Summary Nikon P510

Prices Price
Camera only $397 - $400
all P510 prices
Score Snapsort rank
Within its price range #1 of 25 Among similar cameras #1 of 32
details details
Specifications Key specs
Zoom Help 41.7x Screen size Help 3.0"
Aperture Help f/3.0 Screen resolution Help 921k dots
Wide angle Help 24 mm Movie format Help 1080p @ 30fps
see all specifications
Nikon Coolpix P510Nikon Coolpix P510

Videos

Nikon Coolpix P510 hands-on

Nikon Coolpix P510 hands-on
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Pros

The Nikon P510 vs other recent digicams

Zoom Huge zoom Help
41.7x
Wide angle Great wide angle lens Help
24 mm
High-speed framerate High speed movies Help
240 fps
Screen flips out Flip-out screen Help
Great for movies
Sensor type CMOS Sensor Help
Better in low light
Macro focus Good macro Help
2 cm
Announced New Help
February, 2012
GPS Built-in GPS Help
Great for travel
Movie format Full HD Help
1080p @ 30fps
Screen resolution Very high resolution screen Help
921k dots
Image stabilization Image stabilization Help
Lens
Panorama In-camera panoramas Help
Stitches together multiple photos into a panorama
HDR In-camera HDR Help
Combines multiple exposures
3D Takes 3D photos Help
View photos in 3D on 3D televisions
Viewfinder Doesn't use battery, see more detail Help
Digital
Popularity Very popular Help
Among snapsort users

Cons

The Nikon P510 vs other recent digicams

Size Quite large Help
Professional size 120x83x102 mm
Thickness Thick Help
4"
Lowest price Expensive Help
$396.95
Touch screen No touch screen Help
More buttons
Weight Very heavy Help
555 g
Longest exposure Short exposures Help
4 seconds

The Nikon P510 vs other recent super zooms

Battery life Very short battery life Help
200 shots
Supports RAW No RAW support Help
Less editing fidelity
External mic jack Lacks an external mic jack Help
Limited to the in-camera mic
External flash No external flash Help
Less expandable

Appearance

front photo of the Nikon Coolpix P510back photo of the Nikon Coolpix P510angle photo of the Nikon Coolpix P510

Discussion What do you think about the Nikon Coolpix P510?

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Showing 17 comments

Avatar for Kwee-Chang Kwee-Chang (1:44 AM, May 15, 2012)
I have a coolpix P510. It stated in the manual, and I have tried it. See attached pages.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kweechang/7200204316/in/photostream
The information at www.nikonusa.com is incorrect.
 
Avatar for Snapsort Snapsort (4:44 PM, May 14, 2012)
@yahoo-2CULGITBV4TKD4MJ4LLBUMDI4E:disqus are you sure? Nikon says this camera has 1/2000" 
 
Avatar for Kwee-Chang Kwee-Chang (10:25 AM, May 14, 2012)
The Max Shutter speed should be 1/4000" instead of the stated 1/2000"
 
Augustin Man (6:44 PM, May 03, 2012)
As the sensors of the two cameras  (Canon SX40 and Nikon P510) are the same type and size, how can you explain the notable difference in noise?
 
Leonarde (4:12 PM, May 01, 2012)
Because it won't take an external filter.
 
Jim (10:12 PM, April 07, 2012)
I have one, yes it's good.
The stabilisation is excellent, I get consistently good results hand held at full zoom.
The GPS works, not much more I can say on that, it doesn't need to do any more than work.

If it's battery life is short, as has been mentioned then they must be comparing it to the mighty, I've had no drama with mine, even with the GPS on I can manage a healthy session without problem. Anyway spare batteries are cheap so I don't see that as an issue for any camera nowadays.
The image quality is rather excellent for this class of camera, you don't get the lovely look from a large sensor camera but they can't zoom like a P510 does, it's all about compromises.
 
f_joker (0:56 PM, March 28, 2012)
Hi,
can you tell me if the IS works properly in video mode (mechanical+digital)? Other cameras only use the digital IS in video, which makes long zoom (>400/500mm) usage impossible without a good tripod
 
Gastón (11:55 AM, March 20, 2012)
 I bought one for my father last week at Walmart. The image stabilization is excellent, at 42x with a 1/60 exposure you can get good pictures without blur, provided that you have at least not bad pulse.

