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Nikon Coolpix P5100 Review, November 2007
Richard Butler & Simon Joinson
Based on a production Nikon Coolpix P5000 Firmware version 1.0
Announced just six months after the launch of the P5000, the Nikon P5100 is a gentle re-working of the existing model with a slightly larger, more pixel-dense sensor and hardware-based face-detection. Beyond that, the changes are predominantly cosmetic alterations to the existing model. The camera is Nikon's flagship compact camera, with the 'P' denoting 'performance.' Although it may not visually leap out from a line-up of contemporary compacts, its magnesium alloy body and manual exposure controls belie the unassuming appearance. It aims to offer a greater degree of manual control than the majority of compact cameras and has a strong feature set to help it stand apart. We were actually very impressed with the P5000's image quality and feature set, and only really complained about the sluggish performance. So has Nikon fixed the P5000's Achilles' heel in this update? Lets find out!
Differences compared with P5000
- Faster, hardware-based face-detection, allowing more faces to be identified
- Expeed processing 'concept'
- Continuous flash shooting mode (3 consecutive frames at ~1fps)
- Distortion control to counteract lens distortion
- Improved user interface
- Marginally larger sensor making the lens slightly wider-angle (35mm vs 36mm)
- Fractionally shorter battery life (240, rather than 250 shots, CIPA standard)
- 1:1 aspect ratio shooting mode
- Can add black borders to images
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Unlike the names applied to image processors by many of Nikon's rivals, Expeed doesn't specifically refer to any particular technology or set of features. Rather, it is a "digital image-processing concept," so shouldn't be taken to imply any kinship to the D3 and D300 DSLR models that share the name, beyond the the use of similar Nikon algorithms and know how.
Key features
- 12 megapixel 1/1.8-inch CCD
- 3.5x Zoom-Nikkor lens
- Lens shift VR (Vibration Reduction)
- ISO 64-1600 (3200 in 5MP mode)
- BSS (Best Shot Selector) identifies and saves the sharpest image automatically from ten sequential shots
- P/A/S/M modes plus 16 scene modes
- Compatibility with system-expanding accessories
- Macro shooting enables shooting from as close as 4cm (1.6 in.)
- SDHC card compatibility
- Approx. 52 MB of internal memory
- Face-priority AF, In-Camera Red-Eye Fix, D-Lighting
- 2.5-in wide viewing angle TFT LCD with anti-reflection coating
Nikon Coolpix P5100 specifications
| Street price |
• US: $370 |
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| Body Material | Metal and plastic |
| Sensor |
• 1/1.72 " Type CCD |
| Image sizes |
• 4000 x 3000 |
| Movie clips |
• Motion JPEG (AVI) with sound |
| File formats | • JPEG Exif V2.2 • DCF • DPOF • Motion JPEG AVI |
| Lens |
• 3.5x Zoom-Nikkor (35-123mm equiv.) |
| Image stabilization | Lens-shift VR |
| Conversion lenses | Yes (optional) |
| Digital zoom | up to 4x |
| Focus | • Contrast Detection AF • Macro • Infinity lock |
| AF area modes |
• Auto (9-area automatic selection) |
| AF assist lamp | Yes |
| Focus distance |
• 30cm (1 ft.) to infinity (∞) [W], 70cm (2 ft. 4 in.) to infinity (∞) [T] |
| Metering | • Through-the-lens (TTL) metering • 256-segment matrix • Spot • Center-weighted • Spot AF area |
| ISO sensitivity | • Auto (64 - 800) • ISO 64 • ISO 100 • ISO 200 • ISO 400 • ISO 800 • ISO 1600 • ISO 2000 • ISO 3200 (5MP or lower only) |
| Exposure compensation | • -/+ 2EV • in 1/3 EV steps |
| Exposure bracketing |
• 3 shots |
| Shutter speed | 1/2000 to 8 s |
| Aperture | • Six blade iris diaphragm • 10 (in steps of 1/3 EV) |
| Modes |
• Auto shooting mode |
| Scene modes | Face-priority AF, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night Portrait, Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close up, Museum, Fireworks show, Copy, Back Light, Panorama Assist, Voice recording |
| White balance |
• Auto |
| Self timer | • 10 or 3 secs |
| Continuous shooting |
• Single |
| Image parameters | Normal, Softer, Vivid, More vivid, Portrait, Custom, Black-and-white |
| Flash | • Built-in • Range: (W) 0.3 to 8.0m (1 ft. to 26 ft. 3 in.), (T) 0.3 to 4.0m (1 ft. to 13 ft. 1 in.) • Flash Hot Shoe • Auto, Auto with red-eye reduction, Anytime flash, Flash cancel, Slow sync., Rear-curtain sync. |
| Viewfinder | • Real-image zoom viewfinder • Approx 80% vertical x 80% horizontal |
| LCD monitor | • 2.5-in wide viewing angle TFT LCD with anti-reflection coating • 230,000-dot • Approx 97% vertical x 97% horizontal (record mode) |
| Connectivity | • USB • AV out (NTSC / PAL) |
| Print compliance | PictBridge, DCF, DPOF, EXIF print |
| Storage | • SD / SDHC / MMC card (optional) • Approx 52MB internal memory |
