Don’t Buy the Latest Nikon Camera
The new Nikon P1100 isn't the camera for you if you are serious about taking great pictures!
Nikon announced a new camera yesterday, and I beg anyone seriously interested in photography not to buy it!
Hi, my name is Rich Dyson from Edinburgh Photography Workshop, and this is Coffee Break Photography.
Well, the start of February 2025 has heralded the beginning of new gear being released by camera manufacturers. Today, the OM system has launched a new camera body and three new lenses. Yesterday, Nikon brought out the first F1.2 35mm lens for any mirrorless system – the initial reports suggest it’s an excellent lens. However, Nikon also announced a new camera, the Coolpix P1100.
I thought we had seen the last of Compact cameras, but the TikTok influencers have convinced Nikon that it’s a market worth getting back into. It sounds like I am having a go at Nikon, but I’m not. I firmly believe that Bridge cameras are a con for people who think they are getting gear that can get the same results as professionals using expensive equipment through clever marketing stroke misinformation to the uninformed.
If Nikon thinks I am unfair after watching this video, send over one of these Coolpix bodies and let me try it in real-world scenarios. I’ll either eat humble pie or confirm my thoughts. Tell me what you think. In the comments below, let me know if you think this is a good assessment of compact cameras.
Let me use this launch as a case in point. The very first thing you see on the Nikon page about this camera is: “Touch the stars. Roost with Eagles. The sky is no longer the limit when you have an extraordinary 125-times optical zoom. Capture sharp photos and videos of subjects that were out of reach—until now.”
That’s some claim, and is underscored even more to say that the zoom is the world’s biggest. A focal length of 24mm to 3000mm can be extended with a digital zoom that can extend the range to an “incredible” 6000mm. You can see why someone wanting their first camera will think, “Hey, I don’t need to learn how to take photos and I can just carry around one camera with one lens and I can do everything the pros do with all their fancy gear”.
Well, you can’t and won’t, so save the £1,000 you’ll spend on this camera. I’ve not used this camera; I’ve not had one in my hands. But I have seen enough of this type of camera to tell you what the advertising isn’t telling you.
First of all, they talk about the “bright F/2.8 Nikkor lens that can get jaw-dropping results, even when shooting at ultra-high-telephoto focal lengths.” It’s an f/2.8 lens – that is true, but that f/2.8 aperture can only be achieved when shooting at the 24mm end of the zoom. When you zoom in the 3000mm end of the zoom, the largest aperture will reduce – I imagine to f/6.3 if it mirrors similar compact bridge cameras. That means you will have a factor of 2.3 times less light coming into the camera when zoomed in than when you were zoomed out. Reducing light means that you’ll either need to slow your shutter speed down (not recommended if you’re shooting wildlife) or increase your ISO – let’s talk about that later.
The picture they used to demonstrate the bright f2.8 Nikkor lens was of a snow monkey. I’ve been to the park where you can shoot these adorable creatures. During the day, it can be quite bright, particularly in winter when the snow on the floor reflects light from the sky back into the subjects. Generally, the monkeys don’t move that fast, so it’s quite easy to get a well-lit photo of them with a 6.3 aperture and not push up the ISO too much.
Think about all the times you are shooting wildlife, and it’s probably at the start or end of the day when they feed. The ambient light is much darker, and that means pushing the ISO higher, which, as we all know, increases the noise in the pictures.
So, we come to the next issue with compact bridge cameras. Like I say, this isn’t anti-Nikon; it’s anti-bridge cameras. It’s just that Nikon has chosen to get back on the compact bridge camera bus. To reduce the size of the camera so it appeals to people who don't want to carry several lenses around with them, they have to reduce the size of the sensor—the important bit that captures the data to make your pictures look good.
For comparison, the Nikon Z50. A budget level camera with a cropped CMSO sensor measures 23.5mm wide by 15.7mm in height. The Coolpix P1100 has a sensor which is only 6.2mm wide by 4.6mm high. Yes, the Z50 has slightly more pixels, 20 megapixels as opposed to the 16.8 megapixels in the Coolpix, but you are still pushing in quite a lot of pixels into a small space. This means each individual pixel is much smaller, meaning that it can’t gather light as well as larger pixels, which inevitably leads to less sensitivity to light and more noise in your photos.
Ok, you might say, but sensor technology has improved, and you see less noise these days, even with high ISO values. True, but these smaller sensors will be significantly more noisy than their bigger equivalents. And there is another issue here. I imagine that most people who buy this camera want to go on safaris, get close up to animals and come back with “jaw-dropping” images with minimal effort. That means shooting in either automatic modes or, more likely, one of the vast myriad of pre-sets. That’s where another limitation kicks in. If you are using a preset, the highest ISO available is just 1600. That would have been good in 2003, but these days, shooters on mirrorless cameras can get away with shooting up to 8000 or even 10,000. With that limited range, your only option (or actually the camera’s only option because you’ve not learned about exposing correctly) is to slow the shutter speed down, which leads to blurry photos!
The final reason you shouldn’t buy this camera is the usability of that super-zoom. Us (inverted commas) “proper photographers” zoom in and out using the ring on the lens. It feels natural, and it allows for a precise zooming action. Not the Nikon Coolpix P1100, or most other compact bridge cameras. Instead, they have a switch that either zooms in or out – and from experience, it does this in the least precise way possible. There’s next to no control in getting an accurate zoom position.
This camera is being launched at just over £1,000. That’s a lot of cash for a camera with so many limitations. I have never been sat at a location thinking, Wow, if only I had a 3,000mm zoom. My 100-500mm zoom is good enough for me, and it will be sitting on a body with none of the aperture limitations, poor quality sensor issues, and reduced ISO range. Please, please, spend a couple of hundred pounds more on buying a proper mirrorless camera and learn to use it properly. It will save you the disappointment of less-than-jaw-dropping photos in the field and the eventual realisation that you’ll need to buy that proper mirrorless camera in the future to get good results.
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