First view, this camera is all plastic, extremely bulky, heavy and hard to maneuver. There was not much thought put into how it feels and how it looks. But then there was no need to, really. At 125 x wide optical zoom, I did become addicted to it very quickly though. It’s fair to say that P1000 can do what no DSLR lenses on the market can do – being able to shoot in detail and at a reasonable quality thing that are way out of sight otherwise. I did take photos of birds in a tree, when I could barely see the tree on the horizon line, and the individual bushes on the mountains in the distance, so saying that it has a good zoom is an understatement. It definitely has the “wow” factor. And it takes great panning as well!
It takes good shots in “auto”, “birds” and “moon” mode and there’s almost no need to use it in manual mode, or shoot raw – even if it has the capability to render raw. I am not quite sure what is the difference between Moon and Birds (or Auro/Scene) settings, if any, and definitely I didn’t notice it in practice. Pixel peeking, it’s reasonably good even if some of the handheld images may require sharpness adjustment, and overall some contrast/brightness adjustment may be needed for different light conditions. Of course, there’s atmospheric haze and distortion, so in most cases going to the end of the spectrum will show that, however it’s an invaluable tool and in my opinion has the best zoom available on the market as we speak.
Minimally edited sample photos:
Samples of moon photos taken with Nikon P1000, edited with Topaz Sharpen:
Samples of images at Christchurch International Airport -with contrast adjustment:
Panning samples – edited for sharpness in Topaz Ai:
Unedited jpegs examples (Straight out of camera – SOOC):
A very shy Kingfisher right now, in the rain/mist:
Ashburton Mid Canterbury Aero Club: I didn’t push the zoom too far given the hazy conditions.
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