| Power | • Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL5 (supplied) • AC Adapter EH-62A (optional) |
| Weight (No batt) | Approx. 200 g (7.1 oz.) without battery and SD memory card |
| Dimensions | Approx. 98 x 64.5 x 41 mm (3.9 x 2.5 x 1.6 in.) excluding projections |
Design
The P5100 is vaguely reminiscent of Canon's 'A-Series' cameras at first glance but this resemblance is quickly dismissed once you pick it up. The magnesium alloy body also gives a slightly misleading first impression - it's disconcertingly light - but the slightly cold feel and textured surface of the alloy soon make you appreciate that it's actually a pretty rugged and understated little thing.
In your hand
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The P5100 is a small camera considering the amount of controls it offers the user. Despite this, it handles very well. The grip is excellent, with the rubberized thumb pad on the back giving a good, firm hand position on the body. The shutter, zoom switch and control wheel are all accessible without re-positioning your hand: it's all very well laid out.
Body elements
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A thin, and rather flexible, cover conceals both the battery and SD card slot. The P5100 is equally happy to accommodate standard or high capacity SD cards. The EN-EL5 battery lasts for a perfectly acceptable 240 shots (in CIPA standard tests). |
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A single combined mini USB and AV (audio video) output port sits under a small flexible plastic cover on the left side of the body (looking from the front). |
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The optical viewfinder, complete with flash and AF ready lights is pretty standard stuff. It's tiny, the field of view is nowhere near the full frame (around 80% along each axis) and it's so far from the lens that you'll get parallax errors if you shoot subjects nearer than about 2M. But it's no worse than any other similar camera, and comes in useful in very low or very bright light, or when you need to preserve battery power. |
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The 2.5-inch, 230,000-pixel screen is very sharp and pleasant to use. It only shows 97% of the shot in each direction, which is awkward for setting up our test shots but no real problem for real-world use. As before (with the P5000) the screen can be a little difficult to see in bright light. |
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As well as a usefully powerful flash (effective up to 8m at the wide end of the lens and 4m at the long end), the P5100 carries a full-function hot shoe over from its predecessor. You can mount Nikon's SB-800 or SB-600 external flashes, both of which are larger than the camera itself, or the more compact SB-400 that would be much more manageable. |
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The 3.5x Zoom Nikkor lens covers a range equivalent to approximately 35-123mm on a 35mm camera. The maximum aperture is usefully bright (f/2.7) at wideangle but is two whole stops slower at the long end (a shutter-speed-troubling f/5.3). |
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The main mode dial sits atop the camera right next to the shutter release and main power switch. From here you can choose between the various automatic and manual modes. There are positions on the dial for Anti Shake and high ISO modes, plus a separate 'Setup' mode (for changing basic camera settings). |
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Control and navigation of menus is shared between the control wheel and the four-way controller. In most instances the control wheel simply gives you a faster method of scrolling through the same options but this isn't true of all operations, which takes a little getting used to. |
Operation and controls
The body and button layout is retained from the P5000 and promises a revised user interface. We said good things about the design of the P5000 and they are equally true of its successor: the grip at the front and a thumb-rest at the back are rubberized and the choice and arrangement of the buttons is clear and sensible.
Rear of camera
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The rear of the camera is where you'll find most of the external controls. The control layout is completely unchanged with a four-way controller on one side and all the other buttons slotted down the left-hand side of the large, clear LCD screen. A function button can be set to give direct access to one of ten settings. The choices range from parameters you might want to change regularly such as ISO and white balance to specific features that you might occasionally want to turn on and off, such as distortion control.
