First shot with the Nikon Coolpix A

fjrabon · Apr 15, 2015

Got delivered this morning, managed to take a short walk around during lunch, really only got a handful of shots off with it. I'll do a more in depth review/comparison with the X100T when I've spent some more time with it, but I definitely overall like the little beast. It really is exactly like a point and shoot D7000 with an 18mm f/2.8 permanently attached, for good and for ill. Definitely pocketable, as long as you're not wearing skinny jeans.

CSC_0016 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

Derrel · Apr 15, 2015

I'm interested in hearing what your experiences are with this machine, and in how it actually goes about its exposure settings and such...wondering what kind of an exposure matrix it has in Programmed mode, re ISO/f-stop/shutter juggling and so on, how the lens shoots against the light, how fast it starts up from a cold start, etc.

fjrabon · Apr 15, 2015

Derrel said:
I'm interested in hearing what your experiences are with this machine, and in how it actually goes about its exposure settings and such...wondering what kind of an exposure matrix it has in Programmed mode, re ISO/f-stop/shutter juggling and so on, how the lens shoots against the light, how fast it starts up from a cold start, etc.

as far as I can tell it's the exact same as my D7000 metering wise. Menus were mostly the same as well, which was really comforting because everything was pretty easy to figure out, not because it's an intuitive menu system, but because Im used to the setup on my D7000. The biggest difference I noticed is that your focus modes seem to be limited to point focus (and you can use any portion of the screen, there aren't focal points so far as I can tell). That is, there aren't specialized focus sensors, it's all based on analysis of the live view feed. Also no facial recognition focus, which is kind of a bummer for me, as I will mostly use this as a street shooter. But it has D-Lighting built in, which I love. Same Nikon JPEGs as on the D7000, which I've always been meh about (above is my own personal generic street shooting raw processing I developed for my D7000 in Aperture, not the SOOC Nikon JPEG).

Starts up really fast, especially given that it has to "spit out" the lens. From completely off, lens retracted, to shooting ready is about 1.5 seconds.

runnah · Apr 15, 2015

cool pix!

fjrabon · Apr 15, 2015

runnah said:
cool pix!

God I hate that name so much. Why is Nikon so bad at naming things that aren't DSLR bodies where the Dnumber designation takes care of it?

oldhippy · Apr 15, 2015

Mine arrived today. here's a few quick pics

fjrabon · Apr 15, 2015

oldhippy said:
Mine arrived today. here's a few quick picsView attachment 98983 View attachment 98984 View attachment 98985

that the default Nikon JPEG? Always feels like Velvia pushed to the max to me. Loving this little camera though. Won't come anywhere close to replacing the X100T, but it really complements it well. Can't believe I only paid $299 for it, which was basically the cost of the Fuji wide angle converter for the X100T.

shadowlands · Apr 15, 2015

fjrabon said:
runnah said:

cool pix!

Click to expand...

God I hate that name so much. Why is Nikon so bad at naming things that aren't DSLR bodies where the Dnumber designation takes care of it?

I know. The camera is so much better than its name is...

shadowlands · Apr 15, 2015

oldhippy said:
Mine arrived today. here's a few quick picsView attachment 98983 View attachment 98984 View attachment 98985

So how do you like it? It's tiny, huh? I love mine. Still amazed at how small it is, and how sharp that lens is.

fjrabon · Apr 15, 2015

By the way, I was wrong earlier, just figured out how to change the focus mode, it does "wide area" "small area" "subject tracking" and "face priority" They're all based on live view though, not your typical (for a dslr) specialized focal sensors. You can only change it by hitting the i button while in shooting mode, then scrolling down to it.