Nikon Coolpix 4500

Crappy customer service. The camera wasn't bad when it was working but although it had probably <800 actuations on it, it pooped out on me on vacation and Nikon wanted $230.00 to fix it. It was out of warranty but I didn't use it much at all until my vacation.

Good metering. Good photo quality for 4mp. Very good macro. ***ALL THIS W/THE PROVISO THAT IS IS WORKING AND NOT CRAPPING OUT ON YOU.

NON-EXISTANT CUSTOMER SERVICE. Oh yeah, they'll take your money all right but they will not back the product properly IMHO.

None.

1 word-nonexistant. I WILL NEVER DEPEND ON NIKON AGAIN FOR ANY OF MY PHOTOGRAPHIC NEEDS UNLESS I AM FORCED TO. I HAVE BOUGHT MAYBE 11 OF THEIR CAMERAS AND NUMBEROUS LENSES AND A PAIR OF BINOCULARS BUT THIER TERRIBLE SO-CALLED 'CUSTOMER SERVICE' REALLY CHEESES ME OFF. I WAS GOING TO BUY A DIGICAM COOLPIX 8400 AND MAYBE A D70 BUT NOT NOW. I AM LOOKING AT THE NEW OLYMPUS E100 AND FOR A CARRY AROUND CAMERA THE PANASONIC DMC FZ20. GOODBYE NIKON!

The Nikon 4500 is the second digital Nikon I have owned. I have had it 1 1/2 yrs. It will also be my last NIKON. The menu's are confusing and slow to scan thru. The Digital delay of this model is very poor.The focus adjustment is slow. Unless you taking still pictures - stay away from Nikon. They have have lost their way in the Digial fild.

Good exposure and strong colors -- if you have the time

memu's confusing Menu's hard to scan thru and it takes time - for fast moving action you are out of luck. Long shutter delay long focus delay - ALL accessories are expensive from Nikon

Cannon G-3

Product service is OK but expensive

I've always liked the Nikon swivel body cameras (900, 950, 990, 995) culminating in the 4500. Love the image reproduction. Smallish 1.5" LCD screen is visible in daylight without the CP-10 hood (or similar LCD shade). Great range.

The swivel lens! Macro capability is amazing. Build quality is top notch. Smaller than its predecessors. CF cards are cheap - ability to use Microdrives. Battery life is decent. (I carry two + a lithium backup). 4MP is plenty for what I shoot for. High image quality Ability to use my SB-28 (with appropriate cords) Ability to use Nikons converter lenses

Shutter Lag - forget the dicisive moment with action shots. Barrel distortion at WA. Menus can be confusing.

None really, (office uses old Sony Mavica)

None.

After being frustrated with a digi p&s that I couldn't make any adjustments I find another camera. The G3 was first on my list, but it was out of my price range. Than Nikon was offering $200 back on the CP4500. I couldn't pass up that deal. This is a great digicam for someone getting into digital photography from film SLR's. Lots of manual adjustments. Very sturdy feeling body, macro very useful, manual adjustments are fairly easy to learn and change quickly. So far so good.

Magnesium body, flexible body, 4X optical zoom, Macro focus down to 2cm! 5 AF points. Accurate exposure metering. joystick/menu fairly easy to scroll through, good ergonomics, aperture priority mode, noise reduction mode, lots of accessories to expand with (ie. Nikon flashes, lens teleconverters, slide copier), saturation control, accepts CF I & II cards, fairly quick start up time, battery life has been very good, good video quality for a digicam. Metal tripod mount. Tiff mode, but no RAW shooting mode. Lens internalized in body, no protruding or retracting involved. Lots of white balance adjustments.

Barrel distortion, some images have a video look to it, flash mode/ISO button in an odd place, finger gets in the way of the pop up flash, no protective screen over the LCD display (gets dusty, fingerprints, scratched), LCD display hard to see in bright sun light, optical viewfinder useless, some vignetting with nikon CP filter, ISO 400 too noisy & not usable unless you have no other choice. Does not automatically sense vertical shots. No AF assist light. Low light focusing not very good.

Minolta S414 (great value and good camera!)

Never used

Price in Australian dollars. I'm a trade certified graphic reproducer. Before digital imaging, if you wanted a graphic reproduced, you gave it to me. Photoshop was created for my trade. The digital 'camera' is not. It's an image capture device. Infact, as the shutter is always open, it is technically not a camera! So? Well, i used a trade camera with an A2 image plane. I know photography. Scanners- things that took up two rooms and look like a sound studio mixing console. All of this was just 15 years ago. Now, you can do things with your 'graphic reproduction device' (PC) that was laughably impossible for for us old school graphic repros. So?, you ask again. Well, if you're wondering 'Is there any real advantage for digital over film?' BLOODY OATH!!! And for the cash, the Nikon 4500 is the image capturer of choice for this printing professional. DON'T FORGET- you will be printing your proofs. What is the weakest link? Stock quality; as it always has been. The digital 'camera' is so far in advance if printing methods it is virtually incomparrable. As for d.p.i.- 'dots per inch' coverts by direct ratio to pixels per inch. Therefor, 4 megapixels is approx. 4 thousand dpi. A printing press cannot print much higher than 300 dpi. A glossy magazine (eg: Nat Geo) is printed at around 180 dpi. News print- around 80 dpi, which is abouth the same as your PC monitor. Our eyes are very forgiving! 2 megapixel image 1 inch image plane @ 2 thousand dpi = 10 inch image (enlarged) @ 200 dpi. Direct scale. That's an A4 print at better than magazine quatity. I knew it was coming- but didn't expect it so soon! Enjoy :)

Pre-programmed lighting bias, A2 proofs, designed as an image capturer rather than trying to fool it's user into believing it's a camera. The swivel is a master stroke. Top design team at work here. Flash unit doesn't try to be any more than a close range illuminator- I like that kind of honesty!

Agree with most previous posts. 800 asa equiv. is so grainy that it wasn't worth including. no viewing screen cover/protector- if my coolpix is stolen, the police will be able to relate it back to me because my finger print will be on the display, as usual.

Considered image capturers to be toys- until now. I'm sure there will always be a place for the old film camera- after all, people still ride horses don't they?!

As good as any. Scary, eh?