Filter
Top Products
of pictures and alter each one up to two f/stops in both the plus and minus directions.
You get five shots of the same scene, all of them slightly different in exposure values so
there is sure to be a "perfect" one in there somewhere.
The 990 has white balance options for Automatic, Cloudy, Sunny, Incandescent,
Fluorescent and Speedlight as well as a manual Preset mode to let you perfectly tune
the white balance using a known white value. Even the fixed white balance options are
variable by a factor of +/- 3 steps and there's three different temperature settings for
flourescent lighting.
Setting the white balance is only part of the overall equation of the exposure process.
You can use the Nikon-exclusive 3D color matrix metering that uses a 256- segment
area to determine the best possible exposure for the entire frame. Or the
center-weighted averaging, spot or spot-AF metering modes to nail that perfectly
exposed picture.
One of the most important parts of any modern digital camera is the color LCD display.
This gives you instant feedback on whether or not you got the shot you wanted as well
as displaying camera menus and other important exposure data or camera settings.
The Coolpix 950 had a nice 2" LCD display but it was nearly impossible to see in high
ambient light conditions, especially outdoors in the sun. The LCD used on the 990 is
slightly smaller, measuring 1.8" diagonally, but it is a higher resolution display and
considerably easier to see in bright conditions. Checking the focus or composition of
captured images is a snap using the zoomed playback feature you can freely scroll
around the entire image.
Shooting in Continuous mode with the production model 990 I have been able to
capture 3 frames at full resolution at a speed of about 1fps. Dropping the resolution
down to XGA (1024x768) it captures 8 frames at nearly 2fps. In VGA (640x480)
resolution the capture speed was still about 2fps and the buffer handles around 20
frames. Other rapid capture modes include the VGA Sequence mode that grabs 40
640x480 shots at 2fps or the Ultra High Speed QVGA (320x240) capture mode that
grabs up to 80 shots at 30fps speed.
The menu system is extensive but rather easily navigated once you learn to use the
quick tabs on the left side. With the Coolpix 950 you had to cruise through all of the
menu screens to get to the last one but with the 990 you can "jump" to different
subsections using the 1, 2, or 3 tabs. The 4-way jog switch makes things much easier
too and some of the main menu items can be selected and then quickly changed by
rotating the command dial. With this many options the camera has to have a rather
complex menu system but I think it is much easier than the way it was on the 950.
Another new feature on the 990 is the ability to select the video output format between
NTSC and PAL. This was always the major distinction between the U.S. and European
models but now the only way to tell them apart is by the color scheme used on the body
of the camera. The U.S. and North American cameras will sport a charcoal grey
textured body with a purple colored finger grip. The European model will look like the
Coolpix 950 with the familiar black and red scheme. I wasn't crazy about the "purple"