Nikon Coolpix 775 Review, Phil Askey, August 2001

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp775/

Review based on production Coolpix 775, firmware v1.3u

Nikon gave us our first glimpse of the 775 behind closed doors at PMA 2001, it was announced a little later at the same time as the Coolpix 995. The ultra-compact 775 features a 3x optical zoom lens and a 2.1 megapixel CCD, its small proportions, plastic case and lightweight lithium battery makes it one of the lightest digital cameras on the market today, it tips the scales at just 230g (8 oz) fully loaded.

The Coolpix 775 joins the Coolpix 700, 800 and 880 as part of the more compact side of the Coolpix range. It's the first ultra-compact Coolpix, its small proportions and light weight put it in that category. Clearly aimed at the first time buyer or size conscious end of the market. With a street price of approximately $450 it's up against the likes of Canon's PowerShot A20, Olympus D-510Z and the new Kodak DX's.

The 775 is designed to be small, pocketable and extremely easy to use.. With a straightforward Auto mode and seven preprogrammed exposure modes which configure the camera for optimum use in different types of scene you don't need to be a shutterbug to use this camera. This means of course that there isn't the normal Coolpix wide range of manual options, although you can still control white balance (including a manual preset), exposure compensation and sharpening. The 775 also has a movie mode which is limited to 15 second clips without audio.

Review notes: A pre-production unit was used for product shots and menu captures. All image quality tests, timings, performance and comparisons were taken using the production unit.

If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this review (it may help you understand some of the terms used).

Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (normally 960 x 720 or smaller if cropped) image in a new window. Some graphics in this review were reproduced with permission from the Nikon Coolpix 775 instruction manual. Copyright Nikon Inc. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C.

This review is Copyright 2001 Phil Askey and the review in part or in whole may NOT be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author. For information on reproducing any part of this review (or any images) please contact: Phil Askey.