Introduction

Ease of Use

Measuring 125.2 x 84.1 x 101.6mm and weighing 565g, the Nikon Coolpix P600 is slightly larger than the previous P510 model, but its design is only minimally different. Like most high-end superzooms, the Nikon P600 sports a typical bridge camera look, with a chunky hand-grip, large lens barrel, pop-up flash and an eye-level electronic viewfinder. The deep grip is moulded to fit comfortably into your right hand, and is rubberised in a textured material for added comfort.

The dominant part of the P600 is the new 60x zoom lens, which goes from an ultra-wide 24mm to a frankly incredible 1440mm in 35mm terms. Considering that with an SLR camera, you would need at least 3-4 lenses to cover the same focal range, the single, fixed-mount lens of the Nikon P600 can be described as remarkably compact, even if it does extend quite a bit when zoomed to full telephoto. Super-zooms have always had a reputation for offering a high "fun factor", and the P600 is no different. The ability to quickly go from wide angle to ultra-telephoto is something that has to be experienced in order to be fully appreciated.

For its size, the P600's lens is also respectably fast, with maximum apertures of f/3.3 at 24mm and f/6.5 at 1440mm. Note that the lens cap has to be removed before turning on the camera - failing to do so will result in an error message being displayed, and you'll have to turn off the camera before you can turn it on again, which is a bit annoying. Although if you only want to review what's already on the card, you can also power on the P600 by holding down the Playback button, in which case the lens won't extend.

Nikon have included their VR (Vibration Reduction) image stabilisation system to help prevent camera-shake, allowing the use of shutter speeds up to four stops slower, while the Active mode ensures clear shots even from moving vehicles. Annoyingly there isn't a dedicated button to turn it on and off (it's somewhat buried in the Setup menu). In practice we found that the VR system makes a noticeable difference to the sharpness of the images, as shown in the examples on the Image Quality page.

Front	Rear

You don't notice that the P600 is actually doing anything different when anti-shake is turned on, just that you can use slower shutter speeds than normal and still take sharp photos. It didn't seem to adversely affect the battery life either, which is now a respectable 330 shots (a big improvement on the older P520's 220-shot life), so we'd advise you to turn it on and then forget about it. It's a good idea to turn VR off (via the menu) when the camera is mounted on a tripod, lest the system itself cause blurring by trying to counter camera shake that isn't there.

Zooming is done by way of a conventional zoom lever that encircles the shutter release button sitting atop the right-hand grip. It is of the dual-speed variety: rotating it all the way in either direction will adjust the focal length quickly, while rotating it partially will cause the lens elements to move more slowly, enabling you to set the desired focal length more precisely. You can alternatively zoom using the innovative side zoom control on the lens barrel, which is a vertical rocker switch activated with your left hand. It has a slower action than the main zoom lever, and is therefore ideally suited to shooting video when you require a more sedate zoom with less mechanical noise.

There are two different ways of composing images with the Nikon Coolpix P600: you can use either the eye-level electronic viewfinder (EVF) or the rear screen. Unfortunately, there are still no eye proximity sensors that would allow the camera to toggle between the two automatically, although at least there is now a button to toggle between the two. As the EVF is a bog standard affair with 201,000 dots and average magnification, nothing to write home about, especially in 2014, you probably won't use it very much anyway. The new 3-inch RGBW LCD screen is much nicer to look at, thanks to its high resolution of 921,000 dots, , an anti-reflective coating and adjustable brightness. Even more importantly, it's a vari-angle model that can be flipped-out to the side and tilted through 270 degrees, giving you a lot of flexibility in composing your shots.

The layout and number of external controls haven't changed very much at all from the P520. You still get a traditional, top-mounted mode dial with P, A, S and M shooting modes - perfect for the photographer who wants to take full control - as well as full auto, Scene Auto Selector, Night Landscape, and Landscape modes. The Effects mode allows you to apply one of nine different special effects as you shoot with the Nikon Coolpix P600, with a live preview on the LCD screen showing exactly what the final image will look like. There is also a User (U) setting you can use to quickly retrieve a combination of your most frequently used settings. The shutter release, zoom lever and power button are in the same locations as on the P520, as is the same customisable Function button.

