Snapshot Camera
As many of you already know, I use a Nikon D60 for most of my shooting. It’s great for taking, shall we say, planned photographs. If you have the time to prepare the camera, it’s great! In fact, my wife used her D40 to good benefit when we took our 2008 Jeep Wrangler out for its first ‘Jeep Trail’ excursion. However, since I was driving, guess what I couldn’t do.
If you study the biographies of most modern photographers, they usually carry a selection of cameras. Usually this is to have instant access to several lenses, long, standard, and wide angle. However, some of them also carry some kind of point-and-shoot camera for those targets of opportunity that don’t give them a chance to compose a shot properly. This is why I bought a new point-and-shoot to supplement my D60.
The camera I chose was the Nikon Coolpix L20 at a price of about $120. I have another one, a nice Casio I bought about 4 years ago for over $300, but I discovered very quickly that while it took great pictures, the size and shape just didn’t fit my hands well and the majority of my shots where shaky. It was a matter of over-researching for best specs and not enough researching for best useability. The Coolpix L20 fits my hand remarkably well for its small size.
One of its biggest advantages for me is the fact that the right side (as you hold it) is thicker and rounded, very similar to the grip of any SLR, though not as full. This lets me hold it with the thumb last three fingers of my right hand and gain easy access to the shutter release with my index finger, supporting the left side with my free hand or even using the camera one-handed with no strain. My pictures are already better because my hand no longer shakes from simply trying to hold onto the camera.
Now for some details:
The camera itself is about 3-3/4“ wide and about 2-1/2” high; in most ways smaller than even the old pocket 110 cameras from the 60s and 70s. However, unlike most compact digital cameras today, it’s just over an inch thick at the grip and almost exactly an inch across the rest of the body. Most of the others boast a thickness of 3/4“ or less. This is why this particular model works for me. I really couldn’t complain about the price, either.
The Coolpix L20 has only a short zoom capability–only about 3.5x. But I didn’t buy this camera for superzoom capability. At a possible 10 Megapixels, you have the ability to select the size of your images down to a minimum of 1Megapixel (PC screen mode.) I’ve set it at the 5MP-normal mode but you also have 3- and 10- normal modes and a 10MP *High* mode. There are also two video modes, one for normal TV 4:3 screens and a Widescreen 16:9 mode (though I don’t think it’s HD.) Choosing the 10MP High mode could probably give you fairly decent digital zoom when cropping in your computer.
You don’t have any choice for image format–all files are .jpg or .avi. Still, applications like iPhoto and iMovie have no trouble detecting and importing the files. I would assume that the same is true in Windows for whatever app you choose to use.
This doesn’t mean that the camera is a simple one. The software inside is quite remarkable, in some ways similar to what you might find in the D90. Naturally, it has the standard ‘Auto’ mode, where it sets shutter speed, ISO, focus and aperture for what it what it thinks is the best exposure. But it doesn’t stop there. It also includes 16 Scene modes which program the camera for anything from portraits, to landscapes to fireworks to even panoramas. If you happen to like to photograph your dinner when it has a scene to do that, too. Last in the Auto modes is something new called the ‘Easy auto’ mode. Here, the camera tries to detect what the intent of your photo is and preset itself to the scene mode that best matches that intent. For the average photographer, this could be great, since each type of shot is significantly different from the others. Then again, does the average photographer really care? All he wants to do is take a picture.
All told, this camera is great for the price. For just a little over $100 you get a camera that goes out of its way to give you the best possible exposure for the scene you’re trying to shoot, even if it’s severely backlighted or a sunrise/sunset shot that usually comes out looking flat in most compact digitals.
Now when I go out running the Jeep trails, I’ll have a camera I can whip out and squeeze off a shot even while I’m behind the wheel, assuming I’m not trying to drive some technical part where I absolutely have to have both hands busy. As for the Jeep itself? Hey, it’s still stock and did remarkably well up at Rousch Creek in Pennsylvania. Apparently it even surprised some of the people driving modified models on some of the blue trails.
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