Nikon Coolpix 510

A fully loaded point-and-shoot that might try your patience

This CoolPix has awesome specs. The point-and-shoot comes with a 42 x optical zoom and can do 120 frames per second (fps) continuously. With its video recorder, it can capture full HD videos at 30 frames per second, and 720 p videos at 60 fps.

With the camera in hand, I felt like a child—clicking birds and looking into their eyes. While wondering what else to do with such a powerful zoom, I walked into a park to capture some photos. The camera fared well, though it has some drawbacks.

The camera takes an SD card, and charges via a USB cable—with no battery charger needed. The USB also connects it to the computer and there is also an HDMI port.

A few shots later, I started seeing the camera’s good and bad aspects.

Upside first. The zoom works fine, and it is also very stable. I could easily capture number plates of vehicles that were far away from me. At the park, I clicked kids swinging their cricket bats using its 120 fps mode, and captured the bat hitting the ball. Sadly, these images are not high resolution, but they are good enough for social media. In its regular mode, you can shoot up to 16 megapixels.

The battery stayed with me through 10 sessions of 120 fps bursts, and about 200 odd shots in normal mode. I also shot a video, which was nice except that the auto focus seemed to have a mind of its own. For some reason, it kept focusing on and off the subject.

On the downside, the camera just takes too long to boot up. And while it has a GPS, its clock does not synchronise automatically, which I find rather funny. The GPS is not too reliable either, and it tends to miss its satellite signals in most cases.

The zoom lens too seems to take forever. If you want to go from a tele-photo zoom to a wide-angle shot, you have to be very patient. The zoom is so slow, it almost seems to lock up.

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