I’ve owned the Nikon p90 and p100, so I’ve got an thought of what these Nikon superzooms are like. I wasn’t plotting on buying a new superzoom, but the huge jump in zoom to 810mm made me plonk down the money again. ( I reckon I need help, I’m becomeing a camera junkie). While wide angles aren’t usually something I look for in most cameras, 22.5mm (35mm plot) is really wide! The p500 is once again evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

The Excellent:

- Light and simple to hold, which makes it a excellent travelling camera. Less than half the consequence of my dslr with an 18-200mm lens attached.

- Tilting 3 inch LCD screen.

- Humungous zoom. I write before that the Fujifilm HS10 720mm zoom was huge. 810mm is even huger! (This is the zoom range it should have been in the p100 imho, but as they say, better late than never). You will truly see things you’d never thought you’d see when you zoom out to 810mm.

- Simple to use…moderately. Since I’ve already used several Nikons, I’m more used to it than you might be if you are new to the brand, so I didn’t find it especially tiresome to navigate. If you are a pure point and shoot person using small compact cameras, you might find the functions available a bit daunting and you’ll need to look up both the manual, and a FAQ section of photography terms and functions to know how to alter things like shutter alacrity and aperture. I use shutter alacrity sometimes, but not aperture, since it’s not anything to shout about. If I want thin sections of focus, I go to my dlsr and f1.4 prime lens

- Photo quality is not terrible for this type of camera. Certainly not dslr quality. But if you just want that photo (and you’ll take heaps with 22.5-810mm on tap) then this will more than satisfy you.

- Macros: macro photo quality have always been reasonably reasonable in the Nikon p90, p100, and this model too. In some ways, they give dslr’s a run for their money because while not in the same league pixel peeping wise, you can get a heck of a lot closer with the p90, p100 and p500, so the colour and detail is reasonably decent imho. Colour is not as full and bright as some other brands, but is reasonably acceptable in excellent light. It’s a bit faded indoors or in poor light.

- Now comes is red, as well as black! Ok, this isn’t really a huge business, but if you don’t want common dull black, you now have a choice. Maybe it will appeal to others

The Terrible:

- They STILL don’t provide an external charger! As I wrote before in the p100 review- I’m lucky- I still have a emergency from the Nikon s10. All you poor saps who don’t will have to charge your camera battery using the USB cable and supplied AC charger. I don’t know how much an external charger and emergency battery are, but if you buy this camera, I’d suggest buying these too.

- If you turn on the camera while the lens cap is on, the camera will freeze up and the motor makes this sad grinding/whining noise as it tries to pathetically push the lens out against the lens cap. This is crazy! It was like this in the p90, p100 and they still haven’t fixed it!

- Still has the same form factor as before. That’s mostly excellent, but the small electronic viewfinder remains too. I don’t find it simple to use.
I haven’t used the video, so can’t comment.
Overall, it’s more of the same from Nikon, except the lens goes wider and further.