Nikon Digital Camera COOLPIX P520 BK Black P520BK

So my wife told me a few weeks back she wanted to get a more real camera. Neither of us is a photographer, we have no real interest in photography. She wanted it so she can take pictures of the kid, and the pets, and our activities in higher quality and resolution than her cell phone or our cheap point and shoot cameras could offer. More to the point, when she has them printed out professionally, she wants them to look nice -not pixely or distorted. THE SEARCH BEGINS So costco has the nikon DSLR's. I have a photographer friend who bought one and has had good results using it and says it's a real good value. It's also $1000. That's a bit excessive for us, as we wouldn't know where to even begin with such a camera. There's also higher-end point and shoot cameras, which are probably pretty good as the MP's of them have really risen in the past few years. However, the problem is they don't zoom, or don't zoom very far. And once you use the digital zoom feature, your resolution goes downhill in a hurry and you generally lose image stabilization, so taking a non-blurry picture becomes nigh-impossible. Actually didn't know about this line of cameras at all. I typed in "digital camera" into amazon's search engine and started browsing. Didn't get very far, so I decided I'd look at nikon's offerings as I owned a higher end film nikon back in the day and my friend uses nikon exclusively. This camera's lower end version was on the first page of "nikon digital camera", and after looking at the different options I settled for this one. THE CAMERA: The device itself is impressive. It's not as big as a DSLR, most notably it doesn't have a giant honking disconnectable lens hanging off the front of it. What is present is the HUGE built in auto-zoom lens, the flip around screen, and the selector wheel. I love that the wheel is made of actual steel (or I presume steel) and the edges are coarse so it's easy to use in your fingers. Each selection has a very positive detente, so there's no question about what setting it's on and it definitely does NOT feel cheap. The flip around screen is large and has good resolution. I'm not really sure why it flips around, and if I ever find a use for that feature I'll update this review. The body is weighty, but not super heavy and feels good in your hands and overall has a real good look to it. THE ZOOM: It has a little selector on the lens body which puts it into manual mode which is a real nice feature. I've yet to use it, but if I was more of a pro photographer I could see needing it for faster action shots at a distance. The zoom on this camera is impressive. I'm so glad I purchased the higher end version with the big zoom as you can really take distance pictures easily. THE VIDEO: It really amazes me that I can own a device for a reasonable sum of money which takes this good of video and pictures at the same time. The video is great, there's no other way to put it. I don't feel like I've settled for a combo device which does nothing well. This camera seems to do it all well. The audio isn't the best-best, but it's infinitely better than a cell phone video which is all we require from it. THE FEATURES: Read the manual, it has them in spades. Honestly, I've yet to use even half of them. But for taking quality pictures and videos, and a great zoom feature this camera seems to do no wrong. Also, it's worth mentioning that you can't use filters with this camera as it's presently configured. However the lens is somewhat threaded and they sell adapters that allow you to use filters. Honestly, I don't have any expertise in that department so I don't know if I'll ever do that. SUMMARY: This camera is more than enough for your average picture taker. My friend toyed around with it for a bit, and his thoughts were that if I ever get bored with this camera a proper DSLR will be the next step, but for my uses it's so far beyond adequate it's unlikely. I'm very pleased with this purchase and so far have not had any issues with it's usage.

I'm upgrading from an older model Nikon point and shoot and I am already falling in love with this one. Pictures are great. Viewfinder is good and larger than my previous Nikon which works better for someone with poor vision. Arrived with a charger, lens cap, battery and SD card. Battery wasn't any good, but that wasn't promised and my old Nikon used the same batteries so I was good to go on that . Looks almost new. Charger was a plug into the camera type charger, don't really like that but again my old Nikon had a stand alone charger. Took a little long for Amazon to deliver. Overall a very good experience. Would buy again from this seller. I believe it shipped from Amazon.

Did a lot of research and read reviews as well as YouTube about this camera. Mostly very good comments. Now that I have used this camera for a couple weeks I can say that I made a good decision in purchasing it. I get all the manual control that I had on my old SLR camera,but with this camera it is a lot easier to use and do the the manual settings that I like. One feature I wished it had is Stop Down Metering, I have found no camera of this type that offers this feature either so I didn't mark it down for this. My pictures are very good and the video (which was not the reason I bought this camera) works great even at max zoom of 1000mm which allowed me to get fantastic videos at a recent outdoor concert, as long as I had good lighting the focusing worked great and was pretty fast. The zoom works good and very smooth, the VR (Vibration Reduction) works way better than I imagined at the long Zoom range. I have read some folks wished there was a button to switch between the EVF and the main viewing screen but I like the fact that when I fold the large view screen flat in it's storage area the EVF comes on automatically and when I unfold the large viewing screen it comes on automatically so I have no extra buttons to push. I was concerned about the focusing of this camera as some have mentioned in that it sometimes will not focus sharply. Now that I have this camera and am using it I have found that if I press down the shutter quickly I will sometimes get out of focus photos, but when I press the shutter button part way down (or maybe slowly) the camera has more time to get the correct focus? I have found this seems to be the best method for sharp photos and I have not had any problems since. The Nikon P520 menu system only took me about an hour to make all the settings that I prefer to use which I felt was very easy. Most of all I really like the looks of this camera, it feels great in my hands, very comfortable and not too heavy. The battery last longer than what I was expecting even with using fill flash for many of my sunny outdoor photos, so I can't complain about the battery life. Comes with everything needed to copy photos from the camera to the PC and charging the battery. Same cord that I use to charge the camera battery also copies the photos to the PC as you can remove the AC connector and use the USB end to connect to the PC. The only gripe I have is that there are no threads in the lens barrel to attach a filter to protect the lens glass, for a camera of this type that should be a no brainer. I have ordered a slip on adapter kit for this camera that is threaded at one end for adding filters (the kit also comes with 3 filters), I will see how this works and report on this later. All in all I am enjoying taking photos with this camera, I find myself looking for any reason to go out picture taking, this camera is really fun and I highly recommend it. The price was very fair on Amazon. UPDATE ON THE LENS ADAPTER. I received the lens adapter with 3 filters and one of them being a polarizing filter. The adapter is a hard plastic and slips over the outside of the camera lens barrel, fits nice and tight. There is a small recess in the adapter so that it will only let you push the adapter on to the camera lens just a 1/4 inch so this is really nice and very easy to put on the camera lens, feels very snug and firm. The adapter is threaded on one end where you would screw on the filters, this feels really secure and works well. So I can say that I'm very happy with the lens adapter and the filters it comes with. So far so good.

