Customer Reviews

Nikon Coolpix 5400 5.1 MP Digital Camera w/ 4x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

the nikon coolpix 5400 is a solid 5MP, 4x zoom camera with a strong feature set. but it has a few shortcomings so make sure to consider its competition.

pros:
- 5MP and 4x optical zoom.
- good color response, average resolution for 5MP.
- photos have very low noise.
- allows a great deal of manual control.
- macro mode better than most.
- low redeye occurrence.
- virtually free of chromatic aberrations.
- shadow highlights maintained.
- timed exposures up to 10 minutes.
- expandable with a boatload of lenses, flashes, and other accessories from nikon.
- wider lens than most.
- supports CF card types I and II.
- flip-out LCD display - protects LCD when not in use.
- high resolution LCD with anti-reflective coating that actually works.
- very comfortable to hold with a deep hand grip made of soft rubber.
- compact body feels solid.
- reprogrammable FUNC button, and initial record menu.
- above average battery life (i still recommend getting a spare though).

cons:
- some lens distortion, especially at maximum zoom.
- images occasionally appear soft around corners.
- slow response interface, non-intuitive menus.
- no AF assist light - very puzzling why nikon doesn't provide this.
- to add insult to injury, this camera has a hard time focusing in low light so an AF assist light would really come in handy.
- average auto focus speed.
- buffering issue? the camera locks towards the end of write process.
- slow CF write speed / processing.
- you're on your own when using manual focus - it doesn't show focus distance.
- LCD smaller than competition.
- RAW mode not supported.
- flimsy cover for CF slot.
- no live histogram in record mode.
- no support for external Speedlight features such as AF assist or flash zoom.
- connectivity options all over the place rather than in a central location.
- uses proprietary battery so make sure you add some $$ to your budget to get a spare.
- the supplied 16MB CF card is inadequate - again, more $$ for more memory.

the coolpix 5400 is a solid camera from nikon with a very strong feature set. it will produce very good pics in point and shoot mode but still has full manual control if you want to be more creative with your shots. i've given this a 4-star rating because of two important factors for me: the lack of an AF assist light and the dead time at the end of write process. i would suggest that you consider the canon g5 and the sony dsc-v1 before committing to the nikon 5400.

i hope this helps with your buying decision. peace.

What can I say? I love the 5400! It is my second from the Coolpix series. My first was a CP 880 that took a fall so the 5400 was a replacement. It's well worth the money. I looked around a lot and couldn't find anything I liked from other manufacturers that packed the features and flexibility of the 5400.

If you are a new digital user, the auto mode and scene modes are great. I usually shoot in P or M modes and can turn the dial to Automatic mode and hand it to my wife who likes the ability to point and shoot without thinking about adjusting anything. You can grow into this camera if you don't know yet how to shoot manually.

The 15 different scene modes to choose from are excellent. The panoramic assist mode is particularly cool. You can shoot a panoramic horizontally, vertically or in a 360 degree circle. You take photos and then put them together after download with the ArcSoft software that comes with the camera. It even allows you to fine-tune the pictures in case they do not align they way you want them too.

Pros:
Turn a fully automatic camera into a fully manual camera with the turn of a dial. I haven't found anything this camera cannot do that my recently auctioned SLR could do. Picture quality is equal to me.

The camera feels great to hold. All of the buttons are in convenient locations. Menus can be customized to show what you adjust frequently and you can store two different user settings using the function button.

5-shot buffer is great. It will take photos as long as you hold down the shutter release. It only stores the last five frames even if you have held the shutter release down long enough to make 20 exposures. Also does time lapse.

Shutter speed from Bulb to 1/4000.

Crisp Macro shooting.

The Vari-Angle display is much better than a fixed position display.

Three metering options- Matrix, Center-weighted and Spot are very effective.

Takes Type I and II compact flash. I wouldn't go with anything less than 256mb. Make sure it is USB compatible memory if you plan to use a Compact Flash reader in a USB port.

Hot shoe for accessories is a great addition. When a speedlight is attached, you can set the camera to fire the internal flash and speedlight or you can turn off the internal flash and use only the speedlight. This is great if you want to bounce your speedlight and use the internal for a fill-flash. It also works with a SC-17 remote cable if you want to get the flash off the camera for close up/macro shots. (If you are thinking about getting a Nikon speedlight, go with the SB-80DX or find an old SB-28 or SB-28DX versus going with the SB-50DX. It's worth the extra money if you are going to do any manual shooting/adjusting of speedlight. There is no manual mode on the SB-50DX so you can't really fine tune lighting if you are shooting with the camera in manual mode.)