Top of camera
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The design of the P5100 is hardly radical but is nicely executed with the shutter button and zoom switch well positioned above a comfortable grip. The on/off button is within easy reach but requires enough sustained pressure to ensure it is never accidentally engaged. |
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Display and menus
The Nikon's compact camera user interface has been one of our bugbears for some time. The P5100 does feature some incremental improvements but still contains at least one frustrating quirk or inconsistency in every operating mode. The menus are simple and clear with most options sensibly located and, as with any camera, anyone using the P5100 regularly will find they adapt to its idiosyncrasies. This doesn't completely justify a control system that simply doesn't feel as thought-through or finished as some of its competitors, however.
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| The live view can either show just the scene being shot, overlays of shooting parameters or an overlay with gridlines to aid composition and keeping things level. In this instance, manual mode shows the shutter speed and aperture values. | The shooting menu gives access to most of the most commonly-used settings. Except VR (image stabilization), which is rather oddly located in the 'Setup' menu, that has to be accessed via the mode dial (we guess the presumption is you're going to leave it on most of the time). |
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| In manual mode, rotating the control wheel changes the shutter speed or aperture. Pressing 'right' on the four-way controller (AE Comp) switches from one to the other. | To shift back to modifying the value displayed on the left, you again press the right-hand side of the four-way controller. Although pressing AE Comp is logical, it takes a great deal of self-control not to press 'left' and bring up the self-timer menu. |
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In most modes, exposure compensation brings up a scale on the left edge of the screen. The bar across the bottom lingers if you don't confirm your selection, giving you continued access to the settings but allowing you to keep shooting. |
All menus can be viewed as icons (in this case the shooting menu), which allows each one to appear as a single screen, once you've remembered what each icon signifies. |
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| In scene mode the menu button brings up the special scenes, from sports to museum. You can use the four-way controller or the control wheel to make your selection and have to press 'OK' to confirm. | The function button brings up the same options in a similar-looking menu. However, you can't use the four-way controller and unlike every other option on the camera, don't need to confirm your selection. |
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| Playback mode shows the reviewed image, the image with limited shooting information overlaid or a small version of the image with shooting parameters and histogram. | Pushing the zoom switch to the right zooms the image in to 3x magnification and lets you jump around the image using the four-way controller. From here the zoom switch lets you zoom in or out. Overlaid information is retained but cannot be switched on or off once zoomed. |
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| Pushing the zoom button to the left from playback mode zooms out to a 2x2 grid of images. Doing so again zooms out to a 3x3 display. | Alternatively, scrolling the control wheel from playback mode allows you to rapidly scroll through images. Once you've found the correct image, press 'OK' to display that image. |
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| Playback menu has the usual range of options (including Nikon's unusual D-Lighting option). | The setup menu has five pages of more basic options (including card formatting and, oddly VR). |
Timing & Performance
It has been one of the aspects of Nikon's compact cameras that we've been critical of in the past - and the one area of the P5000 we really wanted to see improved - but speed and responsiveness is still a problem for the P5100. In an age where image quality improvements have almost ground to to a standstill, usability factors such as this are important differentiators between very similar competing models, so it's an area Nikon should be working hard on improving. Unfortunately, the P5100's performance is still severely lacking in several key areas, most noticeably in the two most important: focus and shutter lag.
Of these it is the former that causes most concern; it's not unusual for the P5100 to take over a second to focus even in good light, and not only does this rule out any kind of action shot (unless you pre-focus), it tries your patience even when you're shooting totally static subjects. The shutter lag, by comparison, is merely average. Other areas of concern include long shot to shot times and unimpressive continuous shooting capabilities. This is certainly not a camera for snapping active children. Or in fact anything that moves.
