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If current business reviews are to be considered, the market place for position-and-shoot electronic cameras is dwindling 12 months-on-yr. This is not stunning offering the increasing popularity of smartphones, specifically kinds with far more-than-able cameras. The will need of the hour for electronic digicam brands is to appear up with products and solutions that can do items smartphones are unable to, in phrases of both of those, capabilities and picture excellent.
Some producers have tried using to stand apart with rugged or a watertight cameras which cater to folks who love travelling or are into intense sports. Nikon, an field veteran, has the Coolpix AW sequence of position-and-shoot cameras servicing this demographic. Aside from remaining waterproof, these cameras are also shockproof and could pretty nicely be excellent travel companions.
Nikon unveiled 16 new cameras in its 2014 Spring Series, just one of which was the Coolpix AW120 – an enhance to the AW110. The new design is virtually identical to its predecessor except for a slight maximize in heft, higher ISO sensitivity, and enhanced battery lifestyle. Let’s dive correct in (see what we did there?) and find out if the AW120 is worthy of getting.
Style and design
No a single who has found the Coolpix AW110 will detect much different with the style and design of the Coolpix AW120. It has the same toughened plastic enclosure with a protruding lens in the top rated suitable corner with the flash to its suitable. We received the camouflage version for evaluation, but it It is also offered in crimson, black and blue. The Coolpix AW120 weighs about 213g which includes the battery and memory card. The challenge with the excess weight is that the digital camera results in being somewhat unwieldy to use with a person hand.
A perforated black strip operates all around the edges of the camera . On the best are the electricity and shutter launch buttons. The shutter release is ever-so-marginally elevated, making it uncomplicated to track down, and its tactile feedback is good also. The eyelets for a strap are in the higher right and remaining corners. The left edge has buttons for the Map and Motion functions.
The appropriate edge is possibly the most critical floor of the digicam considering that this is where you are going to discover the water-resistant include which guards the battery chamber, memory card slot, Micro-HDMI port and Micro-USB port. This include has a one of a kind latching system that we discovered tough to figure out at first, but acquired utilized to afterwards. On the bottom is the tripod socket. 1 helpful function is that you can charge the AW120’s battery just by plugging in a Micro-USB charger you you should not have to acquire the battery out and use a separate sled.
The back of the camera features a 3-inch OLED keep track of. The zoom regulate to its suitable is just a little bit way too modest in our belief, and its system is fairly uncomfortable to use. A video record button is right upcoming to it. There are four buttons for capabilities such as pulling up the scene modes, examining photos, demonstrating the menu, and deleting photos. The four-way navigation controls double up as shortcuts to the self-timer, macro mode, flash alternatives, and exposure range. All these buttons are alternatively little and felt a tiny uncomfortable to use for the duration of our time with the digital camera. One more annoying challenge was a slight rattling sound every single time we shook the digicam, which created us a bit wary of the build top quality.
Functions and requirements
The Coolpix AW120 is watertight up to 18m and also freezeproof up to -10 levels Centigrade. In the sweltering heat of Mumbai there was no way we could examination if the camera was freezeproof, but we did dunk it in a bucket of h2o. The Coolpix AW120 labored flawlessly below drinking water and managed to seize just fine. Also, the Coolpix AW120’s inside parts are shockproof, which usually means that it should be able to survive drops from a peak of 2m. Reluctantly, we dropped it, and located that it didn’t maintain even a single scratch. We have to give it two thumbs up in the ruggedness division.
The 16-megapixel Coolpix AW120 has a 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor, which is comparable to the a person in the Samsung Galaxy Digicam – quite essential for a digital camera. It is engineered to capture images in the light sensitivity selection of ISO 125 to ISO 6400. The lens has a focal duration of 4.3-21.5mm. The Coolpix AW120 has a wider aperture of f/2.8 when compared to the AW110’s f/3.9. In macro manner, this rugged camera can get as shut as 1cm to a topic, which is quite excellent. It can also seize comprehensive-Hd (1080p) videos and up to 6.9 however frames per 2nd in burst mode.
