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Nikon Reportedly Recipient of Two Red Dot Awards

So, via Imaging Resource is a press release from Nikon talking excitedly about it’s two Red Dot awards. The Red Dot awards are some design awards that take the idea of design pretty seriously, appearance, ease-of-use, the ease with which one can pick it up and figure it out, etc..

Anyway, Nikon apparently won some awards for the Coolpix S1000pj point-and-shoot with the LED projector, and for the D5000 entry-level DSLR. Not that I can verify this independently, since Red Dot’s site hasn’t updated with this year’s winners. It does look like this won’t be Nikon’s first time winning a Red Dot, the D3 won one last year.



iFixit Totally Not Getting Their Warranty Back on Their S1000pj, Can Have Our Respect Instead

ifixit-s100pjiFixit, a site dedicated to meticulous, careful, thoroughly documented tear-downs of popular consumer electronics, has performed those self-same services on Nikon’s new Coolpix S1000pj (yeah, the same camera Carel Struycken reviewed for us here). The results are both highly informative and insanely interesting if you’re a gearhead.

Find the complete teardown here.

Nikon personnel, you may wish to avert your eyes, as I can only imagine this brutal slaughter of your young will do nothing but hurt.



Nikon Coolpix S1000pj User Review

carel struyckenThe Coolpix S1000pj is a very interesting point and shoot camera. Most of the attention during its launch goes to the unique built-in mini projector, but it is also a very well rounded camera with a great zoom range, a very intuitive interface, smooth automation and it produces excellent stills and video.

Most people who get a hold of this camera will probably first try the projector. I happened to be in a room with lots of daylight bouncing off white walls, but could still get a decent projection of about 13″ diagonal on a shadowy section the wall. In a room with dimmed light one can easily increase the projection size to a 30″ diagonal. The projected image is not as crisp as the same image viewed on an LCD screen or as print, but this will not be much of a detriment for the average action snapshot or video.

The 5x zoom lens (28-140mm equivalent) also does macro to an amazing 3cm (1.2″) and with the advertized 5 “advanced Nikon image stabilization features” one uses the full range without giving it much thought. As with many P&Ss, the zoom control tends to overshoot from wide angle to full tele and it takes practice and finesse to make it end up somewhere in the middle range.

The “intelligent automated shooting modes” select the best combination of apperture, ISO and shutter speed on the fly and it seemed to make the right decision in all environments where I tried it out.

The camera also has a “Smart portrait system with skin softening” which I neglected to test. The camera detects faces very rapidly and  the skin softening should be a welcome piece of automation to all of us who have done portrait retouching. There is also a “smile timer”, “blink proof function” and the camera fixes red-eye in-camera. Pretty much every kind of retouching is now done in the camera. Who knows, maybe we will have “auto slimming” in a few years, where everybody is electronically slimmed down to an ideal Body Mass Index.

But, most importantly, this little camera gave very good results and also produced surprisingly low noise at higher ISO settings. This has always been a challenge for P&Ss with their tiny sensors and densely packed pixels, but during the last year the pixel race has finally slowed down and the attention to more important characteristics such as noise and dynamic range is beginning to produce results.



Roberts Raw Takes Long Weekend, Returns Monday with Podcast and Carel Struycken

Nick and myself, the indomitable backbones of Roberts Raw as it were, are apparently both off tomorrow. As such, you won’t be receiving any of our wonderful wit, insight, or humor. But, never fear true believers! We will return Monday with two awesome conciliation posts.

We’ll have the podcast from this week, for those of you who like to hear Nick’s dulcet tones, and we’ll also have the second review from our partner Carel Struycken (you’ll have seen him in the movies, we promise), who reviewed Nikon’s Coolpix S1000pj. What did he have to say about it? Was he able to fit it comfortably within his almost-assuredly titanic hands? Well, all those questions and more will have to wait the weekend to be answered in his newest post, complete with photographs!

And, now that you are all a-titter, we must leave you, dear readers. We shall return, please do not forget us. Your page views are like the sound of sweet music, and we wouldn’t want to be without music.



New Product: Nikon Coolpix S1000PJ IN STOCK NOW

Coolpix S1000PJ

Coolpix S1000PJ

In what situations will a tiny LED projector built into your Coolpix be useful? Here’s a few I can conjure:

1.) Massive In-Person Multi-User Chimping -two kinds
First: Set your D300s to shoot RAW to the CF slot and JPEG to the SDHC slot and shoot a while on your project, stop long enough to swap the SDHC card into the PJ and review your work with your assistants and models using the included remote control and plastic stand and durn near any available wall.

Second: Line up your folks, their folks, and all the running progeny long enough to get a group shot before they get food all over their nice, holiday clothes then keep taking pictures until everyone’s too loaded on tryptophan and football to complain when you shut off the lights and set up the PJ for everyone to enjoy.

2.) Presentations: Since various office softwares can save presentations as JPEG images and the S1000PJ can display any JPEG image on the SDHC card, create your slideshow and save it down as a numbered series of JPEGs, load them on the SDHC card and you’ve a presentation in your pocket.

A variation: Touring a production line take your reference shots, makes your notes, and you now you have an instant visual aid to your meeting or presentation.

3.) While waiting for the rescue helicopter turn on the projector and point it at the sky -all 10 lumens might be the difference between getting eaten by a python and getting spotted.

Scoot over to our page on youtube to check out our Raw Footage installment on the PJ.

We’re expecting soon to see a hands-on review of the S1000PJ from Carel Struycken. In the mean-time, I’d like your commentary on the uses of the PJ.



Nikon Coolpix S70: That’s a Good Lens

So, we heard the occasional murmur that Nikon’s last series of Coolpix may or may not have had sharp lenses. Well, we know for certain that’s not the case with the shared 28mm 5x zoom on their new series. We were testing the S1000pj and the S70 today and woah, those suckers have good little lenses for point-and-shoots. Really good. Don’t believe us? We shot the pic below from a magazine in the classroom, with the S70 in macro mode. Check out the detail in that crop, it got the printing ink and the irregularities in the newsprint. Very impressive show, Nikon. Very impressive.




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