Timing Notes
All times calculated as an average of three operations. Unless otherwise stated all timings were made on a 4000 x 3000 FINE JPEG image (approx. 4,186 KB per image). The media used for these tests was a 1.0GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card.
| Action | Details |
Time, secs |
|---|---|---|
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Power: Off to Record |
1.9 | |
| Power: Off to Play | Image displayed | 2.1 *1 |
| Power: Record to Off | Lens retracted and all activity ceased | 2.0 |
| Power: Play to Off | When buffer is empty, lens already retracted | 0.6 |
| Power: Play to Off | When buffer is empty, lens extended | ~1.8 |
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| Record Review | Image displayed | ~1.0 |
| Mode: Record to Play | 0.4 | |
| Mode: Play to Record | Lens already extended | 0.5 |
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| Play: Magnify | To full magnification (10x) | 1.9 |
| Play: Image to Image | Time to display each saved image (low res) | ~0.2 |
| Play: Image to Image | Time to display full res image (allows zooming) | 1.5 |
| Play: Thumbnail view | 2 x 2 thumbnails | ~0.2 *2 |
| Action | Details |
Time, seconds |
|---|---|---|
| Zoom from Wide to Tele | 34 to 123 mm (3.5 x) | 1.1 |
| Half-press Lag (0->S1) | Wide angle, Multi or Center AF | ~1.0 |
| Half-press Lag (0->S1) | Telephoto, Multi or Center AF | ~1.2 |
| Half to Full-press Lag (S1->S2) | LCD live view | ~ 0.09 |
| Half to Full-press Lag (S1->S2) | Viewfinder | ~ 0.06 |
| Full-press Lag (0->S2) | LCD live view, wide angle | ~1.1 |
| Off to Shot Taken | LCD live view | 2.8 |
| Shot to Shot | Flash off | 2.8 |
| Shot to Shot | Flash on | 2.8*3 |
| Shot to Shot | Flash on (red-eye mode) | 6.5 |
| *1 | The p5100 can be powered up directly into playback mode by holding the play button for around a second. This figure includes the delay before the camera turns on (designed to avoid accidental activation). |
| *2 | You can also view 3x3 or 4x4 thumbnails by pressing the zoom button a second or third time. This adds around 0.4 / 0.9 seconds to the time taken. |
| *3 | Shot to shot time with flash depends on subject distance, scene brightness and condition of battery. This is the best you can expect with a short subject distance. |
Lag Timing Definitions
| Half-press Lag (0->S1) Many digital camera users prime the AF and AE systems on their camera by half-pressing the shutter release. This is the amount of time between a half-press of the shutter release and the camera indicating an auto focus & auto exposure lock on the LCD monitor / viewfinder (ready to shoot). |
 (Prime AF/AE) |
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| Half to Full-press Lag (S1->S2) The amount of time it takes from a full depression of the shutter release button (assuming you have already primed the camera with a half-press) to the image being taken. |
 (Take shot, AF/AE primed) |
| Full-press Lag (0->S2) The amount of time it takes from a full depression of the shutter release button (without performing a half-press of the shutter release beforehand) to the image being taken. This is more representative of the use of the camera in a spur of the moment 'point and shoot' situation. |
 (Take shot, AF/AE not primed) |
Continuous mode
The tables below show the results of our continuous shooting test, indicating the actual frame rate along with maximum number of frames and how long you would have to wait after taking the maximum number of frames before you could take another shot. Media used for these tests was a 1.0GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card. Shutter speed was kept above 1/100 sec during these tests.
There is a single continuous shooting mode that offers a rather unimpressive 0.7 frames per second at the best quality setting (rising fractionally as you reduce the image size/quality), and there is a limit to how many shots you can take before the buffer is full and the rate slows down to an even more painful crawl. 3 frames in a burst is hardly impressive but that's what happens when you try to throw 12MP's worth of data about. Combined with its slow focusing speed, this means the P5100 shouldn't be your first choice for blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments.
Continuous drive mode
In burst mode the Coolpix 5100 shows a brief review image for each frame taken. Focus and exposure are fixed with the first frame.
| Image Type |
Mode |
Avg. frames per sec |
Frames in a burst *1 |
After burst *2 |
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| 4000 x 3000 JPEG Fine | Continuous |
0.7 fps |
3 | 0.3 fps |
| 4000 x 3000 JPEG Normal | Continuous | 0.9 fps | 6/7 | 0.3 fps |
| 3264 x 2448 JPEG Fine | Continuous | 0.9 fps | 6/7 | 0.3 fps |
| 2592 x 1944 JPEG Fine | Continuous | 0.9 fps | 8 | 0.3 fps |
| 2048 x 1536 JPEG Fine | Continuous | 0.9 fps | 18 | 0.4 fps |
| *1 | In a single "burst" (finger held down on shutter release) until the buffer is full. |
| *2 | With the shutter release held down it is possible to continue shooting after the initial burst at around one frame every 3.2 seconds, though the camera re-focuses between each frame. The buffer takes around 5 seconds to completely clear if you want to shoot another full burst. |
When you consider that competitors such as the Canon G9 offer 1.5 frames per second with no practical limit to the number of shots per burst you can see that the P5100 isn't the best 'action camera' on the market.
