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Feb 09

Nikon’s Low-Light, Wide-Lens P300 Forgets the RAW

Like a pint of delicious spring-water submerged in Nikon’s salty, eight-camera press tsunami today, the little gem that is the P300 was almost diluted entirely out of recognition. Thanks to some quick work, the pocket-friendly compact has made it, sodden but still alive, to these pages.

The P300 is best thought of as Nikon’s answer to the Canon S95, a pro-friendly pocket-camera full of manual controls and topped off with a large sensor, great low-light sensitivity and a fast lans.

ISO runs up to 3200, which is pretty good for a smallish sensor compact. And speaking of sensors, it’s a little smaller than that in the S95 – 1/2.3-inch vs. 1/1.7-inch – and fits 12.3MP onto a backlit CMS plate. The lens offers a 24-100mm (35mm equivalent) zoom, and a super-wide ƒ1.8 maximum aperture (the S95 lens only opens to ƒ2).

Manual control is available for all exposure functions, controlled by a thumb-wheel on the top-plate, and you get image stabilization and a big three-inch, 921,000-dot LCD panel thrown in, along with 1080p video and a stereo mic.

It looks pretty compelling, and even has a weird night-mode which combines separate ambient-light exposures of the background with a flash-exposure of the subject. One warning, though. Nikon may have excluded itself from the race by leaving out RAW capture.

With compacts, you’re not tied to a brand as you are with SLRs that rely on lens compatibility, so you can shop around. If Nikon had added in remote flash control for its iTTL system, then this would be killer. As it is you’ll need to visit a store and try this out against the Canon S95 and the Lumix LX5. They all look very capable, so it will really come down to feel (and also that lack of RAW shooting). Available March for $400.

Coolpix P300 press release [Nikon]

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