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amazon Nikon P950 reviews
As point-and-shoot camera announcements become increasingly scarce, the Nikon P950 is in one category that remains untouchable by smartphones: superzoom. With an 83X, 24-2,000mm equivalent lens, the P950 can capture subjects you can’t see with the naked eye.
An update to the P900, the P950 adds 4K video and RAW photos, two new features that more advanced photographers will appreciate. Despite those updates, the P950 still performs well in auto mode for less experienced shooters. New exposure compensation controls on the lens allow for basic brightness adjustments that anyone should have usable, even without understanding how exposure works.
Not everyone needs the 83x zoom, but the P950 offers an affordable, if not perfect, solution for those who do.
Burly Design
That 83x zoom lens does not surprisingly dominate the body of the Nikon P950. The lens is so large; you can feel the camera’s weight shifting forward in your hand as it stretches. At 35.5 ounces, the P950 weights a DSLR (but with a much smaller lens). I still manage to carry my camera on a 5-mile hike without feeling uncomfortable. Unlike a DSLR, I don’t need to move around many lenses to shoot wide-angle and telephoto.
The body style mimics a DSLR, which means the P950 has a large, comfortable grip, roomy physical controls, and a hot shoe slot at the top. The control scheme is similar to the P900, with the mode dial and control wheel in the upper right and a series of familiar menu controls at the rear.
While there’s plenty of room to maneuver, advanced photographers will have to do a bit more menu digging. ISO, a fairly frequent adjustment in any manual mode, is not among the shortcut options.
The barrel of the lens is so large it contains its controls. The zoom toggle provides a second way to zoom in with your left hand, while a pull-back button zooms so you can reframe the subject. New to the P950 is the exposure compensation wheel in the barrel. One of my favorite controls is resting right, where my left hand supports the camera’s weight and allows for easy lightening or darkening of shots.
The P950 also has a 2.36 million-dot electronic viewfinder. The viewfinder is almost necessary with this large zoom, as supporting the camera with your face makes it much more stable than holding it at arm’s length to use the monitor LCD. That screen measures 3.2 inches diagonally, but somewhat unusually for 2020; it’s not a touchscreen. The resolution of both the viewfinder and the screen is not high, but it is sufficient and expected for the price.
The battery is rated for 290 shots, which is enough for walking and bird watching. You’ll want to have a spare if you plan on taking your camera with you on any long trips. The battery indicator also only has two tiers – full and half. It isn’t very pleasant because you don’t know if you have 135 stitches or only 5.
Performance is easy to use but slow.
The ability to shoot RAW images is new to the P950. But, while there are more ways for experienced photographers to take control of their shots, the camera’s built-in auto mode has performed surprisingly well.
I spent a lot of time in bird view. Combined with the exposure compensation dial on the side of the lens, this mode should allow most people to capture good wildlife shots 90% of the time. Sometimes I need to switch to shutter-priority mode and control settings so that the long zoom doesn’t blur, and it’s a bit annoying that the camera doesn’t know how to do this automatically. But, the P950 could easily become an effective tool for the birdwatcher with near-zero photography know-how.
Despite the addition of RAW files, the P950 is still a camera designed primarily for casual photographers. Manual settings are limited. If you want to go faster than 1/2000 second or slower than 1 second, you have to set the lens to a certain position, the ISO at a certain setting, and not in continuous shooting mode.
This camera works well for slow or still wildlife, but photographing animals in action is like a crapshoot, between slow autofocus and just trying to keep the subject in the frame (which isn’t easy at 2,000mm).
The P950 can shoot at 7fps, which is respectable for the class, but it can only handle ten shots at that rate before the buffer fills up. Worse, the camera’s controls freeze while those images are recording to the card, so you can’t do things like adjusting the zoom until the photo is done processing. A full JPEG burst takes about eight seconds to process before it’s ready to shoot again, while RAW takes about 12 seconds.
Using contrast-detect AF, the P950 focuses on mostly slow or stationary subjects, but autofocus performance is slightly inconsistent at maximum zoom. The camera took in some subjects that I thought would be too difficult, while at times, it struggled to capture something sharp that I thought would be easier.
The P950’s slower performance is no surprise as a budget-friendly super camera, but it can still be frustrating.
Sharp, bright images
The Nikon P950 is equipped with a 16-megapixel, 1/2.3-inch sensor, the basic size for shooting and aiming. However, that small sensor is what makes the 83x zoom possible. Zoom isn’t the only thing the lens has to offer. It also offers a bright f/2.8 aperture at the widest angle – great for taking photos with this massive zoom.
The story changes as you zoom in. At the telephoto end, the aperture drops to f/6.5. Given that you will only be able to use much of the zoom outdoors in bright sunlight, this may not be too much of an issue. The macro mode also makes the lens more versatile by capturing subjects as close as 0.4 inches from the front of the lens in the wide-angle position.
The image comes out of the camera with a surprising level of detail.
A solid sharpness helps that detail in real-world tests. While the P950, of course, cannot compete in pure image quality with mirrorless or DSLR cameras, which use much larger sensors, these cameras don’t offer anything close to that 83X zoom.
Subjectively, the picture quality of the P950 will not be the most satisfying. At maximum zoom, out-of-focus areas look like a blurry mess or a painterly impression, depending on how you look at it. Instead of a smooth effect, the background looks like a bit of oil painting,
Colors are largely accurate from JPEGs straight from the camera, without being oversaturated or, on the side, overly muted. Even the white balance doesn’t seem to be skewed towards the green like most Nikon cameras tend to do. Indoors, however, some images had a bright red hue. One of the benefits of shooting RAW is that you can now correct the white balance after the fact, which is not possible on the P900.
Image stabilization also plays a role in the ability to capture detailed images with such a long lens. With 5.5 stops of stabilization, I used the 83x zoom handheld for most of the shots. Low light is still an issue, however. Shooting an hour before sunset, I had to max out the camera’s ability to get a sharp shot at maximum zoom, resulting in too dark an image. If you don’t need to extend the full zoom, you can get better results when shooting at the wide end of the lens with a brighter aperture.
With the smaller sensor, the P950 struggles at high ISOs. Early creep noise and photos are best at or below ISO 800, while ISO 1,600 and 3,200 are fine. ISO 6,400 maximum should be avoided. It’s not surprising to shoot a point, but remember that just because the P950 looks like a DSLR doesn’t mean it works like one.
For video, 4K resolution is an improvement over the P900. However, even with all those extra pixels, the video still isn’t detailed, although the colors match the quality of the stills. If you want to shoot video at 2,000mm, make sure you bring a tripod. There’s no way to keep the camera steady enough to capture smooth video at such a long zoom.
where can you get a Nikon P950 online
Nikon COOLPIX P950 Digital Camera || 24-2000mmLens || 16 MP || Built-in Wi-Fi || Vibration Reduction + Camera Kit Special Including 64GB Memory, Spider Tripod, Photo/Video Editing Package & More: Buy it now
Nikon COOLPIX P950 (Renewed): Buy it now