered by a finger leading to badly underexposed flash images. The rocker switch for zooming the lens is right where one’s thumb rests when holding the camera. I kept on finding myself accidentally zooming the lens out to maximum between shots. Lastly the camera does not boot up if the lens cap is left on. It’s a normal style cap that is held in place using the screw thread and the lens cannot physically extend when turned on if it remains in place.

Photographers with big hands will probably find the 5000 too small for their liking. Nikon sells a battery pack that holds six AA- size batteries in place of the proprietary Nikon Li-ion EN-EL1 battery. It screws on underneath the camera and also provides a vertical shutter release. It adds some bulk to the camera that should make it more comfortable for those with big hands as well as provide longer battery life. I am hoping to test one of these in the near future.

The 5000 does produce a better image (left) than the 995 as seen in this screen capture.

Although the camera’s functions and versatility are very similar to the 990/995 I personally like the revolving body on the 990 much better than the flip out LCD screen on the 5000. The 990 can be held more easily with both hands for better bracing when taking hand held shots at slow speeds. This is important to me as I use the 990 a lot to take photos and quick “studio” type still life photos when I don't have a tripod or studio at the ready.

In operation the camera is no faster than the older Coolpix cameras. In fact, it takes about six seconds for the camera to be ready for shooting after switching on, compared to five seconds for the 990. To me the camera also felt slower in operation while capturing images. On the fine JPEG setting it took about six seconds waiting for the image to be written to the CompactFlash card. I didn’t have a chance to do any accurate timed testing though, so other users might have a different feeling for the camera’s speed of operation. So much of this is dependent on settings as well as the storage card.

Of course the bottom line is the quality of the images the camera captures. Sadly I felt the results were not what I expected considering the great leap from 3.3 to 5.0 megapixels. Yes the images are better but there is still some chromatic aberration appearing on highlights and I was surprised at how many soft images I got during my test shootings. I suspect that the lens is just too small for maximum sharpness.

	Left: A VW New Beetle Turbo S poses in front of a hotel in Phoenix. Unaltered image captured on the Coolpix 5000.

t’s kind of disappointing but this is the second upgraded 5.0-megapixel camera I’ve tried that failed to meet my expectations. Don’t get me wrong, if you haven’t experienced a digital camera you’ll be really impressed by the 5000, as it’s a great point- and-shoot camera. However, there is definitely room for improvement in several areas. Because of this it’s tough to justify upgrading from a 990 or 995 especially as the 5000 is retailing for $1,099, which is a $100 increase over the retail price of the 995.

PMA
By the time you read this column the annual PMA photo show will have taken place in Orlando. At the time of writing, rumors were rampant about what new digital cameras would be announced. Hopefully, by now you’ll know about new Nikon and Fuji cameras and maybe Contax will have introduced a production version of its long-promised 6-megapixel camera.

But even that will be overshadowed by Canon’s announcement. At press time, the only information I was privy to was that Canon would announce it’s new EOS-D60 digital camera body along with a couple of upgraded consumer point-and-shoot cameras. The D60 is essentially identical to the D30 but with a 6.5 megapixel CMOS chip which should produce exceptionally high quality images with a size of 3072x2048 pixels. Based on the great images produced by the 3-megapixel chip in the D30, the D60 should be ideal for studio and wedding photographers. The physical size of the chip has not changed so the same 1.6x multiplier effect still applies. Beyond the increased pixel density the camera has some minor upgrades such as improved autofocus and the ability to record RAW+JPEG files simultaneously. Even better the street price remains under $3000 making it a very attractive digital camera for owners of Canon EOS lenses.

On the consumer side the new digital Powershot cameras (A100, A30 and A40) have an interesting feature—which Canon says is the results of consumer feedback— they use regular AA batteries instead of proprietary battery packs. In my opinion this is good news as rechargeable NiMH AA batteries are by far the most cost effective and convenient batteries on the market. Perhaps Nikon, Olympus and Sony will follow Canon’s lead and switch back to using AA batteries. The beauty of AAs is that they are a standard size that can be found anywhere and can be used in a wide variety of products beyond just cameras. Kudos to Canon for listening to consumers.

	Below: Lexar’s Firewire CompactFlash card reader is about four times faster at transferring images to a computer than a USB reader.

Lexar Firewire Reader
I have always been in favor of using an external card reader to download images from a CompactFlash card to my computer. Until now I’ve been content with USB readers. But after trying a Firewire CompactFlash reader sold by Lexar, I’ll never go back to a USB version. Instead of taking 12 minutes to transfer 500 images in a 614MB folder stored on one of the latest 640MB 16X Lexar CompactFlash cards, the Firewire reader managed it in 3.5 minutes! If you’re downloading large quantities of images a Firewire reader can be quite a time saver, even though its $89.95 purchase price is three times that of a USB reader. As an aside, it’s also great to see CompactFlash cards reaching capacities that rival the Microdrive. Although still more expensive (the 640MB Lexar card costs over $600), they are considered to be more robust. Having said that I have yet to have any problems with the 1 GB IBM Microdrive I’ve been using in my Nikon D1.

Martin Evening’s Adobe Photoshop 6.0 For Photographers is a great book for learning about digital imaging.

Quick Book Review
As its name suggests, Adobe Photoshop 6.0 For Photographers, by Martin Evening, a British photographer and lecturer, is a book aimed at photographers. It seems that most books on Photoshop are geared to graphic artists, which is fine if you’ve got a grasp of the fundamentals of digital imaging and understand the requirements of printshops and the like.

However, if you’re fairly new to digital imaging, this book will help guide you through every step from capturing the image from setting up Photoshop to learning short cuts and image manipulation. It has a comprehensive chapter on color management as well, which is often a confusing subject. All in all the reasonably priced $39.95, 430-page book comes packed with information presented in a concise but thorough fashion. It also includes a CD-ROM for Mac and Windows that includes sample images and movie tutorials for guidance. Besides the book, Evening also has a useful website, www.photoshopforphotographers.com that has sample pages and other goodies from the book.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 32 years, a computer for 22 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past nine years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.