File Write / Display and Sizes
Timings shown below are the time taken for the camera to process and "flush" the image out to the storage card, the timer was started as soon as the shutter release was pressed and stopped when activity indicator went out. This means the timings also include the camera's processing time and as such are more representative of the actual time to "complete the task". The media used for these tests was a 1.0GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card.
| Image Type |
Time to store (secs) |
Time to display |
File size *1 (approx.) |
Images on a *2 1.0 GB Card |
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| 4000 x 3000 JPEG Fine | 3.2 | ~1.5 | 4,186 KB | 167 |
| 4000 x 3000 JPEG Normal | 3.2 | ~1.5 | 2,066 KB | 333 |
| 4000 x 3000 JPEG Basic | 3.2 | ~1.5 | 1,226 KB | 659 |
| 3264 x 2448 JPEG Fine | 3.2 | ~1.5 | 2,204 KB | 250 |
| 2592 x 1944 JPEG Fine | 3.2 | ~1.5 | 1,829 KB | 394 |
| *1 | All file sizes are an average of three files. As is the case with JPEG it's difficult to predict the size of an image because it will vary a fair amount depending on the content of the image (detail and noise). |
| *2 | Camera estimation. |
| *3 | The P5100 initially shows low resolution preview versions of each image. Jumping from one image to the next takes around 0.2 seconds. This column shows the time take to render the high-res version of the image. |
Although the buffer is large enough to store multiple images, the time between taking a shot and the card write light going out is a ponderous 3.2 seconds. At around 4MB per image, it's fair to say that the camera is not making the most of the card's write speed.
White Balance
In addition to the standard auto white balance, the Coolpix P5100 has five white balance presets (daylight, incandescent, fluorescent, cloudy, and flash) and a manual setting. To set the white balance manually, simply choose the PRE option and a small preview appears; point the camera at a white or gray object and press 'OK'. The manual white balance setting is remembered even if you switch the camera off. In use the auto WB did a good job when shooting in daylight (very occasionally scenes with an unusual expanse of color fooled the system, but this was thankfully rare). Things are a little less impressive in artificial light, often producing a fairly strong cast. As with most compact cameras in most instances it is better to use a WB preset (or manual WB) in such situations.
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| Incandescent - Auto WB Red 4.1%, Blue -3.9% Average |
Incandescent - Incandescent preset WB Red 6.9%, Blue -12.7% Average |
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| Fluorescent - Auto WB Red 7.5%, Blue -15.3% Poor |
Fluorescent - Fluorescent preset WB Red 6.9%, Blue -8.8% Average |
Flash Performance
Flash has always been one of Nikon's strong points and the P5100's built-in flash does a pretty good job in both exposure and color terms, and offers a respectable 0.3 to 8M shooting range (at wideangle with auto ISO). We found the flash to be very reliable in typical shooting conditions (social occasions indoors in low light). There is a tendency to slight under exposure, though this can be fixed very easily in post-processing, and there is a slight warm tone, which is no bad thing if you mostly shoot people. We did not see any blown-out flash shots in our testing - overexposure is considerably more difficult to deal with than the slight underexposure seen here.
The In-Camera Red-Eye Fix (seen on many recent Nikon models) works well - far better than cameras that rely purely on a pre-flash system; the Nikon system actually finds and corrects red-eye using its on-board processor. The only downside to this highly effective red-eye removal system is a rather severe performance hit - with shot-to-shot times stretching to around seven seconds. Of course the big difference between the P5100 and 99% of the other compacts on the market is that you have the option to add a fully dedicated external flash thanks to the inclusion of a hot shoe connection.
