Nikon P80 - great camera to take baby pictures and more

Author's Rating:

Pros: See review

Cons: See review

The Bottom Line: 
Great camera: 18x zoom, colors come out great, and it's a Nikon!

Author's Review
Let me start of by saying that I found Nikon P80 to be a great camera.

These days, every Russian friend I have and every one of my Russian relatives have a Canon point and shoot camera.  Frankly, I get a little of tired of seeing the same camera everywhere I go.  Enough already!  What happened to good old days - the late 80-s, early 90-s - when Nikon was considered cool?

How I got it and how I use it
As mentioned in my other review, my wife and I had a baby not so long ago (yesterday it seems like) and naturally I wanted to take LOTS of pictures of the baby.  Baby smiling.  Baby eating.  Baby pooping.  Baby eating and pooping.  You get the point.  So I googled something along the lines of "great cameras to take baby pictures" and 10 sites later I was no closer to determining even the basics.  Do I want to go with an SLR or point and shoot?  Is small size more important than good resolution?  Etc.  So one day I stop by Costco to stock up on diapers (Pop quiz: P80 is worth how many diaper boxes? Answer: 10) and picked up two cameras almost at random.  One was a Fuji camera and another Nikon P80.

I brought them home and made 10 or so shots with each, then compared the results with my old Minolta A1 pics (that was one hell of a camera by the way, but majority were recalled due a defect).  Long story short - P80 came close to A1, while Fuji had better stayed in the box.

Comparing with Canon cameras, I personally like the way colors come out a bit more with this Nikon camera.  One note I want to make is that I somehow like the pictures I take with P80 much better when taken with flash - even outside in good light.  The flash makes colors come out so much better!  Here is a breakdown of some other characteristics.

Pros
- 18x zoom is rather amazing and unique
- very simple and intuitive controls
- nice build quality and great feel in the hand
- not heavy for its size, not too large
- great picture quality overall
- it's a Nikon, people!

Cons
- quality in low-light conditions is not good.  however, flash brings the magic back.
- battery charger has an actual cord! awful. Nikon people certainly could borrow some good ideas from Canon in this department
- saving a picture seems a little slow, which is likely due to the memory card i am using, but i am not sure
- activating flash requires pressing a flash release button

In conclusion
Many thousand shots later - from outdoors pics to X-mas cards with the baby - I am happy with my Nikon P80.  No going back to Canon.  No, sir!