Reviews Written by John M

I think I'm in love

Pros: DSLR-like manual control flexibilty, relative light-weight and footprint

Cons: A big sluggish; placement of on-off switch is not-smart; 'slow' lens

There's a lot to love about this camera. It's solidly made, with excellent optics, intuitive menus, easily accessible manual controls (full manual; shutter priority; aperture priority; fully automatic; and a 'modifiable' automatic mode Nikon calls Programmed Auto), and lots of flexibility/programmability (but no RAW). This camera is far more than a point-and-shoot, and it's much smaller and lighter than a DSLR, I can fit it in my pocket.
So this camera is for me a good compromise: It's a bit bigger than a conventional point-and-shoot but gives the photographer *so* much more control, nearly as much as with a DSLR, and it's MUCH more portable than even the smallest DSLR. The SP5100 is, for me, a vastly scaled-down DSLR (but not in quality: excellent (if limited) optics; great image quality) that fits in my pocket.

It's a near-perfect camera for me. I think I'm in love.

To be fair: it's not perfect. I wish it weren't so slow (there's a noticeable lag as it processes an image), the shutter-lag is higher than in most quality point-and-shoots.

And I wish the on-off switch were located somewhere else (it's right in the center of the uppermost grip of the camera, meaning I'm constantly turning it on and off without meaning to.) It's beautifully designed and solid and well-thought-out, but it's not perfect.

Most of all: I do wish it were a bit smaller, a bit lighter. Even though it does fit in a pocket, it's substantially heavier and bulkier than a modern point-and-shoot. It's not quite comfortable enough to want to carry it all the time, and in the best of all worlds I'd have it with me all the time. It's *almost* that.

Still, it's near-perfect: I *am* in love.

(P.S. It has other capabilities (like movies, voice recording) that I don't expect to use. I bet the quality is top-notch)

And to be fair, some small complaints: It's slow ... but tolerable, I've really learned to work with it, it's not much of a problem. The on--off switch is And ...