Nikon Coolpix 8400

Reviewed March 2005

Characteristics

CCD sensitivity begins at 50 ISO, but can be manually increased to 100, 200, or 400 ISO, or left to Auto, which allows the camera to adjust the sensitivity from 50 to 200 ISO, as the quantity of light available demands.

Nikon has given the Coolpix 8400 a 3.5X Nikkor zoom with a focal length range of 6.1 to 21.6 mm, equivalent to a 24 to 85 mm lens. The lens is made of 10 elements in 7 groups, including 2 glass-moulded ED lens elements that minimize both curvilinear distortion and chromatic aberration.

Apertures for the lens start at f2.6 when the zoom is at the wide angle end, and narrow down to f4.9 at the telephoto end, while extending out to f7.9 at the wide end and f7.7 at the telephoto end.

These apertures are matched to a shutter speed range that covers from 1/3000 second to a full 10 minutes when the camera is set to Bulb/Timer in the Manual mode. The range however, is dependent on the shooting mode in use and the entire breadth of shutter speed is not available is most modes (see the shooting mode descriptions in the Ergonomics section of the review).

The Coolpix 8400 provides either continuous auto focus, or single auto focus, as selected in the camera's menu. In addition, three methods of auto focusing are available to the user, and each is assisted by an AF assist LED, placed directly above the AF ranging sensor's windows. The default is a system that automatically finds the focus point from one of nine focus points clustered around the centre of the frame. The second system, selected in the menu, is a Manual system that lets the user choose the precise focus point using the Multi-selector, and the third is a standard centre focus.

The Coolpix 8400 provides eight image sizes, which along with the image quality can be selected either by turning the Mode Dial to the position, or as an option of the full menu:

And photos can be saved using any one of three formats: RAW, TIFF or JPEG, the latter offering 4 levels of compression:

The menu of the Coolpix 8400, displayed exclusively when the camera is set to any one of the P/S/A/M modes, contains the image quality and size options along with a number of other settings. Worth noting, when the Coolpix 8400 is set to the Auto shooting mode it has no menu, while when set to Scene, the menu button simply displays the Scene mode selection screen (see the Ergonomics section of the review).

When first called up, the menu starts with a display called "My Menu" that contains only six items ending with an option to show the entire menu. The items of the My Menu screen can be customized, and any six of twenty distinct items can be selected to appear there, acting as a short cut to the options most often needed.

Selecting the last option "Show all menus" displays all the available options:

• White Balance: Auto, White Balance Preset (to set the white balance according to ambient conditions), Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Speedlight (flash), and Shade. Moreover, using the Command Dial with settings other than Auto or Preset, the white balance can be tweaked in ± 3 increments warming or cooling the colour cast. For the fluorescent settings however, the selection is limited to white, neutral, and daylight.
• Metering has four options: Matrix, which is a 256-segment metering system; Spot, which meters a small point at the centre of the frame; Centre-weighted, which meters the entire frame but assigns 80% importance to an area occupying 1/4 of the frame at the centre; and Spot AF, which meters the focus point, even if the focus point is elsewhere than at the centre of the frame.
• Continuous:
• Single: takes one shot each time the shutter release is pressed.
• Continuous H: captures 5 frames at up to 2.3 frames per second but turns off the EVF and the monitor during the burst (JPEG only).
• Continuous L: captures up to 11 images (JPEG Fine quality) at up to 1.2 frames per second.
• Multi-shot 16: captures a burst of sixteen 816 x 612 pixel images in a single 3264 x 2448 pixel frame (JPEG only).
• Ultra HS : captures up to 100 photos with a 640 x 480 pixel (TV) picture size, using JPEG Normal compression at 30 frames per second. The photos are stored in a special directory on the card (Electronic shutter, speed up 1/8000 second).
• 5-Shot Buffer: captures photos at a rate of 0.7 frames per second while the shutter release is held down. When the shutter button is released, the camera records the last 5 shots.
• Interval Timer Shooting: the Coolpix can be set to capture photos at a specified time interval (30 second, 1, 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes) for up to 1,800 frames.
• BSS: Best Shot Selector. Offers three options:
  • Off.
  • On: captures up to 10 shots and selects the sharpest one to save.
  • Exposure BSS: can be used to pick the best exposure for Highlight, Shadow, or Histogram. The camera captures 5 shots and selects the best one according to the selected option.

