Customer Reviews

Nikon Coolpix 880 3.2MP Digital Camera w/ 2.5x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I received my camera and immediately started taking beautiful photos. The menu is easy to follow and I like the scene option and quality of the display. I had compared it to the Sony DSCS70 with the Carl Zeiss lens and it was about the same in price and features, but I went with Nikon for their optics and menu options thining that I would spend the same amount of money. As well, I ordered the CoolPack for "all" coolpix 700, 800 and 900 series cameras. To my dismay the batteries that come with the CoolPack are not compatible with the 880 and the lens filters are not compatible either (I am assuming a step down ring is needed). I promptly returned it. I ordered a 64MB compact flash card for about $100. I took about 40 nice photos and kabam - the lithium ion batter was drained (it comes with a disposable battery). Each battery costs $12-13. Since I intend on taking many photos, I have opted to spend the extra $120 and order the re-chargeable battery, charger and small case. This is a hefty add on fee for what all the other digital camera's of the same price range come with standardly. The autofocus makes a rather loud noise. At first I was worried since it does not sound like it is a smooth moving part inside (lots of friction sounds), but I called tech support and was told this is normal for the camera to make these sounds. The lady at Nikon was professional and courteous, and hopefully correct in her information! All in all, I expect to take lots beautiful pictures very easily, but if you are not willing to invest about $1100 including the camera and accessories, then this may not be the camera for you. If the camera had come with the battery, charger and protective cover/case I would have given this a 5 star review.

For the price of the Nikon 880, you are making a major commitment to digital photography. The good news is the 880 delivers on all of its promises with few compromises. Incredible "ease of use" enables both novices and veterans to create great digital photos. Image quality is outstanding and the features will keep have you experimenting for many a late night. I admit it, I am in love with this camera!

Another advantage you should not underestimate: the compact size and light weight of the 880. My "other camera" is a N70, but size is an issue as I like to travel light. The 880 always makes the road trip, either in the jacket pocket or briefcase.

Several issues to consider: The 880 drains disposable batteries faster than any electronic gadget I've ever owned, so unless you have friends who work for Duracell you'll need to spring for the optional rechargeable battery and charger. Plan to spend another $100 or so for both. The camera comes with only an 8mb card so you may want to upgrade to 16 or 32mb. The software bundle is light, it will allow you to upload pictures but not much else. Consider Adobe Photoshop LE or JASC Paint Shop to complete your setup.

I love the features of this camera, however, Nikon has to do something about the poor & misleading advertising going around regarding accessories that actually works with this camera.

The CoolPix 880 CANNOT use Nikon's flash adapter (SK-E900), and an external flash cannot be synched because there is no flash synch connection. An internet search of "Coolpix 880" and "flash" revealed over 15-sites that advertised you can use the SK-E900 flash adapter with the CoolPix 880.

Moreover, you CANNOT use *any* of Nikon's external lenses with the flash "ON" because the external lenses' physical dimensions blocks the flash and causes a half-circle shadow. A quick call to Nikon's 7x24 tech. support confirmed this. You MUST turn-off the "flash" in order to avoid any shadows.

Nikon and its dealers need to do a better job disclosing the above limitations of the Coolpix 880.

Lastly, you MUST get the rechargeable battery & charger to effectively use this camera. Buying batteries gets old fast, and you really need two, just to be safe.

Otherwise, it is a great camera when you don't want to use external accessories.

I have waited over a year to finally buy a digital camera for myself. We use them at work and I have tried several others. Up to now, the image quality has been OK but not something I want to use for family photos...albums, frames, etc. The Nikon 880 takes a major step in quality. I am not technically capable of describing it, I just know that the results are great. I can now use my digital camera instead of my film-based camera and get the same results for 8x10 and smaller and get all the advantages of digital. the biggest advantage is knowing for sure that I have the shot I want before I go home and find out I missed it. If I don't have it, I can retake it immediately. Its great.

