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OK, who would have thought seen us with a Nikon Point & Shoot camera.
We recently
hosted a ''How to use your digital camera'' seminar in Cayey,
Puerto Rico, and bought this camera to be used during our seminar.
This is not by any means an in-depth review, rather our experiece
with this fun camera in a small package.
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Front
View |
Rear
View |
Side
view |
Honestly, it
is a hassle to draw one of our big cameras during a family or friends
reunion. The Nikon L series, in this case model L3 is a
blast and deserves being recomended to our loyal visitors.
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Face
Priority Mode |
Macro Mode |
Landscape Mode |
The Nikon L3
features a lot of goodies, some found in our big models. We
definitely loved the ''Vivid'' color mode, this mode boost the colors
in landscape photography. Be aware however that this mode is not too
friendly with skin tones, so whatever you do, please do NOT take
pictures of your friends in ''vivid'' mode. This setting produce a
strong red cast over the skin tones. ''Normal'' setting is preferred
when shooting people yielding more natural skin tones. You can also
take pictures in traditional Black & White, nostalgic Sepia,
creative Cyanomode for a bluish cast found in stock and ad shots.
Have you ever
taken a picture of 2 friends to find out they were out of focus? This
happens very often among beginners. What happens is that your camera
is focusing on the background. There is a trick involved to avoid
this common mistake by pressing the shutter button halfway, focusing
on your friends, moving the camera to recompose the scene while
keeping the shutter pressed halfway and after recomposing, taking the picture.
Well guess
what? That problem has been resolved by Nikon's ''Face Priority''
mode. This mode takes away all the hassle explained above. It will
automatically look for your friend's faces with a ''happy face'' icon
on the screen. Viola!!! No more blurriness on family and friend pictures.
Wanna get up
close and personal with mother nature? Check below the Orchid
close-ups we've got in ''Macro'' mode. ''Landscape''
mode produce hassle free pictures of vistas and panoramas.
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Landscape Mode |
Macro Mode |
Macro Mode |
''Indoor Party''
mode, check out the pictures below. You have seen those ''mug
shots'' in parties huh? Well, even a top of the line camera might
produce this results if used in ''P'' Program mode. This
happen because the camera is simply firing the flash and the
surrounding available light is not captured by the camera sensor or
film (on a film camera). On a traditional or a more sophisticated
camera, this is achieved by selecting ''rear flash curtain''. Fancy
terminology indeed. When this setting is selected, the camera opens
the shutter to capture available surrounding light and before closing
the shutter, the flash fires a ''puff'' of light. See the difference
on my niece and nephew shots below using Indoor Party mode on
the Nikon CoolPix L3; notice that one picture was made only
with the built-in flash and we lost the beautiful blue light coming
behind her thru the sliding door.
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Indoor
Party Mode |
Indoor
Party Mode-OFF |
Indoor
Party Mode-ON |
Be aware that
Indoor party mode requires a slow shutter speed, meaning that you
could get blurry pictures when used hand held due to slow shutter
speeds. Please, try to use a miniature tripod or set the camera on a
sturdy surface, in our case we used the counter top. Did we mention
that this camera let you know when a picture is blurry? Well, if the
picture you take turns out blurry, the camera will advice you and ask
if you want to keep it or delete it...Very Cool Pix!
No excuses
to leave home without a camera.
--5.1
MP producing outstanding 8x10 prints*
--Approx
street price for the Nikon CoolPix L3:
$145.00 USD.
--Camera has
a slippery finish, always carry it with the supplied strap.
*When used in
high 5MP quality mode.
*Approx 194
pictures when used with a 256MB SD Memorycard
*Approx 390
pictures with a 512MB card
*Approx 780
pictures with a 1GB Memory Card.
*Approx 120
pictures (30% flash used) per set of Nimh 2700 mHa batteries (2
AA's). This may vary +/- from user to user.
**Always
think quality/print size, we suggest to shoot always in high quality mode.
Other
shooting modes available:
Auto, 4 modes
with Scene Assist (Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night Portrait), 11
Scene modes (Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night
Landscape, Close Up, Museum, Fireworks Show, Copy, Back Light,
Panorama Assist), Voice Recording, BSS (Best Shot Selector), Color
options, Blur Warning, Date Imprint, Self-timer (10 sec).
For more
tech info on the Nikon
CoolPix L3 click here. |