Battery life is good (about 1.5 - 2 hrs.) It comes with a charger and 1 battery. A second (or 2CR5) as a back-up in my case has come in handy.

Cons:
The autofocus is not very good in low light situations. I have a Nikon SB-28 speedlight with autofocus assist but the 5400 doesn't activate it. I knocked off half a star for that.

You have to go through a 1/4 view screen before going to full-screen view when using the Quick Review. I think it would be better if it went straight to the full-screen view and did away with the 1/4 screen view. (-1/4 star.)

The only option for adding filters is the HN-CP10 hood with 77mm filters. It's great to have a hood large enough to stay out of wide angle compositions but the 77mm filters are very expensive. (last 1/4 star)

Card cover is flimsy. I have a card reader and each time I open the door to remove the card, I think about how flimsy it is. The 880 had a much more sturdy door.

Area through the viewfinder is significantly different than what you see in the monitor. I read somewhere it is about 35% less through the viewfinder than the monitor.

Overall, it's a great camera for the beginner or advanced user. As a result of purchasing this camera, I shoot only digital and don't miss my SLR one bit. The owner's manual is 160 pages and thoroughly explains all the camera's features. I've had it for 3 months now and am still learning what this camera can do.

Although I have had years of experience with conventional cameras in both 35mm and medium format, the Nikon Coolpix 5400 is the first digital camera I have owned. I had grown weary of traveling with a 35mm and several lenses, or even more bulky medium format cameras.

Other reviewers have amply written about the features of this camera. I am going to focus on performance.

The Coolpix 5400 has good optics. I have shot the equivalent of several rolls of film on it. The photos have been crisp, had faithful color rendition without any glaring digital artifacts, and really don't need any software manipulation. So far, so good.

All is not roses, however. The Coolpix 5400 is very, very, very slow in writing from the a/d converter to the flashcard. Fire off a bunch of shots in continuous mode and get ready to wait. And wait some more. Smokers will have time for a cigarette or two; others could take a short bus ride or file their nails. It's that bad. I find this to be inexcusable in a camera sold at the original price point of the 5400. In fact, a lot of less expensive cameras are quicker. Canons don't seem to do this as poorly as the Nikon 5400 and Sony with its new V3 may be the fastest prosumer camera on the block for the time being. I think most other name brands will be quicker also. I should point out everything is relative: all point and shoot and prosumer digital cameras will be much slower than a digital SLR.

Another shortcoming: the autofocus in dim light problem that has been amply documented by other reviewers. This has not bothered me that much, but it is a problem to be aware of (this problem is not unique to Nikon).

A former shortcoming, the lack of a RAW file format has been rectified. You can now download firmware enabling RAW files from the Nikon USA website. It is up to you whether you want to utilize the RAW format. RAW is essentially uncompressed, but I doubt you'd be able to discern any real differences between a RAW or JPEG photo at normal print size.

Were it not for the glitches I listed above, I'd highly recommend the camera to just about anyone. As it is, the Coolpix 5400 is suitable for someone like a landscape photographer who takes a long time to compose a picture and has some patience; but it's not for the person who wants to take action shots and review them quickly.

The Coolpix 5400 has been recently discontinued by Nikon, and, depending where you shop. the price has dropped from a bit to enormously. That may make its few flaws more acceptable to the new buyer. My advice: shop around and try to use the camera you are interested in buying as much as possible. Online reviews can provide a good guide, but you really need to put your hands on a camera and run through the controls to see if it is right for you. What feels good in my hand may not in yours.

Hope this has been of some help.

After having read through all the reviews I thought I'd contribute my input on this camera since a lot of people had something negative to say.

I'm a former Coolpix 5000 user and went for the newer version handing down my older version, and I must say the 5400 is indeed a better camera.

Before I get into that, I must first say that if you're a beginner user or searching for your first digital camera, the 5400 is probably not for you and I would recommend investing your money on a high end Canon which focuses on point and shoot, quick and easy, no fuss photos. Although this camera does have point and shoot capabilities, the camera is clearly designed to be tweaked and played with to get a professional image. This camera is the grade in between a consumer and professional camera and you'll immediately see and feel that when you begin to use the camera.

