14.8.04

New Gallery soon to be added to stunik.com

When we were in New York, I bought a new digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 5400. I bought it for several reasons. My current digital camera was getting long in the tooth slow, to operate and was not matching today's standards as far as image quality was concerned. Still I managed to shoot over 12,000 images with it enough for several years of exhibitions or publication. And it served me well as I was able to produce fairly predictably the kinds of images I wanted with it *most* of the time. Even so it was time to move on as I had had this camera for 5 or 6 years. I chose this new camera for several reasons. It had a "true" wide angle lens, roughly 28mm in 35mm terms, it produced a 5 meg file, enough for small inkjet prints around 8 x 10 inches, it was small and it was easy to hold which in turn made it easier to operate. Already I am up to over 300 images with it (as you would expect I guess since it was bought during the last 2 weeks of our holiday). Overall I am very pleased with this camera and even though I haven't printed anything out yet I get the feeling it will a very good camera. The lens alone is outstanding as one would expect from Nikon. I do however have a couple of niggly "issues" with it.
  • If I work at the maximum file size the processing of the images is slowed, 'dramatically'
  • When I want to manually set exposure I must use the LCD screen on the rear of the camera
  • The camera doesn't come with a lens hood or the ability to screw one onto the lens
  • A smaller wrist strap would have been nice
  • A flash nipple for studio use would have been nice too
  • The battery indicator is inaccurate, it starts showing half full this means it's getting low, then with little or no movement the battery is dead, luckily I bought a second battery but this could prove damaging in certain situations
  • I have managed to corrupt a couple of files already, not sure how I suspect it's from switching settings or modes while the camera is processing the files, need further investigation
Despite these things and some of them are small it's shaping up to be a great camera, later this weekend I hope to add a small gallery showing off this camera,and of course my own work. Stay tuned.

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