Nikon Coolpix P600 review

The bridge camera market seems to be relatively buoyant in what is an otherwise declining compact arena.
The main advantage of the bridge camera is their incredible zoom range. The P600 offers a market-leading 60x optical zoom, which puts it in the same bracket at the Panasonic FZ72 and the Sony HX400V, both of which also feature a 60x optical zoom.

In 35mm terms, the P600 offers an equivalent of 24-1440mm, giving it a huge potential reach. There's also a digital zoom functionality, which boosts that by four times to reach an even more impressive 5760mm.
Although cameras such as the P600 have a large body and, in many ways, have the same kind of styling and look as a DSLR, they have a small sensor, the same size as a compact camera so they belong in the compact camera market. The P600 has a 1/2.3 inch CMOS sensor with 16.1 million pixels.

Nikon P600 — The huge zoom range means a protruding lens

The P600's predecessor seems to be the P520, as although Nikon has since released the P530, this has become Nikon's budget bridge camera option and the P600 has more in common with the P520.
Full manual control is available, although disappointingly, there's no option to shoot in raw format, which may put off some potential enthusiast photographers as it gives less scope for post-production editing.
There's also the option to shoot in semi-automatic modes, such as aperture priority and shutter priority, while there are also a range of automatic modes including scene modes. An effects mode, which allows for a number of digital filters to be used with images, such as cross processing, is also available.

On the back of the camera is a three-inch, 921k-dot LCD screen which is fully articulated – useful for shooting from awkward angles and for self portraits. It can also be folded inwards to protect the screen when not in use. It is joined by half-inch, 201k-dot electronic viewfinder.
Other interesting specifications include full HD video recording – and, as is starting to become equally as standard now, inbuilt Wi-Fi.

Build quality and handling

At first glance at the P600, you might be forgiven for thinking it was a small DSLR, not being too much smaller than the entry-level models in Nikon's line-up, such as the D3300.
Nikon has obviously gone all out in its SLR like styling of the camera. The handgrip is very pronounced, while a textured grip around it makes it feel very secure in the hand, and also helps to lend the camera a higher air of quality than some of the other cameras in the range, such as the P530 or the L830.

There's also a contoured section of the grip which helps the forefingers sit nicely where they should. Although the camera is relatively heavy, holding it one-handed feels pretty natural – although you'll probably want to grip it around the lens barrel wit hthe other hand a lot of the time to keep it steady – especially when using the far reaches of the telephoto optic.
On top of the camera is a mode dial for quickly switching between the different modes which the camera offers, including fully manual mode, semi-automatic (such as aperture priority) and the automatic, scene and effects modes. Also on top of the camera is a function button which controls a single parameter of your choosing – you can set the action it controls via the button itself, with options such as white balance, metering and image size available.

There's quite a few buttons on the back of the camera, arranged in a classic scrolling dial, four-way navigational pad style configuration. Each of the four directional keys controls something, with right accessing exposure compensation controls, up controlling the flash options, down controlling macro focusing and left controlling timer options. Here on the back is also a playback button, main menu and a delete button.
A scrolling dial within easy reach of the thumb on the back of the camera is used to alter shutter speed, when shooting in shutter priority or manual mode. The scrolling dial which forms part of the navigational pad is used to alter aperture, when shooting in aperture priority or manual mode.
If you want to shoot using the electronic viewfinder, you'll need to press a button just to the right of the EVF, which doesn't make for a very quick and fluid transition between the two. You'll need to press it again if you want to view images on the screen again. It would have been nice to see an automatic eye sensor on the viewfinder, especially for a camera at this price point.

The viewfinder itself is reasonable, for a bridge camera, but it's nowhere near the same league as some of the viewfinders currently found on compact system cameras. Still, it's nice to have if you prefer to work with it rather than screen. Due to the annoyance of having to press a button to activate it, I generally found that I preferred to use the screen.
Speaking of the screen, having full articulation makes it useful for shooting self-portraits, or from awkward angles, and the hinge it is attached with feels secure. It's also useful to be able to fold the screen away for protection too.
The camera can be controlled remotely via a free smartphone/tablet app for iOS and Android, or you can transfer images from the camera for easy sharing via social networks and so on. Once the camera and your phone have been connected, it's a pretty easy app to use – but it's very simple. When remote shooting, all you can do is take a picture, or zoom in and out, you can't alter any settings, such as aperture or shutter speed, which is a shame.

Colours straight from the P600 are bright and punchy, producing beautifully saturated tones. It also doesn't seem to suffer from the cyan skies that have blighted some of the other Nikon bridge cameras currently on the market, such as the P530.
Detail is reproduced reasonably well across the frame, and viewing an image at normal printing or web sizes (A4 or below) gives a fantastic impression of detail. If you examine the images at 100%, it becomes clear that even at lower ISOs of 100 or 200, there's a significant loss of detail and a painterly effect that can be seen. Unless you're printing at very large sizes, this shouldn't be a problem, but it's something to bear in mind if you ever want to crop an image.