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| Skin tone - SLight warm cast, very slight underexposure |
Color chart - Warm cast, Good exposure |
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D-Lighting
The P5100 has Nikon's 'D-Lighting' feature, designed to lighten shadows without affecting the highlights in the image. The effect - basically a form of in-camera contrast masking - is an option after an image has been taken with the results saved as a new file so your original isn't damaged. For high-contrast images the results are pretty impressive (though inevitably they come at a price - slightly higher shadow noise and some lost highlight detail). There is no control over the amount of lighting applied, but it tends to get the balance right, producing natural looking pictures without any tone mapping/high dynamic range creepiness.
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| Original image 40 mm equiv., 1/165 sec, F2.7 | After D-Lighting has been applied in-camera. |
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Macro Focus
As with previous Coolpix models the P5100 has a good macro mode, but one that performs at its best in a small region of the zoom (near the wide end), when you can get down as close as 4cm, capturing an area just over 45mm across. Distortion at the closest focus point is fairly low and is eliminated entirely by switching distortion control on. Edge-to-edge sharpness is reasonable. Close focus at the long end of the zoom is less impressive in terms of how close you can get (40cm), but the quality is good. As in many of our tests, we found the P5100 occasionally struggled to focus in macro mode.
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| Wide macro*1 - 44 x 33mm coverage 89 px/mm (2267 px/in) Distortion: Very low Corner softness: Moderate Equiv. focal length: 35 mm |
Mid Zoom macro - 110 x 82 mm coverage 36 px/mm (920 px/in) Distortion: Very Low Corner softness: Moderate Equiv. focal length:123 mm |
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| *1 | Wideangle macro shown has distortion control turned on. Click here for the version with distortion control turned off. |
Barrel and Pincushion Distortion
The P5000 set new standards for Nikon compact cameras in terms of distortion, with no measurable distortion at the long end of the zoom. The P5100 improves on this because the 1.4% barrel distortion at the wide end carried over from the P5000 can now be corrected for.
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| Barrel distortion - 1.4% at Wide angle Equiv. focal length: 35 mm |
Pincushion distortion - 0.0% at Telephoto Equiv. focal length: 123 mm |
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The P5100 offers a distortion control mode that corrects for the distortion noted above. Some of Nikon's competitors apply a degree of distortion correction 'behind the scenes,' whereas it is an optional setting on the P5100. Turning it on adds to the processing the camera has to do on each image, so continuous shooting, bracketing and BSS modes are unavailable, making it somewhat restrictive. It also makes little difference at the long end of the zoom, which doesn't feature any distortion anyway, but corrects the barrel distortion at the wide-angle end of the lens near-perfectly. Our tests registered 0.1% pincushion distortion, which is within the limits of error of the test. Click here to see the chart. It is particularly useful in Macro mode, allowing undistorted images to be produced at even the closest focusing distance.
Specific Image Quality Issues
A camera with a compact sensor churning out 12 million pixels is unlikely to be a low-light superstar and the real-world photos we took prove this to be the case. At anything above moderate sensitivities the Nikon's output starts to get pretty grainy to an extent that even extensive post processing will struggle to save. To be fair, this is equally true of the other 12MP cameras on the market and the Nikon is fairly restrained with its noise reduction, so detail isn't just smudged away. At low ISO settings, the results are very good, with with the P5100 producing very natural looking colors and generally exposing very well. The images can look a little flat compared with other point-and-shoots because Nikon takes a fairly conservative approach to saturation and sharpening. This is ideal if you want to tweak the images on a computer later and can be boosted through the 'Optimize Image' menu if you want the 'straight-between-the-eyes' impact that other brands tend to offer by default. In fact we were actually very impressed with the natural color and smooth tonality of the images, along with the clean, artefact-free appearance (at the lowest ISO settings) - these are the kind of results SLR users will feel right at home with.
The lens is pretty slow at the long end of the zoom, requiring slow shutter speeds or higher ISO. Thankfully the very effective VR image stabilization system does a good job of helping keep results sharp as the shutter speed drops. Other than that, its performance impressive, with very little in the way of chromatic aberration or fringing. There is a little corner softness but you have to really hunt around for it. Diffraction begins to impact image quality at all but the widest of apertures, with fine detail starting to disappear as soon as the lens is stopped-down to small apertures. Again, this problem is caused by small sensors running into the limits of physics, so is just as much of an issue for other small sensor cameras, particularly those with relatively slow lenses.
