Nikon Coolpix 7900

Review Date: May 2nd 2005

Page 1
Introduction / Price
Page 2
Features
Page 3
Specifications
Page 4
Design
Page 5
Ease of Use
Page 6
Image Quality
Page 7
Sample Images
Page 8
Conclusion / Links

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 7M Fine file quality setting, which gives an average image size of around 2 - 2.5Mb.

Noise

There are 4 ISO settings available on the Nikon Coolpix 7900 which you can select at any time. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:

ISO 50 (100% crop)

ISO 100 (100% crop)

   

ISO 200 (100% crop)

ISO 400 (100% crop)

   

The noise levels look excellent at ISOs 50 and 100, showing little noise. ISO 200 isn't too bad either, although noise is obvious at the fastest setting of ISO 400, which I would only use as a last resort. A good performance by the Nikon Coolpix 7900's 7 megapixel CCD sensor.

Sharpening

You can set the sharpening in-camera to one of four different settings (Hard, Normal, Low, Off) or leave it on Auto and allow the camera to decide. Here are two 100% crops which were taken with sharpening set to Normal and which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images at the setting of Normal are quite soft, with post-processing showing quite a lot of extra detail.

Original 100% Crop

Sharpened 100% Crop

   

File Quality

The Nikon Coolpix 7900 has 3 different file quality settings - Fine, Normal and Basic - which are available for all of the 5 image sizes. Rather than show you all 15 possible combinations, here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the 7M image size at the 3 quality settings, with the file size shown in brackets.

Fine (2592 x 1944px) (2.35Mb)
Normal (2592 x 1944px) (1.26Mb)
   
   
Basic (2592 x 1944px) (737.9Kb)
 
 
   

Chromatic Aberrations

I had to look extremely hard to find any examples of chromatic aberrations in the review shots taken with the Nikon Coolpix 7900. You can see a faint purple-fringing in the roof structure and around the edges of the building against the very high-contrast sky, but it's not too obvious at all. A fantastic performance by the Nikon Coolpix 7900.

Example 1
Example 2
   

Macro

The Nikon Coolpix 7900 has a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 4cms away from the camera. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot (click to view full-sized image)

100% Crop

   

Flash

The flash options on the Nikon Coolpix 7900 are Auto, Red-eye Reduction Auto (In-Camera Red-Eye Fix), Anytime Flash, Flash Cancel and Slow sync. These shots of a white wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (38mm)

Auto Flash - Wide Angle (38mm)

   

Flash Off - Telephoto (114mm)

Auto Flash - Telephoto (114mm)
   

And here are some shots of yours truly. The flash underexposed the scene by about 1/3rd stop of exposure. The Flash On flash mode produced a small amount of redeye - the Red-eye Reduction mode (with Nikon's new Advanced Red-eye Reduction) removed it completely.

Flash On

Flash On (100% Crop)
   

Flash - Red-Eye Reduction

Flash - Red-Eye Reduction (100% Crop)
   

Night Shot

The Nikon Coolpix 7900's maximum shutter speed is only 4 seconds which isn't that great if you're seriously interested in night photography. The following example was taken using the Night scene mode, which used a shutter speed of 1/3rd second with an aperture of f/2.8 at ISO 200 and noise reduction turned on. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot (click to view full-sized image)

100% Crop
   

D-Lighting

D-Lighting is similar to HP's Adaptive Lighting technology, in that it lightens under-exposed parts of the image whilst ensuring that correctly exposed parts remain the same (and are not also lightened). This basically balances the shadows and highlights in a high-contrast image, for example a scene that includes deep black shadows and a bright white sky. D-Lighting is selected by pressing the OK button when an image is played back, so it is applied after the image has been recorded. The Nikon Coolpix 7900 processes a copy of the image (which takes around 15 seconds) so that some areas of the photograph are lightened and some are left as they are. Here are some examples which show the effects of using the D-Lighting feature, showing that it works well, although there is extra noise in the images that have had D-Lighting applied to them:

D-Lighting - Off

 
D-Lighting - On
 

D-Lighting - Off

 
D-Lighting - On
 

D-Lighting - Off

 
D-Lighting - On
 

Overall Image Quality

The Nikon Coolpix 7900 produced a good set of test images. The 7 megapixel photos are quite soft out of the camera at the default setting of Normal and benefit from further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop. Alternatively you can select the Hard sharpening setting on the camera. Noise was very well controlled at ISO 50-100, with ISO 200 showing some noise and ISO 400 really being a last resort. The Nikon Coolpix 7900 dealt brilliantly with chromatic aberrations, which only appeared in a few images and even then was barely noticeable. Macro performance was good, allowing you get as close as 4 cms away from your subject. The new D-Lighting feature works very well with the right images, balancing out the shadow and highlight areas nicely, although it does introduce extra noise. The Nikon Coolpix 7900's flash had a tendency to underexpose indoors but there was little evidence of redeye in the test shots. Night-shots are limited due to the 4 second maximum shutter speed.

Page 1
Introduction / Price
Page 2
Features
Page 3
Specifications
Page 4
Design
Page 5
Ease of Use
Page 6
Image Quality
Page 7
Sample Images
Page 8
Conclusion / Links

DIWAPhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Nikon Coolpix 7900 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.