The 3-inch OLED display screen has an anti-reflective coating which does improves legibility in daylight. The display screen is relatively bright and even if it is just not as very good as an digital viewfinder, it at the very least arrives near to showing you what the digicam can really capture.
The digicam options constructed-in Wi-Fi to connect to Android and iOS devices. We examined this function on both of those mobile OSes and it just failed to function. There is also a preloaded map of the environment, and your GPS site details can be appended to picture metadata, which labored good. The Motion button that we mentioned previously brings up a menu of quick possibilities that can be navigated by tilting the digicam, which seriously doesn’t perform too nicely. Otherwise, the computer software on the digital camera is straightforward to navigate and reasonably smooth far too with no lag.
Effectiveness
The digicam took specifically a second to electric power on – a superior range to boast about. It does not acquire as well very long to target and seize photographs both. We recorded an average time of 51ms to capture visuals below good lighting ailments. In large-quality burst manner the Coolpix AW120 was in a position to acquire five illustrations or photos in 7 minutes, 33 seconds which is somewhat on the bigger side.
Our ISO exam discovered that sounds started off creeping in at ISO800. Choose a seem at the prime left corner of the impression to judge the image quality. The little black speck will become indistinct at higher settings.
For all practical reasons we be expecting buyers to stick to auto configurations but in case a person wishes to experiment with ISO configurations and lower-mild pictures, we suggest employing a tripod. We utilised the car manner – which, weirdly, is the method that allows you participate in with all the out there controls – to shoot in small gentle and found that except a tripod or a flat floor was used the digital camera unsuccessful to target correctly. Captured photographs had a yellow tinge to them. As envisioned, employing the flash to build an synthetic resource of light-weight provides a metallic result to textures, which feels exceptionally unnatural. But the flash is genuinely powerful and could light-weight up a 300 sq.ft. area with ease.
There is certainly no oversaturation in daylight shots, and colour reproduction is shut to organic. This might place off some end users who want flair in their photos but we assume that it is great for a place-and-shoot digital digicam. On the flip side, green leaves on a tree tended to merge into every other, which means the digital camera won’t manage chromatic aberration to nicely. Moreover, we even recognized that the digital camera created it appear like we were being tender-focussing our topics.
Movies had all-natural colors and there was no discernible tearing, nevertheless the tender-concentration difficulty was clear in this article way too. So, despite all the superb temperature-proofing attributes, the Coolpix AW120 falls marginally quick of ‘good’ in the picture excellent department.
One place in which the Coolpix AW120 shines is in macro method. The image clarity, colour copy and overall definition of textures were being all definitely fantastic. The battery is rated to very last for 350 photographs right before dying and we found that this was approximately exact. But you should note that if you are applying the Wi-Fi and GPS functions it will get rid of cost more rapidly.
Verdict
Sports and vacation lovers who want a no-nonsense compact camera ought to give the Nikon Coolpix AW120 some really serious thing to consider. End users with a Coolpix AW110 have no cause to devote cash to update. Sporting a cost tag of Rs. 17,950 (MRP), the Coolpix AW120 isdecently priced for the functions it offers. But there are some caveats – underwhelming photographs in lower gentle, and a lack of fantastic depth even in daylight. You will have to determine whether the Wi-Fi, GPS, ruggedness, and weatherproofing features are important sufficient to make it truly worth settling for a lot less-than-excellent impression excellent.
Value: Rs. 17,950
Pros
- Really rugged design
- Fantastic macro general performance
- Good battery everyday living
Downsides
- Down below par low-light-weight general performance
- Included heft
Rankings (Out of 5)
- Build/Design: 4
- Impression Excellent: 3
- Online video: 3
- Battery Daily life: 4
- Benefit For revenue: 3.5
- Total: 3.5