Highlight clipping (and exposure issues)
The P5100 generally meters very well, with only the very occasional bit of overexposure in difficult-to-expose scenes with extremes of light and shade. Impressively, this was only the case in two or three of more than 400 images we took during the test of the camera.
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| 35 mm equiv., F5.4 | 35 mm equiv., F5.4 |
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| 35 mm equiv., F5.4 | 35 mm equiv., F5.4 |
Purple fringing
As mentioned above there is some purple fringing, but you need to look long and hard to find it in 99% of shots - even those taken against the light. Even then it's so mild as to be insignificant. This example comes from a shot in which almost any digital camera would produce fringing.
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| 100% crop | 35 mm equiv., F4.8 |
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ISO Sensitivity / Noise levels
To measure noise levels we take a sequence of images of a GretagMacBeth ColorChecker chart (controlled artificial daylight lighting). The exposure is matched to the ISO (i.e. ISO 200, 1/200 sec for consistency of exposure between cameras). The image sequence is run through our own proprietary measurement tool which measures the standard deviation (normalized) of the middle gray patch (indicated by the red rectangle above). Note that noise values indicated on the graphs below should not be compared to those in other reviews. Nikon Coolpix P5100 vs Canon PowerShot G9 vs Nikon Coolpix P5000
Small sensors with high pixel counts usually mean large amounts of noise and the P5100 is no different. It may have a very slightly larger sensor than its predecessor but it also has more sensor sites crammed onto it, so there's no real improvement in performance at high sensitivities. It appears that the P5100 is using marginally higher NR than its predecessor (presumably to counter a slightly noisier sensor), something confirmed in the graphs at the bottom of the page. The net effect is that 'real word' detail is roughly unchanged between the P5100 and its predecessor. To a large degree this test is more an assessment of the effectiveness (both measurable and visible) of a camera's noise reduction system. Designers have to balance the desire to produce smooth, clean results with the need to retain as much detail as possible (if you blur away the noise, you blur away image detail too). These crops show that all manufacturers find it difficult to produce an acceptable result at anything over base ISO from 12 million pixels crammed into a tiny sensor. By ISO 400 both the P5100 and G9 are showing both noise and a loss of detail from noise reduction. Above that, both do equally badly with noise increasing and detail being lost. Which is not to say that these cameras are bad examples of their kind - we have yet to see a 12MP compact that avoids noise and detail loss at anything above moderate ISO settings. It's interesting to see that at anything over the lowest ISO settings there appears to be very little advantage to the extra pixels the P5100 provides over the P5000 - if anything the softening effect of noise reduction at the highest ISO settings makes the P5100's output actually worse than its predecessor. Low contrast detailWhat the crops and graph don't show is the effect of noise reduction on low contrast fine detail such as hair, fur or foliage. An inevitable side effect of noise removal is that this kind of detail is also blurred or smeared, resulting in a loss of 'texture'. In a new test the crops below show the effect of the noise reduction on such texture (hair) as you move up the ISO range.
No surprises here - at ISO 200 and above noise reduction starts to have an effect on low contrast detail, but we've seen far worse. ISO 400 and 800 are usable for smaller prints, though the light-handed approach to chroma NR means that you are beginning to see colored blotches at ISO 400, getting progressively worse as you increase sensitivity. We'd actually like to see a little less luminance NR and a little more chroma NR, since this would help retain detail and look more pleasant. ISO 3200 (5MP size) uses pixel binning to produce a very smooth, almost featureless result that is, to put it mildly, of limited use. Luminance noise graph
Indicated ISO sensitivity is on the horizontal axis of this graph, standard deviation of luminosity on the vertical axis. RGB noise graph
Indicated ISO sensitivity is on the horizontal axis of this graph, standard deviation of each of the red, green and blue channels are on the vertical axis. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Movie mode
As is now the norm on cameras of this type the P5100 offers a maximum movie size of 640x480 pixels - enough to fill most television screens at 30 frames per second (though it doesn't have any of the fancy higher resolution - or wide screen - capabilities now seen on some top of the range models). It still has a good selection of options, though:
- TV Movie (640 x 480 pixels at 15 or 30 fps)
- Small Size (320 x 240 pixels at 15 fps)
- Smaller Size (160 x 120 pixels at 15 fps)
- Time Lapse Movie (up to 1800 stills at specified intervals, combined into a movie up to 60 secs long)
- Sepia movie (320 x 240 / 15fps)
- Black and White movie (320 x 240 / 15fps)
The AVI files are actually pretty small - at the best quality setting (640x480 / 30fps) you're burning around a megabyte every second. Despite this the image quality is - though not the best - actually pretty good; there are mild compression artifacts, but the motion is smooth and for most users there will be little cause for complaint.
