{"id":14950,"date":"2013-06-09T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14950"},"modified":"2013-06-09T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-09T13:00:00","slug":"putting-the-nikon-s9500-to-the-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14950","title":{"rendered":"Putting The Nikon S9500 To The Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

I mentioned last week that I was using the Nikon Coolpix S9500<\/a> at TechEd NA 2013 \u2013 which the office kindly loaned to me for my recent travels.  I went with it instead of my usual DSLR kit<\/a> because I wanted convenient.  And that it was \u2026 plus this 18.1 MP fits-in-your-pocket camera has a 22x optical zoom \u2013 the lens is like something out of Iron Man or Transformers, appearing out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

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I spent my time working with the camera as \u2026 as camera.  It\u2019s has some other tricks like built-in GPS (for tagging locations) and Wi-Fi.  I wanted to take pictures.  And that\u2019s what I did last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday night I went to see The Who playing in the O2 in Dublin.  It was a great gig, and I also thought it would be a cool place to bring a camera.  Let\u2019s see how a compact would do in low light from the \u201ccheap\u201d seats.<\/p>\n

Turning off the flash was easy \u2013 on-board strobes are useless with a range of more than a couple of feet so all they do is tick people off and waste battery.  The first challenge was to deal with the low light. I was getting blurry shots so I took control of ISO, starting at 1600, but found that 800 would do the trick.  Configuring ISO was easier than I expected on a camera with just a few buttons on it \u2013 everything was easily found in the menu system.  Then I discovered (I didn\u2019t have a manual \u2013 and it didn\u2019t matter because the controls were intuitive) that the Scene setting allowed me to instantly edit a photo in the camera.  I love high contrast B&W rock photos \u2026 here\u2019s one of the opening act, Vintage Trouble, at nearly full zoom.<\/p>\n

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Then on came the main event.  Quite honestly, The Who rocked.  I am not a big fan \u2013 I know the CSI themes and a few others, but those old dudes can still tear it up.  The matrix metering did a nice job at catching detail in the exposure:<\/p>\n

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What about full zoom and colour?  Here is a full 22x zoom with natural colour.  In these spotlight situations I switched from matrix metering to center metering to give the camera a shot at catching the highlights and leaving the shadows black.<\/p>\n

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Obviously the shots are not as sharp as a DSLR \u2013 that is why DSLR\u2019s and their big lenses are so expensive.  And I was hand-holding with my arms extended; I reckon the shots could be better on a tripod.  But the normal person who isn\u2019t mental like I am for photography should be dead happy with camera performance like this.  I\u2019m not disappointed at all.<\/p>\n

Note: The only Photoshop work done was to resize the images from a huge 18.1MP to a more web-friendly 500 x 375 pixels.  No color correction, sharpening, etc was done, other than what a camera does when it stores the digital capture as a JPEG.  The B&W conversions were done using a menu in the camera \u2013 I pre-selected \u201chigh contrast B&W\u201d and pressed OK when the review shot appeared after taking it.<\/p>\n

You can find the Nikon S9500 on:<\/p>\n