As for what remarks I've seen regarding fuzziness, blurriness or quality of images... the 5400 produces crystal clear, professional images once you've taken the time to learn how to use the camera and produce the images. If you're not willing to sit down and learn how to use the camera, you're wasting your money. Of course, if you're a previous Nikon Coolpix user it will be a relatively easy learning curve.

Frankly, who cares where the camera was made? Every element on the 5400 works and functions great. Nothing on the 5400 has been overlooked or "skimped" over. This camera's been on the top 10 at PC World for months since its release and for good reason.

My favorite feature compare to the 5000 is that I'm not always removing the lens cap to do simple tasks such as downloading images into my computer. The menu is also a lot better and it's a lot easier to navigate between the different shooting modes.

The features have already been thoroughly reviewed by other users, but overall this camera is an excellent camera with more features and absolute control then you could imagine. If you want to be creative about photography and get quality, professional images, then this camera is undoubtedly meant for you.

Got a $200 rebate from Nikon on this camera and couldn't pass it up and never happier. Very good all around performance, a few small problems (no Focus Assist light and fairly small LCD are some) but overall a solid camera with a lot of features and unbeatable at the price.

For those who are having problems focusing in low light I have to ask, are you shooting on a tripod or by hand? Take advantage of the nice feature whereby this camera shows you the exposure time right on the LCD when taking pictures, at medium and low light levels the camera will often have an exposure time of 1 second or more, this will lead to a blurry shot if it's not heald perfectly steady.

If you are having blurry shots at low light, try the same shot on a tripod or just sitting on something solid, I bet the shot will be crystal clear and very bright (I took some late twilight shots tonight and they look almost like midday with the right settings!).

Many features seems advanced for a camera of this price range, and sometimes at the cost of point and shoot ability, but if you are looking for a good prosumer level camera I have to say this feels like a solid bet.

This camera measures roughly 4"x3"x2.5". It weighs 0.8 lbs with the battery. As I am 200 lb size man, this camera definitely is compact for me.
The camera is powerful. It has a wide angle lens, standard. The optical zoom is 4x. Shutter speeds range from 10 mins (bulb) to 1/8000 sec (ultra high speed); but, 97% of my shooting uses 1/8 sec to 1/700 sec shutter speeds. f/ values range from 2.8 to 8.0 (8.0 reached at 4x zoom). In 1600x1200 jpg fine picture mode, it can snap 7 frames in 2.7 sec (high speed continuous), or 54 frames in 33.5 sec (low speed continuous). For faster continuous shooting, I recommend using the QuickTime movie mode (includes sound), rather than the ultra high speed continuous mode. The movie mode is 15 fps, 3 mins max at 320x240 pixels or 70 secs max at 640x480 pixels. You can combine and edit the movie clips, using QuickTime Pro software ($30 extra).
The camera can be used in fully auto mode, or for the best pictures, you will want to go to the fully manual mode ( this will be a learning experience for the novice). Also, available, if you need extra high quality pictures (better than jpg), you can use the TIFF 2,592x1,944 pixel mode (5 mega-pixels is also available for the jpg images).
The color accuracy of this camera is very high. While photo editing the pictures, I seldom need more than one click of adjustment to achieve perfect color, and half the time , zero adjustment is needed.
Auto focus will be 97-100% accurate in average or bright light, but if the light is very dim, then the auto focus quits working. Also, the natural focus of the lens tends to be soft, so that a setting of high image sharpening, + contrast, and +1 color saturation is recommended. The lens has rather low chromatic and linear aberration.
The auto ISO sensitivity and the auto white balance of the camera is generally very good , so no manual adjustment is needed or recommended. Image "noise" is almost zero at ISO's of 50 to 150.
The monitor measures 1 1/4" x 7/8" , 1.5" diagonally. It is easy to see the image in bright sunlight, and has good resolution at 134,000 pixels. The monitor is big enough for me - I am nearsighted, but a lot of people would prefer the 1.8" size monitor.
I can't give this camera a 5 star rating, because, then you would have to give the professional league cameras a 6 star rating. But, for its size and weight, Nikon has made a very powerful camera.

