Nikon COOLPIX P600 Review - Recommended for big zoom fans

The Nikon Coolpix P600 packs a powerful lens, a nice vari-angle LCD, and a respectable set of shooting options and controls that should satisfy auto and manual users alike. Considering its zoom range, the camera is remarkably compact and light.

Take beautiful photos with the Nikon COOLPIX P600 and watch them instantly appear on your compatible smartphone or tablet.

The COOLPIX P600’s 60x optical zoom lens goes from wide-angle—great for portraits and landscapes—all the way up to telephoto—great for close-ups of sports, concerts, nature and more. When you need even more reach, zoom up to 60x with optical zoom and 120x with Dynamic Fine Zoom, an enhanced digital zoom function that effectively doubles your reach.

Shooting conditions vary, so the Nikon COOLPIX P600 has two viewing systems: a large 3-inch Vari-angle display that swings and swivels to provide easy viewing from almost any position, plus an electronic Eye-Level viewfinder for D-SLR-style shooting. Find exciting new perspectives by swiveling out the Vari-angle display and moving the camera around—raise it overhead or move it to ground-level for suprising new views. When conditions require, use the bright, Electronic Eye-Level viewfinder and frame exactly the shot you want.

The COOLPIX P600 takes exceptional images on its own, but when you want to take control of exposure, you can. Select from Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority or Manual mode and create without limitations.

The Nikon Coolpix P600 is designed to maximize the time you spend taking great photos and videos. Thanks to an improved energy efficient design, you can shoot up to approx. 330 photos at full resolution on a single battery charge! Spend more time capturing special moments and less time waiting for a charge.

Video quality is generally very good as well as long as you have a lot of light. However, with low-contrast subjects the camera will struggle to focus when zooming all the way in. On the other hand you might not want to move the lens once you start recording anyway because of the amount of noise that's made when moving. Also, when you start a recording there's a delay of a couple seconds while the camera switches from photo to movie mode and starts recording.

The P600's four tab menu system is reliably logical, user-friendly, and easily navigated. The large, high-resolution LCD and reasonable font size make reading menus simple -- even for older shooters.

Here's a breakdown of the P600's shooting modes:

Program: Auto exposure with limited user input.
Auto: Point-and-shoot mode.
Scene Auto Selector: Automatically selects the most appropriate Scene mode for the shooting situation from Portrait, Landscape, Night Portrait, Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close-Up, Food, Museum, Fireworks Show, Copy, Backlight, and Panorama Assist.
Night Landscape Scene Mode: Automatically selects a smaller aperture to increase the area in focus and a longer shutter speed (to help capture detail) in dim/low lighting conditions.
Landscape Mode: All exposure parameters are maximized for classic landscape pictures.
Night Portrait Mode: All exposure parameters are maximized for night portraits
Effects: Soft-focus mode, Sepia, High contrast monochrome, High key, Low key, Selective color, and Painting.
User Settings: Custom
Aperture priority: Users select the aperture and the camera selects an appropriate shutter speed.
Shutter priority: Users select shutter speed and the camera selects an appropriate aperture.
Manual: Users select all exposure parameters.
Movie: Full HD (1920x1080p @) 60i/50i/30p/25p, 30p/25p, 30p/25p, 60p/25p, 120p/100p fps) video with stereo audio

Key specs - Nikon Coolpix P600

Dimensions (WHD): 5x3.4x4.2 inches
Weight (with battery and media): 1 pound 2.4 ounces
Megapixels, image sensor size, type: 16 megapixels, 1/2.3-inch backside-illuminated CMOS
LCD size, resolution/viewfinder: 3-inch LCD, 921K dots/Yes, electronic
Lens (zoom, aperture, focal length): 60x, f3.3-6.5, 24-1440mm (35mm equivalent)
File format (still/video): JPEG/H.264 AAC (MOV)
Highest resolution size (still/video): 4,608x3,456 pixels/1,920x1,080p at 30fps
Image stabilization type: Optical and digital
Battery type, CIPA rated life: Li ion rechargeable, 330 shots
Battery charged in camera: Yes; wall adapter or computer via Micro-USB
Storage media: SD/SDHC/SDXC

Pros:

Epic zoom range, 60x... 24-1440mm (35mm equivalent range), a range that has to be seen to be believed! Distant blobs become real objects zooming in. Great fun for big zoom fans
Build is decent up to the quality I would expect on a camera like this, the LCD monitor is a good fully articulated 3" 921k nice and sharp looking
Image quality, a big one it's quite good really for a 1/2.3-in 16mp small CMOS sensor. Usual rules apply here viewing images at 100% on screen won't blow you away, and it's not going to give you DSLR IQ by a long shot. But...for the sensor size it's quite respectable. Even ISO 800 is quite good, 1600 is pushing things more than a bit. With careful processing you can improve things a little, or reduce resolution to 8mp for lower light shots
AF was quite quick in good light, but takes longer telephoto end as expect for a camera like this. Probably good enough for experienced bird shooters (I'm not a bird shooter being honest)
Well featured in most respects, tons of scenes and modes (which I would rarely use myself) Face detection helps with exposure and AF, flash exposures were quite decent.
Interval timer could be useful for time lapse projects
Active D lighting works well helping with dynamic range, but will effect image quality at the higher settings
Good macro setting 1cm min focus (at the wide end of the zoom)
Fairly fast 7fps, but fairly shallow buffer which is a bit of a downer. Nikon quote 7fps with 7 frames at max resolution, and that seems about right to me, you have a slow 1fps shooting mode which seems redundant. You can drop image size to help here. There are some snazzy ultra high speed shooting modes, with very low image resolution (640x480 @120fps) fun for web not much else. There is a "pre shooting cache" mode where you can save more images but at a 2048x1536 resolution, this would do the job for action shots.
Focus peaking, outlines the edges of your subject for improved manual focus, works well enough but like the Sony's I've used not so good in lower contrast
Colours are pretty punchy, similar to other Nikon's I've used you can tone this down in the settings if you want (I'd drop the contrast down a touch myself) Bit OTT for me but if you like punch out of the box it's here
Video mode isn't bad (take note of the video AF note) bit contrasty but you can tone that down. You get full HD progressive (not interlaced) at 25/30fps. You get 50/60fps in interlaced. Also included are some high speed lower res movie modes, they could be fun for action sequences. In quiet places the AF and zoom can be heard on recordings, but probably won't be in normal environments
The lens is good optics wise even at the top end producing pretty sharp images (take note wide end though)
VR works well, probably even better than the P510 I used, but don't expect miracles. You won't be hand holding @ 1440mm equivalent at 1/10 second! I'd invest in a half decent (they're not expensive) monopod if you're a shooter who might be out on less than ideal days. The magnification at that zoom range is big, as good as the VR is technique will help here too
Metering is quite good and mostly predictable, keep an eye out for high contrast scenes though (or use the DRO option) Highlights can blow out, though this stacks up fairly well v other cameras I've tried.
Battery life isn't bad Nikon quote 330, I got around 290-300 on average (but you tend to play with a new camera more settings wise) I'd get a spare, watch out for third party batteries, Nikon seem to lock them out via firmware and encryption (I don't agree with this, bear it in mind)

Cons:

Takes a while to zoom in and out full range, not a surprise just bear in mind if you're moving from one extreme to the other. It would be great to see a mechanical zoom (would solve the problem) You do have a "snap back zoom" ie zoom memory which helps
AF in video struggles when zooming in and out, the P510 had this issue too just takes a while for the AF to catch up more so at the longer zoom ranges
AF in low light is quite slow, AF assist light helps for closer subjects. If you're outside in low light levels shooting at a distance esp zoomed in a lot, you might want to manual focus (peaking function, or use the infinity focus option)
Still no raw, some might not use it but it would be useful for processing some shots esp lower light ones. I think it's time Nikon offered this
No GPS, replaced with wifi. Some might prefer one or the other (how about both?). I'd rather have GPS myself.
No hot shoe, not likely to be used by most, worth a mention though
I'd prefer less noise reduction on the jpegs, in shadow areas smearing can be an issue even at lower ISO levels. Par for the course on these cameras, and being honest the Nikon does better than most
Some corner softness at the wide end, not enough to worry me hugely but there are compromises here
Lens speed is f/3.3 - f/6.5, that's not bad for a huge range lens like this, but it's a bit slower than shorter range lenses. The FZ-200 has less range but more speed, that might be a factor so bear that in mind
Shoot and review seemed a bit sluggish (quite a lot slower than the P510) I suspect maybe a firmware update will speed things up

The Recommended for big zoom fans who want half decent image quality on a small sensor.