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| Date Reviewed: 11/15/2005 |
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Strengths: Great versitility, good overall photos, loads of picture taking options.
Weaknesses: No included CF card. Limited zoom. Expensive and hard to find accessories.
Summary: I bought this camera after seeing the Ritz price on Pricegrabber. An 8 megapixel Nikon for $399.99 seemed like a great deal. This is my first digital. I have owned Minolta SLRS for many years and I was anxious to see how this compared. For the most part I have not been disappointed. Unfortunately the camera ships without a Compact Flash Card. This is a Nikon decision not a Ritz policy. Anyone buying the camera had better factor a CF card into the cost. I would recommend at least a 1GB card. After getting the camera "READ THE MANUAL". There are a ton of features on this camera and if you're a digital novice like me, learning to take full advantage of what this camera has to offer will take time. The initial setup went smoothly. I then went online to Nikon and discovered that the camera firmware had been updated. Fortunately Nikon had a good set of instructions for downloading and installing the upgrade. This upgrade my prove to difficult or scarey for many. After setup and firmware upgrade I was ready to shoot. Being a digital novice I opted for the AUTO setting letting the camera set shutter and aperture. The results overall were very good. Outdoor shots are fantastic. Indoor shots are very good and Iam sure can be improved when I become more familiar with the settings available. Overall I think anyone buying this camera, especially at $400, will be pleased.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/20/2005 |
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Strengths: 8M pixels; extra fine jpeg format; wide angle lens
Weaknesses: not found yet
Summary: i am not a photo professional and have no plan to go for SLR. all i want is that when i travel with family i can have a portable P&S DC and take large enough pictures with fine quality. thus i am extremely happy obtaining this nikon 8400 for just $400. 8M pixels, extra fine jpeg format, plus superb wide angle lens, are all the features that i was hoping for. i have taken many pictures since i got it half a month ago, and i was very satisfied with the picture quality. since i had some experience dealing with nikon 5700, the camera's menu does not seem too complicated to me as described in other review, well it does take time to understand all the functions and put them to use in practice. moreover, the battery life is much much better than nikon 5700. Overall, really a good buy. oh, i also bought a lens tube and UV filter for about $25 through ebay for 8400; the lens is too good to be left unprotected.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/17/2005 |
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Strengths: Great price, Nikon quality, 8 megapixel
Weaknesses: None
Summary: This camera is a very good value for $399.00. It comes with one of the widest angle lens and the pictures are great at 8 meghapixels. The battery life is long and the camera will accomodate a 1 gig compact flash card with no problems. The infrared remote control feature is also an added bonus.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/25/2005 |
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Strengths: 3.5x ultra-wide angle optical Zoom. 3.5x ultra-wide angle optical Zoom. Make with aluminum alloy. Cheap price for a almost high end camera.
Weaknesses: the optical zoom is not enough. big. the quality of photoes taken at night is not that good.
Summary: Basically I love and am satified with this camera. The price is cheap and it is almost a high end camera. If the optical zoom can be more, that will be better (like 8800). The body is big and heavy. But since it is made of aluminum alloy, I can understand. The quality of photoes taken at night is not that good. To try to make it more professional, I buy a kit from ebay, which include a 3X telephoto len, a 0.45 wide angle len and filter lens. Basically it becomes a "professional" camera for nonprofessional photo takers like me. I like it, and definitely will introduce it to my friends.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/20/2005 |
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Strengths: Wide angle lens, has backlighting - easy to use in dark rooms, many settings that are easy to use
Weaknesses: Only thing so far is to hold onto it without getting fingers over the infrared receiver.
Summary: I really like all of the photos options it comes with. The wide angle lens is nice for taking room photos. I like the way that it lights up the viewfinder for the darker photos - you can see what you are taking a picture of.
It is easy to use and so far a great camera! I like the flip monitor - (the range of rotation) my last camera had that and that is a high selling point for me.
I would highly recommend this camera.
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| Date Reviewed: 04/12/2006 |
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 Coolpix 8400 Strengths: RAW
Weaknesses: Wide angle lens is very wide.bad focus, nasty color even in RAW
Summary: I also bought this camera from Ritz for the price.
I must say the images are good even better in RAW but at 300DPI they are very small images and don't print well.
The wide angle lens is hard to use for normal shooting of buildings and people. The wide angle lens also makes shallow DOF very hard to achieve even at full tele position. I had to use a tele converter to conquer this. Macro is not as close as stated or very detailed.
I really don't like this camera at all.
I have Minolta Dimage 7 and Z1 and Z6 so my Nikon coolpix 8400 never gets used, I did lug it around for about 6months and shoot around 2200 images and of those only 1/4 where betterphoto quality.
I have found that if shooting trains or landscapes are your thing then the 8400 is good. For all else, it is a bad camera as the wide angle lens is so wide that buildings look round and DOF is a hit or miss but never shallow.
