This is the first part of a review about my Nikon Coolpix P5100… after 3 weeks of use.

As I already wrote, the first approach wasn’t good because it’s really different from my previous camera.
However, I can say it’s a lot better in everything, except the macro function (I will talk about that later).

The camera is small, so it can be considered a “portable” camera…
… so after some inital doubts (it’s not something you can lost and buy every month) now I bring it with me every day.

I started to experiment, first of all, every automatic function.
The scenes (the classical sunset, landscape, and so on) works great and are a good way to be “almost sure” you will not burn a good occasion to do a nice photo.

I was surprised more than everything else by the potrait and night potrait functions, that target faces automagically and follow them if the person moves.
The result is very good.

Of course, the semi-manual modes are the top feature of this camera.

I call them semi-manual cause there is no way to play with the focus, and that for me is really a great loss.
Probably, that is normal for a bridge camera… but from the best Nikon bridge camera I expected something more.
So there are only the most common three ways of using the focus:

• Automatic (infrared or yellow-light pointer)
• Macro (for very-near targets)
• Infinite (for landscapes or outdoors)

That of course means that you can’t do immediate photos (snapshots) cause the camera has to focus the target before you can do the shot.
That is an example:

Of course with some hacking you can… :

1. pre-focus another object that is at the same distance of the real target, keeping the “soft shot” button pressed
2. turn the camera against the real target
3. do the photo instantly just pressing harder the shot button

That can be done also with the flash removing the “red-eye” function.
This is another example:

I have still few photos of the same objects, to compare the two cameras …
… and I don’t think I will do more, cause the cost of Coolpix P5100 is nearly the double of the Digimax i6, so there can not be comparison between them.
However two of them are these:

There is clear that the new camera is a lot better than the old one.
Unfortunately the swans was not in the scene in the second photo, that was done two weeks after the first in the same hour.

In the next review I will:

• Compare the macro function that is the only thing I miss from my old Samsung Diximax i6 (I have to decide if sell it or not!)
  I will of course upload examples.
• do a list of the “pros and cons” of this amazing camera.