The image stabilization works well too; one of the real advantages of a lens-shift (as opposed to CCD shift) system. Frustratingly, only auto white balance is available in movie mode, lending an interesting yellow cast to all your indoor movies. Most damningly, though, like many of the recent Nikon compacts, the sound drops out for the last second or so of every single clip. There is also no ability to edit the length of files, in-camera, demanding additional software if you want to use video for anything more than a bit of fun.
You cannot use the optical zoom during filming (though you can set it before you start), but you can enable and use the digital zoom, though you will see a distinct loss of quality if you do.
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The movie screen is a simplified version of what you see when shooting stills, with an indication of the time remaining on the card. |
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The movie menu is very basic; here you'll find movie options (size, frame rate and special effects) and autofocus mode (single or continuous). |
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As mentioned above there are plenty of options for the size and quality of movie clips. There are no in-camera movie editing options. |
Sample movies
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640x480 pixels @ 30fps Click on the thumbnail to view the movie (caution: large file!) |
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640x480 pixels @ 30fps Click on the thumbnail to view the movie (caution: large file!) |
Image stabilizationThe optical image stabilization system used on the Coolpix P5100 is based on the VR (Vibration Reduction) lens-shift technology first seen on Nikon's professional SLR lenses, and seen on previous models such as the P3 and P4. As with the P5000 there is only one mode, which automatically detects panning. Being a lens-based system the preview image is stabilized when the VR is turned on, which helps with framing; it also means you get the benefit of stabilization when shooting movies. With short zooms like this (max focal length 123mm equiv.) image stabilization is considerably less essential than with a 10x or 12x 'super zoom'. At anything over about 1/125th sec you're not going to suffer from camera shake a great deal. At the short end of the zoom camera shake becomes a problem at around 1/15th sec (depending on how steady-handed you are). Speeds slower than this are difficult to stabilize reliably irrespective of the system you are using. If you take a few 'safety' shots when pushing the system hard (1/8th at 123mm for example), you'll usually get at least one 'keeper'. This is where Nikon's excellent 'Best Shot Selector' (which takes a series of up to 10 shots and only saves the sharpest) proves its worth. The example below shows how - with a bit of luck - you can get a sharp shot a good four stops slower than you would expect from a non-stabilized camera (It can't work miracles, though and pushed this hard is still showing up some shake even with VR, and continued to do so in around half the shots we took).
The stabilization testIn this simplified version of our SLR IS test, four hand-held shots were taken of a static scene with the stabilization off and on. The shutter speed was decreased and repeated (from 1/250 sec to 1/8 sec). The zoom was set to its maximum position (123mm equiv.), the test target was 3.0m away from the camera. The test was repeated ten times and an average taken. The resulting images were then inspected and given a blur score -
As the charts below show the VR system offers around a 2 stop advantage, (though how much you get from it will depend on how steady your hand is in the first place). As mentioned above the reason it's no greater is simple; the zoom isn't long enough for most users to need VR at anything under 1/250 sec and we've yet to see a system that can consistently stabilize speeds of 1/8th sec or slower, so there's a fairly narrow band of shutter speeds for the VR to work on. Hand-held, no stabilization (123mm equiv.)We had no problem getting 100% sharp shots at the long end of the zoom at anything over 1/125 second. Once we dropped below 1/60 sec things got increasingly shaky.
Hand-held, stabilization on (123mm equiv.)With stabilization on the improvement is obvious, and represents an advantage of around 2 stops. The key difference is that at 1/60 sec you're getting a 100% hit rate, and in the 1/8 to 1/60 sec region your chances of a usable shot are considerably higher - if you take a few safety shots (or make use of Nikon's 'Best Shot Selector' function) you can certainly expect to get something usable at anything at 1/15 sec or higher at the long end of the zoom. The VR considerably increases the likelihood of getting a sharp shot. However, its ability to stabilize at 1/15th and 1/8th sec are only really useful for stationary objects - anything else will move too much in that time.
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