The manual functions are meeker and the f-stop is variable and the manual focus is well shabby to say the least.
Image colors are blocky and not solid.
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| Date Reviewed: 02/11/2006 |
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Strengths: Excellent pictures; ease of use; wide focus lens
Weaknesses: Small display screen
Summary: The Nikon 8400 is the best in the market for the money. I bought this camera for $399 from Ritz/Wolf camera. This is a great camera if you are not going the SLR route. There are tons of features with this camera, but you can just use the auto focus and start snapping great pictures. The flash is pretty good although you can purchase an additional one though it is quire expensive. Also, there is not much of delay from the time you push the button to snap the picture until the picture is actually taken. (All digital cameras have a delay.) The one negative about this camera is the small display screen though it will not hinder your picture taking. Overall, this is a great camera for the money.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/04/2006 |
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Strengths: 8 megapixels with wide angle zoom
Weaknesses: Need to read the manual to utilize all functions
Summary: I bought this camera for $399 from Ritzcamera.com and let me tell you..this buy was a bargain deal. BestBuy sells the same camera for $900+tax. The optical zoom is not that much but with the 8 MP, the picture comes out sharp. Movies have great quality too. When the auto-exposure mode is selected, the camera automatically takes 10 pictures on a single click, compares and keeps the best picture.. This is just auto-editing.. Overall, I'm satisfied with this camera for the price I bought it for!
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| Date Reviewed: 12/12/2005 |
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Strengths: 85mm to exceptional 24mm wide-angle zoom,
Weaknesses: a little heavy
Summary: The Coolpix 8400 packs an impressive 8.0 megapixels of clarity to capture highly satisfying detail and produce sharp, detailed prints with high resolution. The Coolpix 8400 also features the additional convenience of PictBridge, allowing easy direct printing with compatible printers.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/18/2005 |
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Strengths: - Impressive Model
- Wide Angle Lens
- Flip LCD Screen
- Affordable CF Card
- Battery Life/It's Rechargeble
- RedEye Reduction is Automatic, No Setup required
Weaknesses: - Optical Zoom is only 3.5x
- Bulky, if you are looking for something to carry in your pocket
- LCD Screen is little small, but can live w/ that
Summary: Perfect Camera for anyone Amaetur or Professional. Auto Mode for beginners or Manual Mode for a experienced person - picture quality is excellant. Lot of Picture modes. Best Part of this camera is 24mm wide angle lens that covers greater frame of the picture - help to take a group picture. Even the closeups are excellent. Bright LCD which can be adjusted according to you line of sight, as well as good quality Flash gives very good results in low light condition.
I give 5 stars to this 8MP camera as I do not see any big backdrop in this camera - & with the pricetag currently of 399.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/08/2005 |
- daydaydvd
from NY
- Member Since:
May 2005
View Member's:
Reviews
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Strengths: inconvincible 24mm wide angle lens
Weaknesses: not found yet
Summary: very good built camera, and with 24mm wide angle lens, which is extremly useful when you always take landscape picture. In digital slr area, it is hard to built a system with 24mm angle view, so this could be a very good back up for person like me who has already has a slr. by the way, it can also use nikon flash that designed for its slr. like it
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| Date Reviewed: 12/07/2005 |
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Strengths: 8 megapixel CCD, EVF with 97% accuracy, 5m built-in flash guide number & 24mm wide angle
Weaknesses: The "display" LCD monitor is small and washes out in sunlight.
Summary: 2005-12-14 13:17:26 I’m very interested in the 8400. It looks a lot like the C-5060 and I expect it handles very much like it as well. In fact, in a side-by-side comparison, the two cameras appear very similar. However, the 8400’s 8 megapixel CCD, EVF with 97% accuracy, 5m built-in flash guide number & 24mm wide angle, among other features, make it appear very attractive. I’m an architect & planner, so most of my pictures are of buildings - both exteriors and interiors - and open spaces. As a result, the long tele isn’t that important to me but the wide angle is, which is why I’m interested in the 8400 vs. the 8800.
In addition, the electronic viewfinder turns out to be too dark to see the face of the person you are trying to photograph indoors with the flash, you cannot see any expressions, just the outline of the person's head, so you guess and shoot several times and then see the photos you just shot in the viewfinder. Outdoors you cannot see enough detail in the viewfinder to know what you are including in your shot.
The "display" LCD monitor is small and washes out in sunlight.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/03/2005 |
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Don't like it
Strengths: Good wide angle lens. 8 megapixels give good detail.
Weaknesses: Flash photos at night are poor and require lots of editing to make them usable.
Summary: Although I like the wide angle and the resolution, the camera has been a disappointment. I paid over $800 for it. The flash seems to be too weak and all my night pictures come out underexposed. I would never print out any of the photos without working them over first in Photoshop Elements. There are so many features that the camera is difficult to learn well. The manual is terrible.
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