Side	Tilting LCD Screen

In the Backlighting mode, the P600 captures three consecutive shots at varying exposures and combines them into a single photo with a broader range of tones. Three different levels are available for selection. When the Night Landscape scene mode is selected, the P600 takes several shots at a fast shutter speed and then combines them to create a single optimized photo, allowing you to shoot after dark without having to use a tripod. The Easy Panorama scene mode allows you to take vertical or horizontal panorama photos simply by moving the camera in the direction of the on-screen guides. Multiple shots are then combined into a single panorama photo. The angle of view can be selected from 180° (normal) and 360° (wide).

The rear controls are also laid out very similarly to those of the preceding model. There is a well-positioned control wheel in the top-right corner (when viewed from the back), which makes it easy to change the aperture and shutter speed in A and S modes respectively, but there's still no second dial on the hand-grip which would have made operating Manual mode much easier. The familiar multi-selector with its centred OK button is similar to the P520, with the same individual functions that are mapped onto the Up, Down, Left and Right buttons. These include the flash and focus modes, the self-timer and exposure compensation, respectively. The multi-selector is a rotating wheel with an audible click and a textured surface to aid operation. There is still no obvious shortcut key to the ISO speed, which is only accessible from the menu (as is white balance) or by assigning it to the Function button.

The P600's focus modes include AF, Macro, Infinity and Manual. AF can be centre-spot, user selectable from 99 focus points or camera selectable from 9 points. In Face Priority AF mode, the camera can detect up to 12 human faces and will focus on the one closest to the camera. We found that regardless of AF area mode, auto-focus speed was satisfactory for still subjects, but a little too slow for fast-moving ones. Manual focusing is also possible, though a bit awkward: you get a rudimentary distance scale on the right-hand side of the screen, and can adjust focus via the navigation wheel. The centre of the picture is enlarged to aid you with checking focus, but unfortunately this is achieved by way of interpolation rather than real magnification. Nikon have thankfully added focus peaking, which greatly improves the whole manual focus experience.

The flash of the Nikon P600 has to be popped up manually, using the button on the side of the mock pentaprism housing. You can set the flash mode to auto, auto with red-eye reduction, fill, slow sync and rear-curtain sync via the Up button on the multi-controller, but only when the flash is raised. As there is no hot-shoe or sync terminal on the Nikon Coolpix P600, and it does not offer wireless TTL flash control either, the only way to sync up an external flashgun with the camera is to optically slave it to the built-in unit.

Front	Top

The new wi-fi feature allows you to wirelessly transfer photos to a compatible smartphone, tablet or Wi-Fi-enabled device and also remotely control the camera from another device using the Nikon app. This is a big improvement on the P520, which required the optional WU-1a Wireless Mobile Adapter to be fitted. It does, however, come at the cost of a built-in Global Positioning System (GPS), which the new P600 no longer supports. Instead the GPS data from your smart device can be embedded in the photos you transfer to it.

The P600 has the ability to shoot full-resolution stills at up to 7 frames per second (fps), the same rate as its predecessor. There is also a slower burst mode, called Continuous L, in which the frame rate drops to 1fps, but you can capture up to 30 full-resolution photos at the Large quality setting. Note that you cannot use the flash in any of the continuous shooting modes. Disappointingly the P600 still doesn't support the RAW file format, something that all of its main competitors offer, and a prosumer feature that frankly we'd expect on this class of camera.

The P600 can shoot Full HD (1920×1080 pixel) movies at 60i/50i/30p/25p frames per second, with stereo sound and full use of the optical zoom. It also offers a 720p/25p mode, an iFrame 960x540 pixel mode at 30/25p and VGA 640x480 pixel mode at 30/25p. Nikon's smart designers put the stereo microphone on the top of the camera right behind the flash. A Wind Noise Reduction function is available in the Movie menu. Serving to minimise the noise of wind blowing on the microphone, it is recommended to be turned on in strong wind only, as it may also make other sounds difficult to hear. Sensor-shift VR is not available during movie recording, but you may opt to turn on electronic image stabilisation.

