The Nikon Coolpix P5000 is an impressive digital camera. It has plenty of features and is likely to appeal to someone who sees photography as a hobby. One of the attractions of the Coolpix P5000 is that so many key features are packed into a very compact body. Recommended

As a compact that can ‘fill in’ for your DSLR, the P5000 largely does the job it sets out to, although noise is an issue and I’m disappointed that there’s no Raw mode. I’m also not that impressed with the lens’s focal length range: it lacks true wideangle and telephoto capabilities unless you want to invest in (and carry) lens converters.While the P5000’s a good camera it ultimately falls slightly short of being a great one.

Size is one of the Nikon Coolpix P5000’s strongest arguments. Packing this much photographic control and quality into such a light and compact form is an unusual achievement, and its images were beautiful. Time will tell if the Nikon P5000 is a classic Coolpix, but meanwhile, let’s call it a “Dave’s Pick” by a nose. (If its autofocus were just a bit faster, it’d be a hands-down winner.)

Nikon bred a live one in its new Coolpix P5000 ($350, street). It has many of the external and some of the imaging controls of its D80 and D40x DSLRs. Can it match the image quality of its DSLR kin? Yes and no.

If you are happy to keep the ISO setting at 200 or below then the Nikon P5000 will do the job. The excellent auto white balance and exposure work to minimise the effects of noise in indoor shots, but mottled skies are not attractive. This is the only Nikon compact that has an optical viewfinder so it is an important model in the product line.

Overall, I would say this camera is solid, but it needs a performance tune-up to outperform its competition like the Canon A710 IS. It is a comfortable camera that is very ergonomically designed, and the buttons are configured well. With the P5000’s 10 megapixel CCD and its VR feature you can achieve excellent quality images, but you have to take the slow performance of the camera into consideration when purchasing.

In conclusion, while there’s much to like about the Coolpix P5000, it’s overall sluggishness left me feeling a bit cold. A firmware upgrade that fixes some bugs and perhaps improves AF performance would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s not a camera for action shooters, and enthusiasts may not care of the lack of RAW, a live histogram, or manual focus, but for casual still-life shooting it’s not a bad choice. The P5000 earns my (somewhat hesitant) recommendation, but be sure to take a close look at the competition.

With very good image quality and its many practical features, the Nikon Coolpix P5000 will appeal to the serious amateur photographer desiring a compact and light digital camera with an effective image stabilization and full control over camera operations.

The Nikon Coolpix P5000 is a good camera and would’ve gotten a higher grade if there weren’t issues with responsiveness—saving files as well as focusing. It has a nice feel and is light enough to take anywhere. Overall photo quality was good, not dazzling. Is it a replacement for a D-SLR? Of course not. Still, at under $350 USD, it’s definitely worth considering.

If the ISO is kept down, you don’t mind average performance, then the high resolution, good image quality, the plethora of metering and focussing options and the powerful flash features are all worth having.