Hasta La Gadget!

Best Buy’s been a naughty retailer again by letting some people purchase Nikon’s D7000 a few days ahead of its proper retail launch. Of those lucky buyers, a couple inevitably chose to document the unboxing experience and consequently we now have two videos awaiting you after the break, detailing just how neatly that black and gold box is arranged. The actual contents will hardly surprise you — a neck strap, LCD protector, all the usual cables, plus an 18-105mm kit lens with soft pouch and petal-shaped hood are all present and accounted for — but the thrill is in seeing the D7000 itself emerging from its plastic wrappings. You may do so just past the break.

Continue reading Nikon D7000 sold at Best Buy a little early, gets unboxed immediately

Nikon D7000 sold at Best Buy a little early, gets unboxed immediately originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you weren’t aware, competition’s getting some kind of fierce down in that $400 to $800 not-quite-a-DSLR realm. We’ve got interchangeable lens options galore, a new breed of high performance compacts and the Canon G12. Nikon’s got its aim planted firmly on the latter with the Coolpix P7000, a decidedly prosumer camera with the body of a point-and-shoot and the controls of a pro rig. The good folks over at Photography Blog recently put the P7000 through its paces, and while they adored the optical viewfinder, the build quality and the zoom range, they couldn’t quite get over the notably sluggish RAW performance. Worse still, Nikon has yet again changed up its RAW formula, with the newfangled NRW+ only being understandable by the company’s own software for the moment. They found “no unwanted noise” from ISO 100 to 400, with only mild amounts at 800 and 1600; the extra pro-like features were also lauded (neutral density filter, zoom step feature, virtual horizon and tonal range histogram), and with an exception for that sluggish RAW mode, they found it tough to not recommend. Particularly for those of you who’d prefer to stick with JPEG anyway, this here shooter looks to be a solid option if you’ve got the cash ($499.99 MSRP), but we’d recommend poring over the source link before making a final call.

Nikon Coolpix P7000 reviewed: a serious contender, but sluggish RAW performance originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharing the limelight with the Nikon D7000 today were these two Coolpix cameras: the OLED touchscreen-donning S80 (left) and the prosumer-oriented P7000 (right). Let’s start off with the S80: this 14.1 megapixel compact turned out to be pretty sexy and solid, and we had no qualms with sliding its lens cover, either. That said, the 3.5-inch touchscreen was one helluva double-edged sword — sure, it was responsive to our touch input (for tap-to-capture or tap-to-focus), but a lot of the times we found our naughty fingers slipping onto the screen, thus accidentally triggering the camera. And just as we speculated, the lack of physical buttons (zoom control and shutter, for instance) was pretty intimidating to begin with, but as with many smartphones these days, it probably just takes time to get used to this newfangled interface. If we were to improve the camera as it is right now, we’d probably throw in a sharper alternative for the OLED display — despite its wide viewing angles and vibrant colors — for the sake of focusing and playback.

Do read on for our thoughts on the P7000 after the break.

Continue reading Nikon Coolpix S80 and P7000 hands-on

Nikon Coolpix S80 and P7000 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nikon’s second big announcement today (the other is the hot new D7000) is the SB700 speedlight, a smaller version of the great SB900 and an overpriced replacement for the SB600 (although the SB600 is still available).

Nikon makes some of the best flashes around: even some Canon shooters prefer them to Canon’s own if they plan to use them manually, but they probably won’t be buying this one, as it has one big feature missing: a sync-jack. Over at the Strobist blog, flash-nerd David Hobby has been crawling through the specs and finds that there is no way to trigger the flash off-camera with a standard PC-cord. You’ll either need to use a compatible Nikon camera to trigger it remotely, buy an expensive proprietary cable or use the “SU-4″ mode, which turns the flash into a dumb slave unit.

Apart from this odd move, the SB700 looks good. If you’re familiar with the SB900’s screen-and-control-dial interface, you’ll be at home here. In fact, in some ways the new flash looks better than its big brother, with dedicated switches for changing modes and for illumination patterns (like the SB900, you can choose between standard, center-weighted and “even”).

There’s also a motorized zoom, AF-illuminator and the ability to act as a commander for other, off-camera flashes (useful if you ponied up the cash for the top-end D3 which doesn’t have a built-in flash to do this). And lastly (well, lastly for this post: Nikon flashes have a veritable confusion of options if you dig in) there speedlight comes with a few hard color filters, replacing the flimsy ones that come with the SB900. The price for this new flash is $330, compared to around $220 for the SB600 and around $460 for the SB900.

SB-700 product page [Nikon]

Nikon SB-700 Speedlight Misses it By This Much [Strobist]

See Also:

• Hands-On With the Quad-Sync LumoPro Flash

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It’s hard for Nikon to fight Canon on video, so they’re fighting with what they know: photography. Nikon’s new D7000 packs a 16.3-megapixel sensor, 39-point autofocus, dual card slots and ISO up to 25,600 in a $1200 camera. Hot. More »