United Kingdom-based photographer Gordon Laing took one other stroll down reminiscence lane along with his retrospective evaluation video of the Nikon Coolpix 950, a digital digicam that in the present day feels nostalgic amongst photographers who received began within the Nineteen Nineties.
The Coolpix 900 line is shortly recognizable for its split-body flippable design. The left half of the digicam featured the display screen and controls, whereas the suitable facet might flip the lens simply over 270 levels, in keeping with Laing. It made it simpler to shoot from excessive or low angles or to take selfies, very similar to the pop-out screens now widespread on DSLRs. However the 950 options notches at 90 diploma intervals, creating
“It’s the sort of bodily interactivity suggestions that I truly miss on trendy cameras, and flipping shut a foldout display screen doesn’t come shut,” Laing notes in his video.
He provides that the Nikon 900 sequence weren’t the one cameras with the flippable physique design. In response to Laing, it was pretty widespread with Sony, Minolta, Ricoh, Casio, and JVC all sporting their very own takes on the look. However greater than twenty years on the look feels much more overseas in the present day than in late Nineteen Nineties.
However what actually set the Coolpix 950 appart was its function in transferring skilled pictures away from movie and towards digital cameras. The Coolpix 950 was launched in 1999, the identical yr Nikon got here out with the D1, its first DSLR. The flagship FX line nonetheless lives on as a Nikon powerhouse among the many digicam firm’s array of merchandise.
“The Coolpix 950 arrived at a pivotal second in digital digicam historical past as they made the transition from low-resolution digital toys to photographic instruments,” Laing says.
The 950 supplied a now-shockingly low two megapixels (as seen within the pattern pictures above). However as Laing’s images present, the digicam is ready to do fairly a bit with it. The Coolpix 950 additionally labored equally to present entry-level DSLRs. It had steady autofocus, however photographers might additionally change the handbook focus distance, selecting one among three preset ranges. Photographers might additionally alter the aperture and ISO whereas Nikon additionally created lens adapters that might lengthen the lens’ attain, widen the angle, or add on a fisheye look.
Laing mentions in his video what number of photographers received began with Nikon’s Coolpix 950 as their first digicam, and lots of the feedback on his evaluation echo the identical. Its use of AA batteries additionally makes it simple to choose again up as Laing did much more than twenty years later.
Watch Laing’s full evaluation on his YouTube channel Dino Bytes , the place he seems at classic and retro expertise and video games. Extra pattern pictures taken with the digicam could be present in Laing’s full written evaluation on Digital camera Labs.
Picture credit: Gordon Laing