There are quite a few bridge cameras on the market with a 60x optical zoom at the moment, and as the camera's key selling point, it should be a very good performer. In reality, the optical image stabilisation at the far end of the telephoto zoom is reasonable, if not perfect. If you've got a less than steady hand, you may wish to consider a tripod when shooting at the furthest reach of the 60x optical zoom.

If you need the extra reach, you can activate the digital zoom. This is basically a crop into the image, and although decent if you absolutely need it, is probably best avoided if possible – with a zoom range of 60x, it seems unlikely that you'll need it all too often.
Autofocusing speeds are reasonably quick, locking on to the subject swiftly and accurately. As you can move the focus point around the scene, it gives you greater flexibility for composition. Macro focusing is also good, helping you to produce frame filling detailed shots.
The camera's metering system does a good job of producing accurate exposures on the majority of occasions, in fact I found that I didn't need to dial in some exposure compensation at all during my test.
It's nice to see a range of digital filters available on this camera, but they are a bit hit and miss. I'm a fan of the cross process set of filters available, but some of them leave a bit to be desired. This will of course be down to personal taste though, so it's worth experimenting to see if you like any of them.

Verdict

The bridge camera market is pretty robust at the moment, with 60x optical zooms available from Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Nikon.
Nikon's P600 sits in the traditional camp, with classic styling and the capability to take full manual control. It has a good range of features, such as the fully articulating screen and built-in Wi-Fi.
There are a couple of reasonably large niggles though that stop it from being even better than it could be. For starters, the fact that you have to press a button to switch between the EVF and the screen makes for a less than pleasing experience. There's also the fact that it can't shoot in raw format, which seems lacking for a camera at this price point.
On the plus side, images are bright and punchy, with a decent level of detail – especially if you're not printing or viewing at huge sizes.

We liked

If you're after a camera which gives you the flexibility of a large zoom range and full manual control, then there's lots to like, while the ability to send images across to your smartphone for quick sharing is appealing. It's a shame there's not a bit more functionality with Wi-Fi though, especially when it comes to remote controlling it via the smartphone app.

We disliked

It's a bit disappointing not see a smoother way of working for a camera of this level and price point. For instance, fitting an eye sensor to the electronic viewfinder would make it a much more natural, traditional way of working. It would also be nice to see a touchscreen here too.

Final verdict

The P600 is a solid bridge camera, and if you have a particular affinity with Nikon then it'll likely be appealing. Its market leading 60x optical zoom gives great flexibility, and built in Wi-Fi is also a great feature to have. It's far from perfect though, and there are still several improvements Nikon could make to make its P series even more appealing.

TechRadar's verdict

"Market leading 60x optical zoom and built in Wi-Fi make the P600 a solid bridge camera, but there are still several improvements Nikon could make."

For

60x optical zoom
Articulating screen
Full manual control

Against

No raw format
No touchscreen
No EVF eye sensor

Page 3 of 6Image quality and resolution

As part of our image quality testing for the Nikon Coolpix P600 review, we've shot our resolution chart. These images were captured using a full-production sample of the camera.

For a full explanation of what our resolution charts mean, and how to read them, check out our full explanation of our camera testing resolution charts.

Examining images of the chart taken at each sensitivity setting reveals the following resolution scores in line widths per picture height x100:

JPEG

ISO 100, Score: 20.

ISO 200, Score: 18.

ISO 400, Score: 16.

ISO 800, Score: 14.

ISO 1600, Score: 12.

ISO 3200, Score: n/a.

ISO 6400, Score: n/a.

We shoot a specially designed chart in carefully controlled conditions and the resulting images are analysed using DXO Analyzer software to generate the data to produce the graphs below.

A high signal to noise ratio (SNR) indicates a cleaner and better quality image.
For more more details on how to interpret our test data, check out our full explanation of our noise and dynamic range tests.

Here we compare the Nikon Coolpix P600 with the Nikon P520, Sony HX400v and Panasonic FZ72.

JPEG signal to noise ratio

In terms of signal to noise ratio, the P600 doesn't fare particularly well, coming bottom at almost every sensitivity from ISO 200 onwards. It is also beaten by the P520, the camera's predecessor. This could be indicative of an increase in detail resolution at the expense of introducing noise though. It is the Sony HX400V which is perhaps the best performer, especially at the higher end of the sensitivity scale.

JPEG dynamic range

In terms of dynamic range, as we might expect, the P600 is very similar to its predecessor, the P520, matching it pretty closely across the sensitivity range. it is beaten at every sensitivity by the Panasonic FZ72 however.