Solid Starter Camera

My dad bought me a Coolpix L3 for my birthday this year. I had been wanting a digital camera for a long time but never really wanted to pony up the $200+ that it would cost to get a halfway decent one. I was pretty excited to finally have one and I've been using it quite a bit lately. The L3 is a very compact and easy to use digital camera. It comes with a 3X optical zoom and you also have the ability to record movies with the camera. One of the things I really like about the camera is that you can set different image
modes for it and you aren't limited to just taking pictures at 5.1 megapixels. This is nice because it allows you to adjust the resolution and get more out of your memory card. On internal memory, the L3 can hold about 14 pictures at the
highest resolution or 30 seconds of video.

I use this camera mostly for taking pictures of my car and video when I go to the driving range to hit golf balls. So far I am very pleased with the camera in terms of picture taking, but there are a few minor issues that I have noticed.

The first is shutter lag. When you depress the fire button, the camera actually takes a second or two to process the image before it takes the shot. This can cause you to miss a good image in candid situations, but it's really not a big
deal for a set shot. This also can be aggravating if you are taking action shots, because you may take the picture at one point in the action, but it won't actually record the image until a second later. The other problem I have had is when I try to take pictures at night. It seems that even with good background lighting and the flash on, the pictures still come out very dark. My dad has a much higher quality Sony digital camera and I notice on his that even the night photos always come out very clear and clean.

The video mode is adequate, but don't expect to be shooting amazing home videos with it. The zoom function of the camera does not work with the video mode and neither does the flash so you are limited to using the video mode during the day or only in well lighted areas. I have actually shot a few videos of driving my car and my golf swing and the video capture is excellent. You lose resolution on
far away objects, but for up close video I have no complaints about the quality. The video quality is good enough that I can analyze my golf swing after uploading the movie file to my computer. You can also adjust the size of the video to make it fit on a smaller screen or to reduce the amount of memory it will consume. Currently with a 1 GB memory card, I can record up to an hour of video on the highest setting.

Overall I think the L3 is a great starter camera for anyone who is just getting into the digital camera world. I have also used my dad's Sony which is one of the most advanced models you can buy and I will say the images with his always
come out better and it has more features, but it is designed for a more advanced user who has abilities close to those of a professional photographer. It also
costs in the ball park of $500 which is pretty expensive for a camera. The L3 retails for around $130 and I've seen it for less at Circuit City and other electronics stores. For that price it is really a good buy and I think it's the
perfect camera for someone who is just going to use it for personal use.

I bought a 1 GB memory card for the L3 which allows me to take over 700 pictures at the highest resolution or shoot about an hour of video. I could have easily gotten by with a 512MB card, but the 1 GB were on sale for less than $20 so I couldn't pass one of them up. Even on 512 you can still hold over 400 pictures and about 30 minutes of video footage. The camera also comes with the software for uploading images and video and it easily connects with a USB port on your computer. What I really like is that my
computer has a data port where you can just plug in the memory card and it takes the pictures directly from the card, that way I don't have to mess with the USB hook up.

Even if you don't have this feature on your PC, it is still very easy to use the USB hook up and the software that comes with the camera, it is very user friendly. There are also audio/video cables that come with the camera so you can hook it up to your television to view photos or video. The built in microphone on the camera also allows you to do voice recordings and provides relatively good sound for when you shoot videos. The instruction booklet provides great instructions for using the camera and explains the image modes and menus very well. You don't really even have to read it in order to use the camera, but I suggest looking through it so you can get down the basic functions
and menu features.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this review. If you are looking for your first digital camera I would suggest checking out the L3. For the price it has decent features and the image quality is very good.