Nikon CoolPix P900

[WebSlave]

OK, I just got this thing, and still learning the ropes with the settings, but I wanted to show a pic that I took last night with it...

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/moon_2016_07_19_A.jpg

This thing has a lens on it with the 35mm equivalent of 24 to 2000mm. With a modest digital zoom boost of 4x, you now have a handheld camera package with an 8000mm lens on it. For only $600!!!

That is just outrageous!

I'll post more as I take more pics and feel I have the settings the way I want them. But initial impressions are that this is one darn impressive piece of equipment.

[Robert Walker]

Holyyyyy smokes that is neat! Really, that is some awesome stuff right there!
You can almost see the alien colonies on the other side of the moon with that thing:D
My wife has the super duper "looking" long lens on her camera, piece of garbage is good for about 40' of semi-blurriness:ack2:. I didn't even know an over the counter camera could shoot the moon like that.

Thanks for sharing Rich.
Everyone around the world, time to shut your blinds at night!

[JumpSpidersInc]

Beautiful shot. :)

[JButera]

It's a great camera. Youtube's got a few P900 long range vids that are pretty mind blowing, especially when you consider the price of the camera.

[WebSlave]

Yeah, the photos I've been able to take have encouraged me to order a beginner's astrophotography kit with a tripod and motorized head. I should be able to get better shots once I've got that and learned it's ropes. Just being able to move the camera with a motorized head will help a lot. Having a TRACKING head to compensate for the rotation of the Earth should be even better.

I've often thought of getting a telescope setup, but honestly, I am in the middle of the woods, and have a very limited view of the sky. Pretty much straight up is all I've got. Fortunately I can see the moon over the house if I stand in the right place at the right time in the front yard. But heck, this P900 makes it a no brainer buying it. It's not perfect, but it comes darn close being a single package that can do just about anything you want to do with a camera.

I tried taking 1080p video last night too, and it was obvious that I need something to keep the camera stable. It was sitting on a tripod, but I just could not get the view where I wanted, and therefore had to keep my shaky hands on the camera the entire time. With a long lens, even your pulse in your hands can transmit shakiness to the camera. Plus skeeters were buzzing me, so all and all it wasn't an environment conducive to good shots.

Tell you what, when Nikon comes out with an upgrade to this camera (P910?), hopefully with 4K video, I'm going to jump right in line to get one. When I bought this, I bought it locally at a Best Buy and kept all the packaging close at hand thinking that the camera wouldn't live up to the hype I've read. I thought for certain I would be returning it after giving it a test drive myself. But no, this baby has a home here.

I had actually bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ1000 earlier, mostly for the 4K video PLUS a 25 to 400mm zoom, and I really didn't want both cameras, so I thought I would be choosing one or the other. But heck, my birthday is this week, so what the hell. They BOTH turned out to be keepers.

Happy Birthday to me!

[WebSlave]

From a practical standpoint, and showing what this camera can do with more mundane subjects, the following pics were taken HAND HELD from my porch.

This one is at 24mm and I was just shooting off hand to get a feel for the camera.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/anole_in_palm_tree_01.jpg

Then I tried out the zoom and spotted a "subject" that I didn't see earlier.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/anole_in_palm_tree_02.jpg

How about an even closer look?
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/anole_in_palm_tree_03.jpg

All the pics are "as is" from the camera without any cropping or other post processing. I just shrank them down to a more manageable size and put my copyright notice on them.

You can definitely see softness creeping into the pic at higher magnification, but I think at least some of that will be from the slight camera motion being hand held. The camera seems to have pretty decent optical stabilization, but still, probably nothing beats a tripod for those long shots. Still, not bad, all things considered.

[WebSlave]

Back to the moon pics for a moment...

Here's a pic at the highest magnification the camera could muster with the digital zoom.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/moon_2016_07_19_B.jpg

This one is not cropped from a larger image. That is "as is" from the camera.

And here's one when I backed off a bit even from the optical zoom.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/moon_2016_07_19_C.jpg

[Randall Turner]

That is a pretty impressive camera. Glad to see you found one that has made you happy.

[WebSlave]

Saw some birds at the bird feeder today, so I took out the P900 and shot some video from the porch.

ZusHz2m3D4U

Too bad this camera doesn't do 4K, but I guess the 1080P/60 does an OK job.

[nickolasanastasiou]

I think I have found my future upgrade once I grow infuriated with my current potato of a camera. Thank you for sharing, as it cut out a lot of sorting I would have had to do.

[WebSlave]

Last night the clouds broke apart at the right place and right time, giving me a really good clear shot at the moon right over the house. The place I needed to be in the front yard was extremely obvious since it was so much brighter there than where the shadows of all the trees were obscuring the moon. So I dragged out the tripod and set the P900 up on it to take some video of the moon. Seems to me that the "scene" option on the camera for "Moon" does nothing more than just delay the start of video and photos a couple of seconds to allow the movement of the camera after pressing the button to die down. Of course, this does nothing at all for trying to work the zoom lever or when you are trying to shut down the video. I did leave one instance of this out of the edited strips to show the motion.

Except for me having to swat the mosquitoes it was very easy getting these video clips. I left the audio in because of the nature sounds all around me at that time of night. Or maybe the microphone picked up aliens conversations on the moon. Who knows? :hehe:

Anyway, made a couple of passes of the moon by trying to position the camera so it would pass where I wanted it to be in the frame. Seemed to work out pretty well even when I zoomed to the max setting.

n-C6huJFyNo

Still can't get over the fact that I can get videos and photos like this from a relatively inexpensive hand holdable camera. I remember trying to get a good pic of the moon with my old 35mm stuff many years ago and I never could get anything very satisfying. This P900 makes it as easy as falling off a log.

