Is Coolpix 5400 still a good camera?

Hello,

I am a reflex user, not much experience with compacts.

I see the coolpix 5400 dates 2003, it's 4 years old technology.

As a reference I can say that I would not hesitate to use and suggest to use

the D70 from the same year, can this be said of the 5400 also?

I expect to get less useable high iso compared to the current line, maybe some

shutter lag, the LCD is sure small. But I like the low cost and the wide angle

lens (28), and it can shoot raw, right?

What do you think?

Thank you,

Marco

Image quality wise in good light or with flash, absolutely.

 

Is it your best choice? Possibly not. It depends what you want/need from a camera and what your budget is. Considering you can get a reconditioned D40 with lens for only $400, I am not sure how good a deal any point and shoot camera is these days.

It produces good images but the autofocus is absolutely terrible in low light situation.

I just got a 5400 that was converted for IR - it is perfect for that. I don't think I would buy this camera as a "regular" P&S, even though I am really impressed with the picture quality and the sharpness I am getting with it.

 

The problems compared to todays P&S are:

 

- long start-up times (takes too long to get ready to shoot)

- shutter lag (slow, slow, slow)

- noise at higher than ISO 50

- low-light capability (focusing with this camera in low light is almost impossible)

 

Again, none of those matter for my IR photography - there is never any rush in getting the shot and I only use the camera in bright sun light.

Oh, two other points:

 

The LCD screen is tiny and it is really hard to see

 

There is no histogram available - I find a histogram indispensible when shooting color to see if there are any clippings.

the 5400 is a terrific little P&S, I bought one when it first came out and have kept it as a backup to my D-70. It takes very good quality photographs (when I do!). It does suffer from shutter lag however as P&S cameras do and note that you cannot shoot in RAW format with it and that may be important to you as you mentioned it. You can shoot JPEG (basic, normal, or fine) or TIFF. Hope this helps! cb

the 5400 will shoot in RAW format; it didn't originally but there is a firmware update for it. cb

Just on that point about the 5400 not having a RAW option: are you sure that is right? I seem to recall there being a firmware upgrade (or something similar) which enabled RAW recording with that camera. I may be wrong about that. Worth checking, though.

Ah! I see my post was superfluous!

Steve-you were more on the ball than I was! cb :-)

Thank you all. Marco

My 5400 is still a good camera. It gives good sharp pictures and is only slightly noisier at ISO 400 than a modern P&S, although they have more pixels of course.

The tilt and swivel screen is a great asset, just wish it was twice the size.

The firmware upgrade mentioned above does indeed give you RAW (Nikon NEF) capability.

My opinion about this camera is so bad. My advice is to stay away from the 5400. Its AF is almost unusable except for still life images or posed portraits. It hunts continuously when the light is not so high. No AF focus aid light. Manual focus is useless on all conditions. RAW is unusable because it blocks camera`s memory for a long time. Writing speed is exasperating. This camera reports a lot of problems after some years of use, search the web for that. Forget it!!!

 

Image quality is good (if you can do the shoot and at lowest ISO), and it enjoy hot shoe for flash, the two only good things from this camera.

I actually prefer the earlier 5000, and bought mine when they were discontinued about five years ago. It's still a good little camera and I haven't found anything I like better to replace it with. One advantage of the 5000 over the 5400 is that the accessory lenses are a lot smaller. I have the wide and the fisheye and they're very good for this type of lens. It does have a histogram and also shoots RAW.

 

This is a similar camera but there were slight changes to the 5400. I agree that AF isn't great and also anything over ISO100 is pretty noisy. At the time, the small LCD was very common but it's very easy to get used to the 2.5" and 3" LCD's more common these days.