Electronics : Nikon Coolpix P60 Digital Camera - Black (8.1MP, 5 x Optical Zoom) 2.5" LCD

Rating: - Good camera with good picture quality
I wanted to purchase a new camera as my old 3mp one was getting a bit dated. I wanted a good quality cheap camera and this one is ideal. At just under £100 I got an 8.1mp camera with good picture quality. The pictures come out lovely when printed. Sometimes they're not the best (my skills may have something to do with that!) but at the end of the day it's not an expensive camera and is ideal for family pictures around the home or on outings.

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Rating: - Nikon P60's Dusty Corners
A small, neat camera which feels reasonably solid despite being made of cheap-looking black plastic (worryingly, even the tripod bush is black plastic).

I took some 40 odd exposures in a local park with the help of my pedigree Lurch-hound (half dachshund, half lurcher and three-quarters mutt(my wife strongly disagrees with this description)) and kept getting my finger in the way of the lens - except the camera has a lens which sticks out about one-inch. The truth dawned. It was not my finger, but the most dramatic vignetting I have ever seen.

Every picture except those at the extreme telephoto end of the zoom showed a dramatic black quarter circle at the top right corner and a dark, fuzzy line down the right side.

Other than this, the camera took excellent photos. Some, once cropped, are quite exceptional in their sharpness. I did notice some colour aberration, particularly in the rendering of purples and dark blues. Manual white balance helps a little but only complete underexposure gets close to accuracy.

Needless to say, the Nikon P60 has winged its way back to 7dayshop.com and has been refunded with no problem - except that, unbelievably - the postage has been refunded in the form of a credit note. A credit note that cannot be used on line! A small thing, but enough to make me shop elsewhere in future and its replacement, A Canon Powershot A650is should arrive from Amazon tomorrow.

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Rating: - Fair weather friend
Soft dull images at all settings, except at max zoom, compared to several similar cameras. After a gloomy week it performed much better in perfect overhead sunlight but that was the least one could expect. Add two more stars.
Nothing seems to match the sharp clear shots of my old but slow Coolpix 3100.
Coolpix L11 captures squirrels under trees better (chuckle). Fuji S6500fd quite nice with care. Nikon D50 handles all things exposure related much better - an unfair comparison but highlights the small sensor/many megapixels malarky.
The dodgy march of technology in small cameras? The megapixel proliferation contest? Surely this can't be Gordon's fault as well?