The P600 is also capable of high-speed (HS) movie recording. VGA videos can be recorded at 4x speed faster than normal speed and played back at 1/4-speed slow motion. 720p movies are recorded at 2x speed faster than normal speed and played back at 1/2-speed slow motion. 1080p movies are recorded at 0.5x speed of normal speed and played back at 2x speed fast motion. Sound is not recorded and no form of VR is available. Given the high frame rates, these videos require fast shutter speeds, which effectively means that you need very bright conditions.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

Recording movie clips is very easy on the Nikon P600 via the one-touch Movie Record button on the rear of the camera. By pressing this button, you can start recording a clip no matter what shooting mode you are in. You can use the optical zoom while filming, and full-time AF is also available. In use, we found that zooming in or out sometimes caused the image to go temporarily out of focus, but the AF system usually adjusted itself very quickly in these cases. The maximum clip length is limited to 29 minutes for both normal and high-speed movies. The Creative Slider and Special Effects can also be used when shooting movies, and they can be played back on a HDTV via the built-in HDMI connector, although as usual there's no suitable cable supplied in the box. The P600 supports the CEC feature for HDMI which enables playback control using your TV's remote control.

The Nikon Coolpix P600's familiar Menu button accesses the usual Nikon menu system, which is clear and easy to navigate. Press this when in any of the shooting modes and there are three menus, Shooting, Movie, GPS and Setup, with two menus, Playback and Settings, available when you're reviewing an image. A big oversight is the almost constant need to use the menu system for setting the ISO speed, white balance, metering, and AF mode, with at least 4 button presses required to change these often-used features. The P600 is sorely missing some kind of quick menu system, accessible via an external control, to help speed up its general operation.

In playback mode, pressing the same Menu button affords access to image editing, including Nikon's exposure adjusting D-Lighting function, Skin Softening and Filter Effects, image slide shows, and the automatic Quick Retouch. A button to the right features the familiar trashcan icon for deleting images on the fly and completes the rear of the P600.

On the right flank of the camera - still viewing it from the rear - there's a metal eyelet for attaching the supplied shoulder strap and a plastic cover protecting the HDMI port and A/V out / USB port. On the left hand flank is another eyelet. There's a centrally positioned, metal tripod mount on the bottom of the camera. The P600 is powered by a 1850 mAh lithium ion battery, good for around 330 shots, that slots into the base alongside the SD / SDHC / SDXC card slot. There is a small internal memory too, but it will only hold a few photos at full resolution, so you'll definitely need a memory card. Note that recharging the P600 is a somewhat convoluted affair, with the battery remaining in camera and requiring the battery cover to be closed.

That concludes our look at the Nikon Coolpix P600's ease-of-use, now let's move on to its image quality...

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb.

The Nikon Coolpix P600's image quality is very good for a compact camera with a small image sensor. The Nikon Coolpix P600's dealt well with noise, which becomes obvious at ISO 800 along with some colour loss. The noise, colour desaturation and loss of detail gets progressively worse as you go from ISO 800 to ISO 3200 and finally the unusable 6400 setting. The Nikon Coolpix P600 handled chromatic aberrations excellently with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The 16 megapixel images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpen setting and either require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you should increase the in-camera sharpening level.

The Nikon Coolpix P600's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds, which is good news for night photography enthusiasts. Macro performance is excellent, allowing you to focus as close as 1cm away from the subject. Vibration reduction is a compulsory feature on a camera like this and one that that works very well when hand-holding the P600 in low-light conditions or using the telephoto end of the amazing zoom range. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure. The backlighting feature increases detail in both the shadows and highlights, although at the expense of some additional noise and loss of fine detail, while the Picture Controls, Special Effects during shooting and Filter Effects during playback offer a lot of creative control over your images.

Noise

The Nikon Coolpix P600 has 7 sensitivity settings ranging from ISO 100 to ISO 6400 at full resolution.

ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Nikon Coolpix P600's 60x zoom lens provides an astonishing focal range of 24-1440mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

24mm	1440mm

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops - the right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images from the Nikon Coolpix P600 are slightly soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can alternatively change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your tastes.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

At full resolution, there are two JPEG quality settings available on the Nikon Coolpix P600 - Fine and Normal.