• Image Adjustment: to control image contrast. Options are Auto, Normal, More Contrast, Less Contrast.
• Saturation Control: offers control over the colour saturation ±2 values, or an option to capture a black and white image,
• User Setting: allows saving preferred camera settings for the P/S/A/M modes into either one of two memories, Bank 1 or Bank 2.

• Sharpness has 5 settings: Auto, High, Normal, Low, and Off.
• Lens: is to let the camera know that an optional lens converter is attached. Four options are available: Normal (no adapter), Wide Adapter (WC-E75), Telephoto (TC-E3ED or TC-E3PF), or a Fisheye adapter (FC-E9),
• Exposure Options: serves to set two specific options:
  • AE Lock serves to produce a series of photos with the same exposure and white balance. The settings available are:
    • Off.
    • On: locks the shutter speed, aperture, sensitivity and white balance for all subsequent pictures until turned off.
    • Reset: clears exposure settings, making it possible to start another series where the first photo's exposure settings will be used for the subsequent images.
  • Bulb/Time:
    • Bulb will release the shutter when the shutter release or the remote control is pressed and will stop the exposure when the shutter release or the remote control is pressed a second time.
    • Time allows selecting an exposure time (30 seconds, 1, 3, 5 or 10 minutes).
• Focus Options presents 3 primary choices:
  • AF Area Mode: controls the way the camera focuses. Three settings are possible:
    • Auto: lets the camera select the focus area that contains the closest subject.
    • Manual: allows the user to choose the focus point from 9 points in the frame which are overlaid on the viewfinder/monitor and selected using the 4 direction Multi-selector. (This mode is automatically used with 3 Scene modes: Portrait, Night Portrait and Close-up.)
    • Off: forces the centre focus point to be used exclusively.
  • Autofocus Mode: provides for Single AF, or Continuous AF. Note that continuous AF is used when the camera is set to the Close-up Scene mode.
  • Focus Confirmation: makes the edges of subjects that are in focus shimmer (as if slightly over-sharpened). Three settings are available: Manual Focus (only operates in the manual focus mode), On (applies to all modes), or Off.
• Zoom Options: serves to turn On or Off the digital zoom (4X), or set a Fixed Aperture, which controls whether or not the aperture varies with the zoom position. When On the aperture range becomes limited to f5 through to f8 when the camera is set to Aperture Priority or Manual mode.
• Speedlight Options has three sub-options:
  • Pop Up: decides if the flash pops up automatically (Auto), or manually (Manual), when a flash mode other than Forced Off is selected.
  • Flash Exposure Compensation: provides a range of ±2EV.
  • Speedlight Control: has 2 settings. Auto lets the camera determine if the pop up flash is used or an externally mounted flash. Internal Off turns off the pop-up flash.
• Auto Bracketing:
  • Auto Exposure Bracketing is to capture 3 to 5 exposures over an exposure compensation range of ±2EV.
  • White Balance Bracketing varies the white balance over 3 shots, capturing one normal photo, one photo with a reddish cast, and one photo with a bluish cast.
• Noise Reduction: On or Off. When On noise reduction is applied to images captured at shutter speeds longer than 1/4 second.
• Reset: returns the Coolpix 8400 to its factory defaults.
• My Menu: allows selecting which options are displayed on the first menu screen.
• CF Card Format: formats the memory card.

Set to the Movie mode, the menu of the Coolpix 8400 only offers three options. The first is to select the type of movie to record (see the Ergonomics section of the review for a listing of the movie modes available). The second concerns the auto focus mode: single or continuous. And the third offers an electronic vibration stabilization system (On or Off), that attempts to minimize camera shake while the camera is recording a movie using a purely electronic system instead of the complex opto-electronic vibration reduction system that is used on the Coolpix 8800.