I finally took the big step up from a pocket camera to this one and I am so very glad I did. The small camera was great for being able to take pictures whenever and where ever I went. With this camera I have to think ahead and be sure it's with me. No big deal... my phone can take photos when I don't have this camera with me. For those moments I can anticipate, this camera is fantastic!!! The photos are beautiful. It's easy to get started quickly with the auto setting. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want. I think it is a great camera for learning about photography and all the settings and options available on high-end cameras. I look forward to learning more and taking more creatively spectacular photos.

Great camera; easy to use, and takes great pictures. Love the powerful zoom lens. Only con is that the lens cap comes off too easily. Followup to my review after almost 3 years of use: The twist screen sometimes loses contact and the image will not show. I ended up leaving it in position folded flat against the body and have used it that way until a few days ago when the camera would not turn on at all. I suspected the battery was dead and proceeded to remove it. However, it would not come out and I ended up prying it out to discover that it had bulged in the middle. Thinking that was the sole problem with it not turning on, I went to a battery shop and tried a new one but it still doesn't work so I suspect that the defective battery caused some damage. I am told that the battery problem most likely happened because I left it plugged in to charge too long over time so that part is my fault but I didn't know any better. Since my camera is long out of warranty, I will have to pay for repair and I'm hoping that it won't be a huge amount as I do enjoy the camera when it works. If it's too expensive, I won't repair it and will just use my new iPhone camera which takes great pictures. For my purposes that will be fine but I hate to lose this one. When you're not using your camera, you would be well advised to remove the battery until shortly before you need it and then let it charge.

This camera is way cool to look at. Ok, looks aside, I'm still trying to get used to some of the features of this camera. In comparison to my comparable canon, there are some pros and some cons. The pros: reaction. This camera has a great reaction. When you press the button to take your picture, it has a smooth and quick depression and you can really quickly take several pictures in a short amount of time with little effort. I also like the transition between the viewfinder and the LCD display, it's quick and easy and converts from one to the other fast. This camera also has a slightly better (more powerful) zoom than my other auto zoom camera and it seems so far that the stabilization is a little better, too. Cons: some of the features are a little confusing to go between, focusing is not quite as easy with this camera as with my Canon and while I think I have something in focus when I look at the picture, it's not. That may simply be an adjustment that I still have to make to the camera, but out of the box it seems a littler harder to get the focus right with this one than with the other one. This camera also goes to sleep or blanks out after a very short time of no activity; so if you have zoomed out and are waiting for, say, a fawn to get in range for a shot, be wary - the camera will blank out on you after about 20 seconds and you will have to "wake" it back up again. Hopefully you didn't miss your shot in that process. My other camera does this as well, but I don't believe the time is as short as with this one.

Got this camera on recommendation of a relative. I needed something better than my little point and shoot camera for my trip to China. This is very easy to use, has an LCD screen and view finder. It has a 42x zoom. I tried it out on my granddaughter's school program. It's always difficult to get good pictures in the school gym because of the size of the room and the lighting. Pictured turned out great. I also videoed from near the back of the room the song she had a part in. Came through very good. It's easy to down load the pictures to the computer.

This camera takes wonderful photos with very little effort. In fact it is hard to mess up a picture. One needs to know very little about the technical aspects of photography to get very good photos. The only thing I was disappointed with is the video function of the camera. When taking videos, the camera does not focus well when panning to different subjects at varying distances from the camera. But other than that, it produces high end photos with the ease of a point and shoot. Also, the 42x zoom is spectacular.

I bought this camera knowing that the technology of it was outdated. I am not a professional photographerby any means.It does exactly what I was hoping for without costing a small fortune . I am very satisfied with the features it has such as a long zoom for doing wildlife photos . Thanks Amazon for another great purchase

Product as described. Very happy with the product. Only thing, language only english and chinees, no French or other. Was not indicated when viewing the product description.

Update 25-10-2021. Its working till now. LCD Display is blacked out (few mm) at the border. that the only issue. little really a nice one. i got it Rs. 1200 cheaper than market price from amazon. its the best site for online transaction.

軽くて扱いやすく、画質も悪くない。旅行用には、これぐらいが丁度良いです。

商品は届きましたが 説明書 オーディオビデオケーブル CD が入っていません!どうなっているのか! 使用説明書がないと使い方が全くわからない！