Quick review: Nikon P300

[oceanswimmer]

Recently I had to send my Nikon D5100 camera back to the company for service and needed a quick side camera. After looking over reviews I chose to purchase a Nikon P300 P&S camera. After a day I received the camera and was able to do some test shots. While I am no photography expert, I was definitely surprised by the camera's image quality and fairly fast speed for a P&S camera. After dark I tried out the camera and was amazed by its low light abilities which were very good. The camera even took low light videos that were quite nice.

After some trial and error I was able to use the camera for some extended photography that included different types of scenes such as nighttime and landscape images taken at different times of the day. My non expert review of the images were that they were quite good. Not as good as my D5100 camera but very good for a P&S camera. In fact they are the best of any P&S camera I have tried so far. This experience is limited to several Canon and Panasonic P&S cameras but this little camera really outdid them in image quality.

The small form factor has both advantages and disadvantages. Its very convenient and easy to use in a quick photo taking situation. The camera is easy to use and can be handled in somewhat physical compromising situations. On the other hand, it can be trick to use with larger hands. The buttons are fairly small and hard to find sometimes. The screen is easy to read and is very visible under harsh lighting conditions.

Perhaps one caveat is the video .mov file format used by the camera. It can be tricky for some reason to edit the videos. Several videos editors that I use had trouble with the videos taken with the camera. Hopefully this is just a software snagfu and not a big deal.
The videos are great and even have good sound. The camera also has nice sound capturing capabilities that helps to cut out cross winds.

All in all, the P300 is a great camera if found on sale. It definitely outclasses some of its competition but there are tons of new cameras coming out from Canon, Nikon, and other companies.