My First Digital Encounter - The Nikon Coolpix 4300

Recently I have been surrounded by people who have purchased digital cameras, whilst I stood by watching jealously from afar. That was until this week when a brand new Nikon Coolpix 4300 dropped in my lap, courtesy of Maxwell Optical Industries. Alas, it was not mine to keep, but a plot by all concerned to further erode my crumbling willpower and loosen my vice-like grip on my wallet.

I should state from the outset that as my first digital experience I have no basis for comparison, never having owned a digital camera. However, I am happy to report that if the Nikon 4300 is representative of today's digitals then the film market is in for some very serious competition.

The 4300 is surprisingly small - smaller than it looks in advertisements. Not small enough for a pocket, it nevertheless fits comfortably into a bum bag with enough room left for spare batteries, a mobile telephone and spare change - just right for a person on the move.

The camera itself appeared quite basic at first glance, with fewer external controls than some I have seen. However, beneath the surface is a wide range of customisable features comparable to much larger cameras, with far too many options for me to evaluate in the time available. Clearly, however this is a camera that caters to the needs of serious photographers as well as the "point-and-shoot" brigade.

When I first turned it on, it made a subdued snuffling sound which I quickly identified as coming from the auto focus mechanism. It felt as though I was road testing a virtual pet rather than a camera, but one gets used to it. No doubt it would save a degree of wear and tear if one left the lens cap on when not actually taking pictures, thus saving it from continuous refocussing in the background.

The intuitive nature of the controls was most gratifying. I suffer from the impatience factor common to many owners of new toys, yet I was able to launch right in and start taking photos without the customary "reading of the manual". Trial and error quickly allowed me to take my first pictures, the manual only becoming necessary for more complex functions. The manual itself is excellent, being both compact (and thus portable) and comprehensive.

The 4300 has a couple of design flaws - one of which is the zoom control. Using the viewfinder with the left eye makes the zoom control difficult to operate without poking yourself in the right eye. Relocating this control to the top or front of the body would make life much easier.

The main function selector is top located and enables you to choose from a number of options. These range from an automatic mode which requires little more than a finger on the trigger - to a more advanced mode where numerous fine tuning choices can be made similar to those available on manual SLRs. In between those extremes is a semi-automatic mode allowing you to select from a number of preoptimised settings such as portraits, night-time shots, close-ups, copying etc. The latter mode is ideal for the amateur spy, as it is designed to facilitate photographing typed sheets of notepaper. Just the thing for the budding James Bond.

I have always loathed those "time/date" stamps that imprint the date on your photographs, thus spoiling the integrity of otherwise perfect images. It was thus another pleasant surprise to find that this information, and much more, is included in a data file invisibly incorporated with each picture. All sorts of data pertaining to a photo can be kept with the electronic image without being visible on the final print. No more guessing where the photo was taken, or what camera setting you used - this sort of data is either generated automatically or added by you afterwards. A very impressive bonus! The Nikon is also capable of recording a very short movie (40 seconds) but without sound. In my view this feature on digital cameras is a waste of space. I would far prefer a more useful function or a lowering of the overall price.

The 4300 has a rear viewing screen as well as a viewfinder, as it appears do most digital cameras these days. Most screens I have seen are too small for my liking, but they are still extremely useful. The Nikon's was very difficult to see in direct sunlight, so the viewfinder is a must when shooting in bright daylight. However, shooting closeups really needs the accuracy of the view screen, which is very useful for both this purpose and as a preview screen and menu. I was able to get more accurate and sharper closeups of a flower using the screen than I could with my Olympus point-and-shoot.

The greatest pleasure for me was undoubtedly the ability to take as many shots as I liked without worrying about cost. My current focus (pardon the pun) is my grandchildren, and anyone who has tried photographing children knows that they always move at the wrong time. I have dozens of blurred pictures, photos with little hands in the way, or pictures of departing feet all of which illustrate the problems involved. With the Nikon, however, I was able to take as many pictures as I liked and to discard the failures without having to pay for them. I obtained my best pictures simply by taking lots of pictures and thus increasing the odds of a good one emerging. This, of course, is true of all digitals but it remains a very strong selling point.

Initially I had problems knowing whether I had actually taken a photo or not, due to the lack of any audible acknowledgement, and it would be useful if Nikon was to include audible confirmation of certain actions. Once taken, however, the pictures were well above expectation with clear detail and clarity way beyond my preconceived notions of digital cameras. Of course the higher the quality, the greater the image size, so large capacity storage would be a must for any serious shooting. The included 16 MB card was woefully inadequate.

Transferring images to my computer couldn't have been easier. Despite having been provided with Nikon software, I ended up ignoring that option, and using Windows Explorer instead. All I did was plug the camera into a USB port which automatically detected the camera and showed it as a removable drive. Viewing the images via my existing graphics software was also a snap (sorry, another pun) and I could either copy or move the pictures to my PC as required.

The bottom line, and my chief preoccupation, has to be the quality of the pictures. With all of my photography to date being with various 35mm film cameras, my first venture into digitals had a lot to compete with, but I was not disappointed. In order to compare film results with digital I took a couple of pictures of the same scene - one with the 4300, and the other with an upmarket Olympus point-and-shoot. I then had both sets of images printed at the local photo lab for comparison. The Nikon results were excellent, and equal to or better than the Olympus. Colour was perhaps more accurate using film, but sharpness was better using the digital. Overall, I preferred the digital images, not simply due to quality but because of the ability to crop and manipulate the image before processing. The picture of my granddaughter Catherine was originally much larger, yet did not suffer from being cropped prior to printing.

Catherine

The 4300 has an impressive list of specifications. Not everything is included, but then there are some things which really don't matter. Initially I thought it would be nice to add an IBM MicroDrive for greater storage, but the 4300 doesn't have that capacity. However, an unattached MicroDrive costs around $800, meaning that I am more likely to date Nicole Kidman than my camera is to form any sort of relationship with a MicroDrive. Options are really only relevant if you're likely to take advantage of them.

Conclusion: My first liaison with a digital camera was a more than satisfying experience. Clearly that boundary between digital and film has now been crossed, and I will now be seriously looking for a digital camera. The Nikon 4300 is a serious alternative to regular film cameras, both in terms of quality photographs and ease of use. I am sure it will satisfy even the most discerning amateur.