Fine (5.90Mb) (100% Crop)	Normal (3.38Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

Given the range of the zoom lens, the Nikon Coolpix P600 shows remarkably little purple fringing, with limited effects in areas of high contrast as shown in the examples below.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Nikon Coolpix P600 allows you to get as close as 1cm to your subject, in this case a Compact Flash card.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the Nikon Coolpix P600 are Auto, Auto with Red-eye reduction, Fill Flash, Manual (Full, 1/2, 1/4 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64), Slow Sync, Rear-curtain Sync and Flash Off. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m. Some vignetting and barrel distortion is apparent at the 24mm wide-angle setting, irrespective of whether you use the flash or not.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (24mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (24mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (1440mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (1440mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Fill Flash or the Auto with Red-eye reduction options caused any amount of red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red Eye Reduction	Red Eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Nikon Coolpix P600's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds in the Manual mode, which is good news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 100.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Vibration Reduction

The Nikon Coolpix P600 has a vibration reduction mechanism, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, we took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the lens set to the same focal length and ISO speed. The first shot was taken with vibration reduction turned off, the second with it turned on.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/8th sec / 24mm
1/4th sec / 1440mm

Active D-Lighting

D-lighting is Nikon's dynamic range optimisation tool that attempts to squeeze the full dynamic range of the sensor into JPEGs. The available settings are Off, Low, Medium, and High. The following examples demonstrate the differences between the various settings.

Off	Low
Normal	High

Backlighting

The Nikon Coolpix P600's Backlighting mode captures three consecutive shots at varying exposures and combines them into a single photo with a broader range of tones. Three different level settings are available for selection.

Off	Level 1
Level 2	Level 3

Picture Controls

The Nikon Coolpix P600 has four different Picture Controls, which can be individually tweaked (sharpening, contrast and saturation) to suit your taste.

Standard	Neutral
Vivid	Monochrome

Special Effects

You can apply 9 different special effects as you shoot with the Nikon Coolpix P600, with a live preview on the LCD screen showing exactly what the final image will look like.

Soft	Nostalgic Sepia
High-contrast Monochrome	High Key
Low Key	Selective Color
High ISO Monochrome	Painting
Cross Process

Filter Effects

You can apply 9 different filter effects in-camera to photos that you have already taken with the Nikon Coolpix P600.

Soft	Selective Color
Cross Screen	Fisheye
Miniature Effect	Painting
Vignette	Photo Illustration
Portrait (color + B&W)

Easy Panorama

The Nikon Coolpix P600's Easy Panorama mode allows you to take vertical or horizontal panorama photos simply by moving the camera in the direction of the on-screen guides. Multiple shots are then combined into a single panorama photo. The angle of view can be selected from 180° (normal) and 360° (wide).

Easy Panorama - 180°

Easy Panorama - 360°

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Nikon Coolpix P600 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Front of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Turned On

Front of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Pop-up Flash

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Turned On

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Shooting Menu

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Tilting LCD Screen

Front of the Nikon Coolpix P600 / Tilting LCD Screen

Top of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Bottom of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Side of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Front of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Front of the Nikon Coolpix P600

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The new Nikon Coolpix P600 is a rather modest upgrade of last year's P520 model, principally adding an even bigger zoom lens, built-in wi-fi connectivity, and longer shutter speeds for night photography. It still struggles to keep up with fast-moving subjects, lacks support for the RAW file format, has no second control wheel, features the same poor EVF as its predecessor, has the inability to attach an external flashgun, and suffers from slow access to the key settings.

The Nikon Coolpix P600 now offers a frankly incredible telephoto zoom setting of 1440mm. This means it's virtually impossible to hand-hold the camera at maximum telephoto and achieve sharp pictures, even in good light, despite the best efforts of the excellent vibration reduction system, so you really need to use a tripod or other support for consistent results or limit the focal length that you use. This is especially important given the continued poor quality of the EVF, which does everything that it can to dissuade you from using it - a good EVF would be a great help in stabilising the camera further. The built-in wi-fi functionality is much better than last year's implementation, however, which required the use of an optional accessory, but we did miss the P520's integrated GPS system.

While the longer zoom and built-in wi-fi help the P600 keep up with the competition, we'd have liked to have seen at least some of our concerns about last year's model fixed in 2014's iteration, especially as the launch price has slightly increased when compared to the P520. The Nikon Coolpix P600 continues to offer a very well rounded super-zoom package, but as in 2013, there are better cameras competing for your attention and money.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4
Value for money	3.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Nikon Coolpix P600.

Specifications

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