I love this camera. I am a fine artist and need to archive my work. In the past, that meant shooting everything in 35mm and then my better pieces needed to be shot again in 4x5 format as well in the event I wanted to reproduce them at a later date as large prints. I had to bracket each shot at least three ways to make sure I got the best shot. And at the end of a photo shoot, it could get pretty expensive with all the film and processing. Along with the 5400, I also purchased a 512mb flash card and a AC adapter so I wouldn't have to continually upload my images. In one session, I was able to shoot over 40 works, and only two needed to be reshot because they were soft. I shoot in bright natural light and the auto focus worked very well. I shot everything at the highest resolution setting as tif files which are pretty big. I was able to store about 35 images on the flashcard before it ran out of memory. The colors were so accurate, I hardly needed to tweak them at all in Photoshop. Needless to say, the camera paid for itself in one photo shoot and the ease and time saving qualities are priceless to me. I would highly recommend this camera, but get yourself a flash card with more memory if you want to store more images than using the card it comes with. (I think an 8). Also, I would suggest steering clear of sellers who are offering this and other similar items at a ridiculous savings. They will try to upsell you with incredibly high cost extras like extended waranty and cases and cards and lenses. If you don't agree to buy any, they will likely screw up your order, lie to you and make your life a living hell. I went through that ugly scene and then finally went through Amazon to purchase my stuff. They haven't let me down yet with anything I've purchased.

Finally decided to get the Nikon 5400 from Amazon at the regular Nikon suggested price, because I have grown to trust Amazon, and my impression is that the "lower priced" 5400's out there are mostly gray market. This made-in-Japan wonder, has not let me down. Have been using the 5400 about 10 days now. I took camera and manual up to a lean-to in the Adirondacks for an overnight, and had a great time trying the various features. I took pictures in the deep forest in a misty rain, using a Leki Photo walking stick as a monopod and got great results. I set the white balance for "cloudy" and colors were rendered accurately. Subsequently, on a clear day in the shade, with white balance set to "shade", greens were nice and warm - not blue as with slide film (unless you put on a filter.) You can even bring along a piece of white paper, aim the camera at it, and set the white balance precisely for any lighting situation. I have methodically plodded through the manual, and pleasant surprises abound. The camera is a joy to use, controls are well deployed. And with battery, it only weighs 13 oz - a backpacker's dream camera, with 28 - 116 zoom. This is possibly the only 5 MP camera on the market with a 28mm equivalent wide angle lens integral to the camera. In macro, it will focus as close as 1/2 inch! If you are into scenics and nature, this is the camera to own. The only down side so far is the viewfinder (the glass one you look through) which has a somewhat restricted view.

In response to the made in Korea question, I received my camera a week ago and was terrified to see that it was made in Korea (having read the reviewer's comment). After a week of unneeded stress, I can personally say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my camera - it works perfectly. I'm sure the reviewer had a problem with his camera and simpy assumed it was the fact that it was made in Korea. More realistically, he simply received a lemon camera - it happens. (Incidently, the "Made in Korea" is located on one side of the box in tiny print, or on the bottom of the camera.)

So far this camera has been amazing. Super wideangle that no comparable competitor can surpass, and great macro capabilities. I went for this one over the 5700 for that fact (and the price difference - plus having to deal with rebates). I haven't yet had any reason to worry about the buffer speed as some reviews have nailed it on. How many times do I need to take 30 continous low res shots in a row (as in, holding down the shutter release) and then turn around and take more shots? Really, the only major drawbacks to this camera in my opinion, are the optical viewer and the price. The viewer doesn't cover the entire actual shot taken which can cause you to get a shot you hadn't intended. So I basically rely on the LCD screen usually. But isn't that what most people do anyway? The price is high basically because its a Nikon and built out of good materials.

There will be tradeoffs in any camera that you buy, and this one covered most of what I needed. You really have to look at what you want personally, rather than what a camera review is looking for.

I bought this camera because of the price. I had a Canon, a 75, which I liked for the size, but was only three megapixel. I got this camera for about 275 after rebate.

This camera takes great photographs and has good battery life. Has a ton of manual features, which is great with digital season experiment and learn about shutter speed, aperture etc.

one thing to keep in mind when buying this camera or any other Nikon is that they use battery packs and not AA or AAA batteries, which makes getting juice one on the run difficult. I own a Nikon 8700 eight megapixel camera. It is just awesome, and this one is similar. Shutter lag can be a hassle to deal with less than the second I believe, but not as snappy as SLR.

One thing the body is made of metal, which I enjoy makes it feel rugged and safe plus the flash is built in and not a pop up super bonus.

If you buy and I think you'll enjoy this camera. Check the reviews online for all the specifics. Peace out