» Nikon Coolpix 5400 5.1 MP Digital Camera w/ 4x Optical Zoom

Nikon Coolpix 5400 5.1 MP Digital Camera w/ 4x Optical Zoom Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Has served me well for years.
Comment: I have owned the NikonE5400 for many years now and it has served me well. Of course it has it short comings, but for it's new price of $99 I don't think you could ask for more.

PROS:

1. The picture quality is outstanding. Most people cannot believe I used a point and click when they see the pictures I have taken. Just go to Flickr.com and check out pictures taken with the E5400 to see for yourself.

2. It has a large number of useful features for it's price. Aperture and shutter priority, Programmed auto, and Full Manual along with more than 10 preset modes including multi-directional panorama, and other surprisingly useful modes. You will not be disappointed with the scene options.

3. Macro is incredible. Being unable to afford a 600 or 700 dollar Macro lens for my D-SLR I sometimes find myself still using the Coolpix 5400 for macro shots. This is where the camera really shines. I can literally touch the subject with the lens and still get focus most of the time in good lighting.

4. Easy to use. Important features are all easily accessible.

5. Price. If your looking for a good point and click with lots of features and good image quality for less than a hundred this old lady will treat you right. Also keep in mind that most accessories are extremely cheap as well.

6. ISO 50-400 could be considered a bad thing but it means the camera is well equipped to take excellent photos in good to cloudy lighting and fair indoor lighting. Even modern point and click cameras take poor, grainy pictures with any higher ISO anyways.

7. Flip-out LCD screen with huge range of motion. It flips out all the way and rotates 360 degrees allowing for all manner of camera angles. Need a mirror? Just flip out the screen and point the camera at yourself.

8. Many affordable accessories.

9. It has a video mode with sound. This is a gimmick however, I wouldn't record anything important with it.

CONS:

Keep in mind this is an outdated camera, so it's cons in the modern market may be more than you can take.

1. 5.1 MP, which means the images can only be enlarged so much. This also means that the digital zoom (beyond the normal 4x zoom) is nearly worthless.

2. The battery life of the Nikon EL-E1 battery which comes with it is fairly short. I would recommend purchasing 1 or 2 3rd party battery replacements (you can buy 2 for less than 10 dollars from a 3rd party that have twice the battery life).

2. FPS. When not on continuous shot mode (or one of it's numerous other multiple pic shot modes) it takes pictures fairly slowly. One of my biggest annoyances with this camera was the 1-3 seconds between pictures in single shot mode.

3. Start-up time. Plan on waiting 2-4 seconds before taking your first shot after turning the camera on.

4. Crappy viewfinder. I have always used to LCD screen, which has a little more than 90% accuracy (your photo will be larger than what you see on the LCD screen)

5. Has been known to lock up at times. This is not a normal occurrence but it can be bothersome. I have found that turning off the camera, removing the battery, then reinserting the battery and turning it back on seems to solve whatever issue the camera is having with little to no loss of images.

6. Slow internal picture organizing. I wouldn't take the time to delete individual pictures from my memory card using the camera. Just plug it into a computer. Card formatting is fast enough though.


All in all I would still recommend this camera to bargain shoppers looking to take some high quality pictures. With the price of the camera and 2 new batteries you are looking at a $110 investment with the guarantee of sharp pictures, strong features, and extremely good macro capability in the point and click genre. It's main issues are it's slow picture taking speed and somewhat low megapixels which make it obsolete in today's market. Because of this you are getting an extremely low price on an otherwise high quality camera.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: 5400 has issues!
Comment: Check nikonusa web for coolpix service advisory. Some of the 5400 and others have
possible component failures, as many reviewers described before. My 5400 had CCD
issue (I use it very lightly) and Nikon USA repair it for free (Thank God!) But
that will make me think twice about the quality of the Nikon camera when I plan to
purchase another. In fact, I am looking for a P&S camera and for sure I won't put
Nikon's on the top of my list. Nikon 5400 will be my first and last Nikon product.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: great manual mode
Comment: I've heard many negative reports about the 5400 but I am well pleased with mine mostly because of it's many modes and especially manual mode.
It's easy to operate and intuitive.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Warrenty on repair
Comment: To the chase,

Good camera and I thought all was lost when ...

The camera sensor went out after 4 years or so. Nikon has a recall and will fix it if yours should go out. Screen black or as mine pink and smeary looking. Sent to Nikon fixed for free in about 3 weeks.

But anyway. just passing this on.

Search coolpix recall for more information. It was hard to find at Nikon web sight.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: If you want this camera to fail, buy it
Comment: You do not want to get any Nikon cameras from the last 4~5 years. Most of them use the SONY CCD sensor, which has been failing like crazy as of late. Of course, for the 5400, Nikon finally fessed up and decided to issue a service advisory. But the company's repair record is so spotty that I've decided never to buy a Nikon again. They tried to "fix" my sensor the 1st, and ended up breaking the control system. My camera is now in for its 3rd "redo."

Don't buy this camera unless you like non-functioning cameras and nonexistent service.

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