Set to Playback, the Coolpix 8400 is able, as are most other Nikon cameras, to show in-depth information about the shooting parameters used for any image it has captured. By default, the camera presents the image with a few basic settings superimposed on the periphery of the image: Date and time, folder, image number and format, image size and quality, and image number within those contained in the folder.

Turning the Command Dial, additional information can be overlaid on the image in a series of 5 screens, then returning to the default display. The first screen provides the settings for the camera's name and the firmware version, the metering and shooting mode, as well as the aperture and shutter speed. The second screen supplies information about exposure compensation, focal length, focus type, flash setting, image adjustment and sensitivity. The third screen adds settings for white balance, saturation, sharpness, digital zoom factor, the use of a converter lens if any, and the file size.

The fourth screen presents the image as a thumbnail in the upper part of the display, showing any potentially overexposed areas as flashing, and displays a histogram showing the distribution of brightness in the frame below, while showing basic shot settings on the right side of the display. Last the fifth screen overlays the possible focus points, and highlights in red the one that was used for the shot.

The Playback menu of the Coolpix 8400 has a generally similar appearance to the Recording menu, but does not make use of the "My Menu" concept, presenting all the available options immediately:

• Delete: to delete selected or all photos.
• Folders has 2 sub-options: Folder Options serves to create, rename or delete folders in which images are stored. Folders serves to select folders to be used for storage or playback.
• Slide Show: to create slide shows with a selectable on-screen time interval (2, 3, 5, or 10 seconds), and decide whether the show should loop.
• Protect: allows selecting images and tagging them so they cannot be erased accidentally. (Note that formatting the card will erase all images including protected ones).
• Hide Image: allows hiding pictures so they can only be seen with the Hide Image option, and not in a slide show.

• Print Set: serves to select images to be printed. The Coolpix 8400 supports PictBridge, making it possible to connect the camera to a PictBridge compliant printer and print photos directly. In addition the Coolpix 8400 supports DPOF (Digital Print Order Format), the standard used by all printing services. If desired, images to be printed can be imprinted with their date and even with the camera's settings for aperture and shutter speed.

• Auto Transfer: allows selecting images (Selected Images, All Images, Cancel Transfer) that will be transferred automatically when the camera is connected to a computer running Picture Project (included with the camera).
• Move Image: to move one or more images from one folder to another on the memory card.
• CF Card Format: to format the memory card.
• Small Pic: to create a copy of an existing image with a size of 640 x 480, or 320 x 240, or 160 x 120 pixels.

Beyond the options listed in the Playback menu, the Coolpix 8400 offers a couple of other functions. First, with a RAW image displayed, pressing the shutter button offers the option of creating a TIFF version of the image. Second, when an image has been magnified, the option appears to capture a new image based on the magnified display, effectively a cropped version of the original image. Or, as a second option in this little pop-up menu, fix an image for contrast, an option called D-Ligthing, which is able to noticeably improve an image in which the subject is backlit and too dark.

The Coolpix 8400 uses CompactFlash memory cards and is compatible with Type I and II cards. In addition, it is also compatible with current Microdrives.

The card slot compartment is covered by a large non-latching spring-loaded door. The card is ejected with a lever, and as there is ample space around the card slot, the card or the microdrive is easy to extract.

In North America, a memory card is not included in the basic Coolpix 8400 package and must be purchased separately. However, as a guide, the chart indicates the number of photos that can be stored using a 512MB CF card:

There are two external connections on the Coolpix 8400: one on the top left side of the camera, the other on the top right side, and both are covered by flexible plastic doors.

On the right side is a DC-In jack designed for the Coolpix 8400's optional power adapter (EH-54AC).

Powered by a Nikon Lithium-ion (EN-EL7) battery, the Coolpix 8400 has an excellent autonomy. The battery is inserted into the camera's grip, and maintained in place by latching the cover door. A charger is usually included in the kit, as is the battery itself, which requires approximately 2.5 hours to fully charge.

The battery compartment cover can be detached, allowing for the installation of the optional Battery Pack MB-CP11.