[AbsoluteApril]

really awesome quality, thank you for sharing. I'd also tried to get moon shots on an old camera back in the day with no results worth mentioning. These are amazing!

[Randall Turner]

That is quite a good looking video clip of the moon. I love shooting photos and video of the moon and nature. I'm impressed with how little shake appeared in the clip of the birds.

[WebSlave]

A couple of weeks ago when the moon was getting near to being full again, and there was a break in the clouds, I mounted the P900 onto the Sky-Watcher Allview mount/tripod I bought to see how well that combo would work for panning the camera in a steady fashion while viewing the moon. All in all, it seemed to work pretty well. The Allview has 9 levels of movement speed for both the horizontal and vertical planes, and best I could tell, there was no backlash problems when motion was started or stopped. The would have been exhibited as a noticeable wobble at the beginning and the end of motion.

Of course, there is vibration evident transmitted through the tripod when I was trying to get the hand held controller off of the tripod, or actually touching the controls on the camera itself. And unfortunately the wireless remote I bought for the Nikon only works for triggering still photos (as far as I have been able to figure out), and doesn't work for initiating video. Nor does it work the zoom or anything else that would be nice to have so I wouldn't have to lay hands on the camera during video. But panning is really smooth with the Allview while I am doing it manually with the controller. Haven't figured out how to do actual tracking yet with it, mainly because the alignment procedure requires that I KNOW what stars I am using for reference, and I don't have a clue about that kind of stuff. So that is something I need to figure out first, I suppose.

Also, I had the auto-focus set incorrectly (for what I wanted, anyway) on the camera, so you can see the auto-focus struggling a bit during the motion of the moon across the screen. I didn't realize this till the last segment of video. Next time maybe I will try full manual focus since I'm guessing the entire moon should stay within the depth of field and not even need any sort of autofocus. But honestly, it's hard to think of everything when you are swatting at mosquitoes at the same time you are trying to get the camera set up correctly AND maneuver the motorized mount too. At least for this soggy old brain of mine, anyway. I guess it will get easier with experience with this new equipment.

pkcb7PbK4xE

But even with all the warts, I'm still amazed at the video I can get of the moon with this P900. And that Allview mount just makes panning the field of view a LOT easier at that high magnification, which quite honestly can be pretty tough handheld, or even on a standard tripod.

[CliffsideExotics]

*stares at 55-200mm lens in disapointment*
https://scontent.fsan1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t34.0-12/14193726_10153863396743587_1729745115_n.jpg?oh=c15 5a36a0455072b92e9a460fa79a89d&oe=57CD0F9B

[WebSlave]

Well, I went and purchased a solar filter, figuring it might be interesting to take some pics of the sun. So I did get the pics, but interesting? Hardly....

http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/sun_09_2016_01.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/sun_09_2016_02.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/sun_09_2016_03.jpg


http://www.corvetteflorida.com/pics/sun_09_2016_04.jpg

[nickolasanastasiou]

I picked one of these up recently. Very easy to use and I am enjoying the images it captures.

[WebSlave]

Well, now you have to post some of them for us to look at.... :time_waiting_01:

[nickolasanastasiou]

Of course, of course.

Just messing around with it so far. No adjustments and pretty much no steadying/bracing. A lot of creatures hang out in vegetation, so that makes for blurry crud in the way.

http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0117_zpsnufbjjrs.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0109_zps4dq0oo22.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0089_zpsagu9osvu.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0100_zpssfxi9i6v.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0082_zpsiou8e1sz.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0081_zpsieflfy5i.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0080_zpsmjgfwqde.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0066_zpss7y32wis.jpg

I am listening to that toad and his competitors trill away as I type this.

[nickolasanastasiou]

A few more.

http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0051_zps3ex3ohdh.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0012_zpszrokhgrv.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0010_zpsg0etg1au.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0075_zpsdtas7n3l.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0070_zpsmjs5jkms.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0073_zpseyaszlby.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0072_zpsfk5bcjd3.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017Apr06/DSCN0071_zps3wugeedy.jpg

There were three racers kind of close to each other and I had gone out to take some photos of a tortoise for someone and refresh some water dishes as well. I figured that if I tried to go for the third, I would risk losing the two closest to each other. As such, I snatched up the two with one move of my left arm while holding the camera with my right hand. They seemed surprised by my success. One gave me a "friendly" love bite, but that was a small payment for the experience. The third animal can be seen in the brush before I went for the two. I released the two I caught where I found them so they could go on to make little racers in the future.

[CliffsideExotics]

I know the Coolpix series is popular, but I think I'll always be loyal to the D series

[nickolasanastasiou]

Barred owl. It was peering into my pond, contemplating which of my creatures it would eat, and then flew up to perch on a limb of one of the trees near the house after my wife went out to look at it.

http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0958_zps44rbvvsd.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0959_zps76g6lzwu.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0951_zpscwgfnasf.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0964_zps4rmkalfn.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0967_zpsufdujc1r.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0973_zpscbcvhmax.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0970_zps6xw9eick.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/Baoh81/2017May03/DSCN0969_zpsegrf2usi.jpg