Being a photo enthusiast, I didn't want to get a digital camera at first, but since I'm also a long-time web user, the process of shooting a whole roll of film, waiting to get my film developed, picking up the photos, scanning them into my computer, and resizing the images were a bit time-consuming. I wanted a camera that was compact, took good photos and easy to adjust the settings, and I'd say that the Nikon CoolPix 880 comes pretty close.

After using a manual camera for years, this took a little getting used to. There are many features on this camera, including pre-set "scenes" that adjust light/color/speed for those who just want to point-and-shoot and not worry about the settings - I took this camera on a trip to Mammoth Mountains and took GREAT photos in the snow (There's a scene for "snow/beach"). Also, I used the "Indoor/Party" scene and the photos came out GREAT. Another great thing about this camera is its size. Unlike most digital cameras out there, it fits in the palm of your hand and feels very natural to hold while taking pictures. The pictures are sharp with great detail and vibrant colors.

My favorite thing about digital photography is INSTANT GRATIFICATION! No more wasting rolls of film - you see what a photo looks like right after you take it, and if you don't like it, hit delete! No more waiting at the photolab, and best of all, total customization! The USB lets you download the photos in a flash, and with my trusty photo software, I can adjust colors, change brightness and contrast, and even air-brush out an imperfection or two ;-) and you don't need a fancy color printer to print out great photos - I've been using my Epson printer and using glossy photo paper - output looks terrific. You can hardly tell that it was produced at home.

Now the cons: The CoolPix 880 comes with a 8MG compact flash card, if you are taking photos for only web use, you can fit as much as 90 pics. If you're going to take higher-rez pictures for printing, you'll definitely need to shell out for a bigger card. Another common problem with many cameras is battery life - they eat batteries like crazy. For the planet's sake, don't buy disposable batteries! Unfortunately, the CoolPix does not come with a battery charger, so you'll have to pay [more] for the charger. With normal use, the battery will last about 2 hours, so you'll need to buy another battery and have it charged and ready to go.

This camera is perfect for those who want to invest a little more for a digital camera that takes great pictures with no fuss. Highly recommended!

I have previously owned a Nikon 800 and looked forward to the update with the 880. The camera is very impressive in terms of quality of photos and they hay have improved the ease in which you can functionally use the camera features from the 800. There are a number of features such as the preset scenes that are great to assist in certain situations. I bought it based on the previous experience with Nikon, but their decision to use a special camera battery instead of common AA alkaline, lithium or rechargeable batteries has left me with an expensive choice of options. I take a lot of pictures and the battery life in this particular camera is very short, so I can either use the rechargable batteries (which can be a problem in traveling), purchase a number of expensive photo style batteries or another third party battery supply pack (cumbersome). That type of battery cannot usually be found in rural areas that I travel. The other problem is that the base for a tripod does not have a provision for the alignment hole that some tripods have on the mounting plate. I still like the compactflash memory card and I have purchased a higher capacity card for this and other applications I have owned a number of digital cameras over the last five years for both work and personal activities and this is probably the best features for the price and size of camera. I have found that I am looking to other alternative for the future that may or may not include this particular camera. While I would highly recommend this camera for it's usefulness and features, I would be very apprehensive and cognizant of the battery issue. Also, if I could find a suitable e-mail address for customer service at NikonUSA, I would probably let them know of this issue.

As a lifelong technology heat seeker, I'm going against type when it comes to digital cameras. It's just for that kind of money, I want all the kinks out.

I couldn't wait to pick it up when I was at the camera store. Feels good in the hand, has the great Nikon optics, takes additional lenses and filters, the controls are easy to handle and the 3.3 megapixel resolution does a superb job.

So, what's not to like?

First, in this class camera I want to have some more creative lighting options -- so it needs the ability to attach/synch a remote strobe.

Then, the battery life is suspect -- and could really get expensive in a hurry. While you can pick up AA batteries anywhere, this camera takes batteries that not everyone carries in case your rechargable battery expires on a big photo day (and what's with the $100 option for a rechargable battery when the regular batteries cost $20 a pop? When you figure in options like the batteries and a bigger-than-8 meg-storage card, the price jumps to $1,000 or higher).

