Nikon Coolpix 4500

This 4megapixel camera is smaller, lighter, curvier and better-looking than its predecessors.

Price: £599

Manufacturer: Nikon

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Verdict

Pros:

4x optical zoom
Great macro
Superb metering, focusing and exposure control

Cons:
Slight over-compression on fine jpegs
Rivals have brighter lenses

Overall:
The Coolpix 4500 may re-employ Nikon's great split-body design, but it's smaller, lighter, curvier and better looking than the earlier 995, and has more features too. Control, features and accessories are predictably excellent, but while image quality is also very good, certain 4megapixel rivals are ultimately sharper

Gordon Laing., Personal Computer World 11 Oct 2002

The Coolpix 4500 is the fifth digital camera to use Nikon's unusual split-body design.

Viewed from behind the electronics, controls and screen are located in the right-half of the body while the lens, optical viewfinder and flash are in the left.

The optical half can be rotated about 300 degrees, making waist-level, over-the-head shots or sly self-portraits a doddle.

The design concept may not be new, but the Coolpix 4500 is a big improvement over its predecessor, the Coolpix 995.

For starters, at 130 x 73 x 50mm and weighing 375g with rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it's smaller, lighter and curvier.

Where the 995 was fitted with a 3.3megapixel sensor, the 4500 has a higher resolution 4megapixel chip. This produces 2,272 x 1,704 pixel images, which have sufficient detail to make great-looking A4 colour inkjet prints.

Compliance with Epson's Print Image Matching (Pim) on the 995 has also been replaced by support for the broader-reaching Exchangeable Image File (Exif) Print standard (formerly known as Exif 2.2).

Printers supporting Exif Print can exploit embedded exposure information and camera profiles to produce a more accurate output.

The 4500 offers five resolutions, each with three levels of jpeg compression. The best-quality settings produce jpegs around 1.2MB each, so you'll squeeze around 13 on the supplied 16MB Compact Flash (CF) card.

An uncompressed tiff mode is also offered, but the 12MB files take 30 seconds to save. The Type II CF slot in the 4500 is finally certified to use the 512MB and 1GB IBM Microdrives, and we're pleased to report their writing times were only fractionally slower than the supplied Flash memory card.

The 4500 features a 4x zoom with an equivalent 35mm range of 38-155mm, but the design is more compact, again eliminating the 995's other unsightly bulge.

The maximum aperture is f2.6~5.1 which, while slightly faster than the 995, isn't as bright as its rivals.

The 4500's closest focusing distance of 2cm remains one of the most impressive in the industry, and Nikon has addressed lighting problems with a new macro ring light accessory.

There are also five optional lens converters, which multiply the range by 0.21, 0.63, 0.66, two and three times.

Nikon has, sadly, removed the LCD status panel from its earlier 900 series, and, like many recent digital cameras, the 4500's screen has shrunk to 1.5in.

You can, unusually, alter the vertical perspective of saved images, but if you've access to a PC, it may be best to use something like Photoshop instead.

Metering, focus and exposure control are excellent as always, and there's a separate program, aperture and shutter priority, along with full manual modes.

Shutter speeds range from 1/2,000 to eight seconds, and a bulb mode exposes up to five minutes using the optional remote cord.

A noise-reduction option eliminates undesirable bright blobs on long exposures and Nikon has also included audio with its 320 x 240 movies.

In terms of design, features, control and image quality, the Coolpix 4500 is superb, but it's up against tough competition in the upper end of the 4megapixel market.

In our tests, the 4500's images looked great but weren't as sharp as those from the comparably priced Sony Cybershot DSC-S85 and Canon Powershot G2.

Admittedly these cameras only have 3x zooms, but their f2.0~2.5 optics are brighter, which can make all the difference when you're shooting under dim conditions.

Ultimately the choice of camera is greatly influenced by design and handling, not to mention brand loyalty.

With excellent features, decent quality and unrivalled accessories, the Coolpix 4500 will certainly win many friends, but Canon's G2 still delivers the best quality pictures we've seen from a 4megapixel camera.

DETAILS
Price: £599 (£509.79 ex VAT)

Contact: Nikon 0800 230 220
www.nikon.co.uk

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