Product Reviews

With the introduction of the full-frame Nikon D3 DSLR, Nikon has been challenging arch-rival Canon at all levels. It has rolled out araft of dizzyingly expensive professional-level lenses, swiftly followed bythe class-leading D300, D700 and D90 DSLRs. And with the new Coolpix P6000, Nikon seems set to continue the assault onthe pro's favourite digital compact, the Canon G series PowerShot.

Packing a 13.5 million pixel resolution sensor, a VR-enabled 28-112mm zoom, built-in GPS and Ethernet connectivity in a mostly metal-clad body, the P6000 certainly has a spec that can match that of the PowerShot G10, on paper at least. It also sports full manual exposure control and ahotshoe for external flash or remote control accessories, putting it firmly in enthusiast's territory.

In many respects, though, the P6000 isa reworking of the earlier Coolpix P5100, with a few extra bells and whistles added for good measure. What real changes thereare seem minor. For example, it has aslightly larger LCD than before, but no increase in overall resolution and an optical viewfinder without dioptre correction, although it has to be said it's slightly clearer than the Canon G10's.

There are some internal changes, such as the addition of Raw file capture and Active DLighting for Jpegs. This

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really helps lift shadow detail, especially using the High setting, but you have to take care to avoid an increase in noise.

Raw file capture is necessary to get thebest from the tiny 1/1.7in type sensor, but there's little support from the bundled software, and even then you'll have to download the maker's ViewNX browser utility. This will convert the new .NRF files, but at present they aren't supported in Capture NX2. Fortunately, both the latest updates to ACR and Aperture include support for P6000, so there's little real concern for Mac users.

Out-of-camera Jpegs compare to the G10's, certainly at low ISOs, while picture quality at base ISO (ISO64) is nothing short of outstanding. Above ISO400, the Nikon's Jpegs show marginally more smearing and, ultimately, less detail; you wouldn't want to use ISO800 unless you had to. The same goes for Jpegs pulled from Raw, but a decent third-party NR utility will produce better results. Colour accuracy isn't up to the G10's standard, either. It's especially noticeable under incandescent lighting.

We were keen to experiment with the built-in GPS, but were perplexed by its complete failure to locate a satellite during our fairly lengthy test period, and that involved trying two samples. Neither were we impressed with the implementation of the built-in Ethernet. At the time of writing, it's used solely for uploading resized stillsand video clips to the maker's MyPicturetown server. Perhaps that will change with a future firmware update.

So while picture quality at low ISOs is astrength, £342 is a hefty sum, even with the fall of a £117 from its original launch price. To make it worthwhile, we would expect the GPS to be reliable and the Ethernet option to be of more use. Ultimately, the P6000 is a pretty versatile compact overall, but owners of the Canon G10 shouldn't loose any sleep over it.