Finally, I want to be able to take pictures of my non-stop grandchildren in full motion. Two clerks at the camera store spent 20 minutes trying to capture shots of people walking by the storefront in the mall. No luck. Either it's too hard to figure out or still doesn't can't respond quickly enough to get the pictures in mall-bright conditions.

So, I'll continue to buck my lifelong early-adopter pattern and hold out for the camera to give me a wee bit more of what I'm looking for before plunking down close to a thousand bucks.

My wife and I just moved to texas and have family all over the country, and with our first baby on the way I decided to take the digital plunge. This camera is a gem. I've spent the last 9 months reading every review possible, looking for the right digital camera. I tossed around buying the olympus 2020/3000, the sony s70,The nikon coolpix 950 and the kodak 4800/dc290. Two months ago the 880 hit the market and I couldn't resist. I can't put it down. Figure the ac-adaptor and rechargeable battery into the price (shop around) I got them online for($) no tax and free shipping. The 8 meg card will hold 90 pictures at 640x480, 20 pix @ 1024x768 and about 6 pictures at it's highest resoultion (that's if you use compression). Believe it or not I take most pictures at 640x480 so that I can e-mail them to family. The menus are great. The scene modes are better. The picture quality is Phenomenal! My wife and I just looked at some old shots we took a year ago on a loaner sony mavica, and all I could do is shake my head. There is no comparison. The color and clarity of the 880 is breathtaking. do some more reading... http://www.dpreview.com Worth every penny!

I'm a professional video news photographer, but wanted something simple for stills for my family use. The coolpix 880 was recomended by a friend who is into still photography. The pictures are shockingly sharp and vivid, even on the standard resolution setting. I print up these four at a time on an eight by ten sheet with an old HP 722 and photo paper, and the 4x5s are as good as 35 milimeter film. If I increased the resolution I'm sure 8x10 enlargements would look sharp. The camera is easy to connect to the computer by a USB port, and downloading, and selecting the pictures for printing is simple. The downside is that on automatic, almost all the pictures appear slightly under exposed, and need minor brightness manipulation, which I have yet to figure out how to do. Also, there is about a one second lag betweeen the time you push the shutter button and the time the picture is actually taken, which I'm still not used to. The camera is almost useless without more memory and the rechargeable battery which all cost me about two hundred dollars extra. This is my first digital camera, and while I've had to get used to all the differences from film, the bottom line is a sharp, clear, detailed picture, and this pocket camera delivers more where it counts the most.

The most important element for me is the quality of the pictures. In that regard, the Nikon 880 does an outstanding job compared to past digital cameras. Sharpness, brightness, etc. are all pretty good. At the Fine Quality/Full Image mode, I can squeeze 81 pictures onto a 128MB Compact Flash card - perfect for a full day's use. I also bought the rechargeable battery, which is an absolute must given that digital cameras eat-up batteries. I like the fact that the camera can also fit a CR5 battery, which is readily available in most shops. That way, if I run out of juice half way during the day, I can always just walk into almost any photo shop and buy an extra battery (some of my older models did not support this simple option).

Nikon has preset scene modes that are great to use. I like the fact that I can easily switch to a landscape or indoor mode with a few clicks. The menus are also very well laid out and quite intuitively easy to use. I was a little distraught though when I went to install the software and the computer refused to recognize the USB connection. Then I realized that I had to download the USB drivers from the Nikon website in order for the USB connection to be recognized (the software included is for the "serial" connection and the updated software has to be downloaded). This was extra burden I would rather have avoided, but maybe this was a problem only for the early Nikon 880 shipments.

I cannot sing enough praise for such a detailed, yet easy to use camera. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, and that perhaps is its biggest selling point.

One irritating point is the "noise" the camera makes as it tries to focus. The Nikon 880 makes a lot of "whizzing" sounds as it focuses -- a bit too conspicuous in quiet environments.

In the end, the Nikon 880 is simply an outstanding digital camera that should last me at least two more generations of digital photography. The only thing that bugged me was that I had to dish out extra money for the rechargeable battery, which in my opinion should have been included. Nevertheless, this is the new ESSENTIAL product for digital photography.-DC