Nikon Coolpix P7000: Post Review Thoughts

It has been a few weeks since I posted my full review of the P7000, which I have made a few adjustments to, in light what I'm posting today. I've had a lot of questions about the issues/bugs I and others have noticed with the P7000 and I hope that this post will be helpful to some who have or are interested in buying the camera. To start, I want to mention that I haven't had the P7000 lockup on me in over two weeks now. I've also made an interesting discovery in regards to the auto focus system in low light.

The discovery I made since posting my review on October 18th is that turning off the auto focus assist light actually helps auto focus performance in low light. Huh, how does that make any sense? In many situations the right light from the AF assist beam should help increase contrast, and thus help the AF system to function better. That does not seem to be the case for the P7000, as to why, I have no idea. All I know is that I get far fewer focus issues in low light when the AF assist light is turned off. My only guess at this point is that the light beam from the assist light confuses the auto focus system and makes it miss focus. Now, in dark rooms or outside the AF light will be helpful, but where turning off the assist light is useful is indoors under standard household lighting. Another bonus to this is that you wont blind people you are photographing before you take a shot.

Another trick in situations where auto focus is having trouble in low light is to use the infinity focus mode, where the camera will try to get everything in the image in focus. That wont work well if you are trying to isolate one object in your image, but it is a work around none the less.

Read My Full Review of the P7000