The quality of the pictures is my main concern. Colours look good, but this isn't a real 16.1MP camera. The images get pretty noisy. I end up taking photos at 4MP, more than 4MP is just bigger images but same quality.

It has many effects, records nice videos, and in low light conditions is pretty decent, though it tends to get yellowish pictures.

It has a full manual option, good for taking pictures with blurred lights for example or under low light but with a tripod. The max aperture is 3.0 at 24mm, so don't expect to get the effect of focusing on one object and get the rest completely blurred, not even in macro mode.

The menus are pretty fast, but if you get pictures at 16MP with fine detail (max detail), when you're seeing them, they will take like 1 second to get from previsualization quality to full quality. Now, I'm taking pictures at 4MP, so that's not a problem, I can browse through my pictures fast, just a 1/4 of a second (I'm guessing here) to get from preview quality to full quality, so barely noticeable.

You can have a lot of fun with this camera, but it's image quality it's similar to my $140 dollars Canon Powershot ELPH 100 HS.

I'd recommend the Canon SX40 HS over this one, it may have a 35X zoom but I it takes much better pictures, what's the use of having a 42x zoom while other cameras can get the same picture at 18x and then crop and get the same image quality?

Over the P500, the optical image stabilization is enough to justify the difference in price, the IS is really good in the P510, the problem is that Canon's IS is just as good. I haven't tried Panasonic's or Sony's superzooms, so I won't say anything about them.

Battery life is supposed to be weak, but I haven't experienced any problems at all, you can fool around with the camera for a couple of hours and it keeps going. Again, the Canon SX40 HS has a much bigger battery, twice as big I think.

One thing that's really good with this camera is it's feeling. It feels like it's made of really good plastics, it doesn't feel cheap at all. Everyone who saw it and held it was like "wow, this must cost like a thousand dollars". The grip is excellent too.

To sum up, like I said, it's a lot of fun to use, the LCD looks great and it's nice for filming. The thing is, for me, image quality on a camera is like sound quality on headphones, you can be the best at everything else, but if you're lacking on that point, all the other specs are pretty useless.

I'm waiting for a serious review in english, portuguese, italian or spanish (my native language). For those of you who are trying to find reviews, there are 2 i've found, but one is in German (from a Swiss site) and the other one I don't remember, think it's in Czech:

http://www.digitalliving.ch/fotografie/tests/1006096/test_nikon_coolpix_p510.html
http://www.digineff.cz/art/fo-ky/nikon-p510-prvn-zku-enosti.html

The picture of the building was taken at 1/125s, F5.9, 180mm(42x, equivalent to 1000mm), and ISO 800.
The one of the sky was just to show you that it was cloudy, and also because it's a pretty picture lol. That one was at 1/320s, F4.6, 7.7x zoom (33mm) and ISO 100.

Hope you find this review useful.
 
Avatar for Nicola Manini Nicola Manini (8:45 AM, March 19, 2012)
So this P510 should be around by now...
Does anybody own it? Is it good?
Is the image stabilization good?
Is the gps thing working?
I think this is what one should check to see if it's worth spending 100/120 euro more than the P500.
 
MM (5:26 AM, March 19, 2012)
Is it worth waiting for P510 over buying P500?
 
Dwardakls (1:32 AM, March 17, 2012)
 Canon SX40, better image quality, especially colors and noise. But that's talking about pictures and movies using it as a P&S
 
lulabuma (2:30 PM, March 16, 2012)
i dont think you should, because the battery life isn't really long.. :/ i prefer p500 :) or D3100 
 
Minal_singla007 (8:50 AM, March 14, 2012)
P500 vs sx40 which better acc. To u.?
 
Avatar for Jonathan Bruce Jonathan Bruce (3:50 PM, March 12, 2012)
I have a Kodak Z981 at mo.  Am seriously thinking of changing to the P510.. what do you guys/girls think?  i'm interested in any comments
 
Mickeyg (10:13 AM, February 28, 2012)
41.7 x Zoom  &  9.7 mp ? what result will one achieve with this ?  200 shots per battery charge ? No RAW  & No External flash ........ & its a winner ?
Nice colour though.
 
Samsplace888 (5:17 AM, February 06, 2012)
I know nikon will bring this out so I held on to my P500 while my friends bought the canon sx40hs..my P500 is very good to me and I know this is better. very eager to have it.
 
Barry42 (2:40 PM, February 04, 2012)
Why will they not tell us what size of Lens Filter it will Take ??