Nikon Coolpix P310 Pro Reviews

Other pocketable premium cameras are out there, but most of them cost at least $400. If you're looking for a pocketable point-and-shoot camera with manual controls and good low-light performance, you won't find a lower-priced option than the Nikon Coolpix P310. It requires you to make some compromises: You have to do without a RAW-shooting mode, a big sensor, and a long-zoom lens, and you'll have to wait for Night Landscape shots and high-definition videos to save. Nevertheless, the Coolpix P310 gives budget-minded photographers a nice F1.8 lens and manual exposure controls to work with, and it takes great-looking photos in most lighting conditions. In fact, even if you ignore its bargain price, this is one of the best pocket cameras available right now.

Other pocketable premium cameras are out there, but most of them cost at least £300. If you're looking for a pocketable point-and-shoot camera with manual controls and good low-light performance, you won't find a lower-priced option than the Nikon Coolpix P310. It requires you to make some compromises: You have to do without a RAW-shooting mode, a big sensor, and a long-zoom lens, and you'll have to wait for Night Landscape shots and high-definition videos to save. Nevertheless, the Coolpix P310 gives budget-minded photographers a nice F1.8 lens and manual exposure controls to work with, and it takes great-looking photos in most lighting conditions. In fact, even if you ignore its bargain price, this is one of the best pocket cameras available right now.

The P310 is a respectable advanced compact that features a full specification, albeit one with a few noteworthy holes in it. Image quality and performance is generally reliable and, on the whole, it’s a worthy purchase for those looking for more from their compact.

The Nikon Coolpix P310 is a point-and-shoot camera that delivers excellent image quality and a fast f/1.8 lens. Serious photographers will love its physical control layout, but more casual shooters may scoff at its bulky design and limited zoom range.

The Nikon Coolpix P310 is a hard camera to categorize, offering the sort of manual control and customization options that we'd associate with more expensive models, but with a small sensor and no Raw shooting option. Ultimately, it's a good-looking, pocketable camera that has a lot to offer, but falls short of its (more expensive) high-end rivals when it comes to critical image quality.

The Nikon Coolpix P310 is a rather modest upgrade of Nikon's first foray into the world of pocket cameras for keen photographers, the P300, principally increasing the megapixel count from 12 to 16 and adding a handy customisable Function button. While the increase in resolution hasn't adversely affected the P310's image quality, it hasn't improved it either, remaining on a par with its predecessor as good rather than excellent. We also can't understand the continued absence of RAW file support on a camera that is clearly aimed at more advanced users. The P310's 16 megapixel BSI image sensor produces noise-free images at ISO 100-200 but quickly starts to fall apart at ISO 400, getting progressively worse as you go up the range. The fast F/1.8 lens partly makes up for this, allowing you to use a lower ISO speed, but only at the wide-angle focal lengths, with the maximum aperture quickly becoming slower until you hit a disappointing F/4.9 at 100mm telephoto. The P310's overall image quality is pleasing, but simply not as good as its rivals.

We weren’t really sure we’d like the P310 that much: it’s a tad confused in this market space as it doesn’t challenge the larger-sensor advanced compacts of its competitors. But taken in isolation and given its reasonable price bracket the P310 is one cool, quirky (in a good way) little camera. The more we used it the more we liked it. Of course it’s far from perfect: we’d like to see a quick menu system for easy access to settings; a brighter aperture at the top end of the zoom would be desirable, even if it meant a slightly larger body; and, as mentioned, the likes of the larger-sensor (yet pricier) Canon G1 X, Canon S100 and Olympus X-Z1 do put this Nikon in the shade on the image quality front. That said the P310 produces decent, detailed images, the close-up macro mode works a treat, movie mode has lots of control, and it’s a small and therefore an easy-to-pocket compact camera. We’d reach for a larger-sensor compact over this Nikon, but if price is as much a drive as image quality in your hunt for an advanced compact then the P310 certainly has value in its favour.

The Nikon Coolpix P310 is an extremely versatile camera which packs a lot of features in to a body small enough to fit in your pocket. There is very little to fault, the 4.2x optical zoom lens being quite limited given there are now cameras with a massive 42x optical zoom. There isn't the option to shoot in RAW either, but there are full manual controls, the f/1.8 maximum aperture lens and full 1080p HD video recording. Add this to the fantastic image quality and extremely competitive price, it is easy for us to Highly Recommend the P310.