Nikon has been among the first off the rank in unleashing
their brand new compacts out into the wild for 2012, and it seems there is
something of a revolution on the horizon.
You may have heard by now that the all-new
Nikon COOLPIX S800c
runs on the Android™ platform, making this a pioneer “smart camera” of sorts
with the added functionality of effortless wireless transfer of your photos to
smartphones and tablets, sharing to social networks and of course access to
over 500,000 apps through Google Play direct to your camera.
Not to mention the distractions of email, YouTube and Google
Maps – we wonder if you will ever get time to take photos. Though, we eagerly await
hands-on reviews of this product – the camera itself seems pretty darn decent,
with a 16-megapixel backlit CMOS sensor, ten times (10x) optical zoom, built-in
GPS tagging and access to the myPicturetown app, an online storage and sharing
system for photos and full albums.
Perhaps the only immediate concerns might be the reduced
battery life almost always associated with smart devices, and the lack of 3G
compatibility. What do you think?
In addition to this, Nikon has released the latest in their “pro compact”
sector, the
COOLPIX P7700. Affording the user
full manual control and DSLR-like
image quality with exceptional performance in low light, it rivals the
long-standing Canon G-series as a perfect compromise between compact and DSLR. The
12.2 megapixel CMOS sensor,
7.1x optical zoom and improved
lens shift vibration
reduction help make it the best instalment yet.
Perhaps the outstanding feature of the COOLPIX P7700 is the
amount of control on offer in video mode. Of course it is Full HD, 1080p with
stereo sound, but you can also tinker with the shutter speed, ISO settings and
aperture to achieve new heights in video performance and get the look you want.
The last one in this new gamut of COOLPIX goodness is the
COOLPIX S6400, sounding off for the more entry level
point-and-shooters.
The COOLPIX S6400 steps it up a little from the simplicity
of the COOLPIX S01, providing a whopping twelve times (12x) optical zoom with
lens shift vibration reduction and touch screen operation, including Target Finding
Auto Focus – simply point and click and the camera automatically predicts the
subject it should focus on resulting in an painless sharp image.
We should start seeing these little beauties hit shelves around the end of September, and we will update the product links on this post with our own as soon as they're available for preorder.