Small size, easily fitting into a shirt or trouser pocket.
12mp sensor
Very fast f1.8 lens, making it great in low light
Good looks
Manual controls
Great HD Video
Excellent scene selection including panorama assist and easy panorama
Superb picure quality

Only f1.8 at wide zoom setting
Price of Nikon case

I was looking for a replacement for my Samsung NX10, a camera to supplement my Nikon D7000 DSLR and I read many reviews before choosing the P300.Many of those reviews were not glowing, but in my opinion the criticisms were based on criteria that this camera was not designed to be in the first place. More about that later.

The camera is beautiful to look at and handle with a rear screen that is pin sharp and still viewable, even in bright sunlight, something we get a lot of here in the south of Spain. It has a 12 mp sensor, which is ample and uses one SD card as it's memory, although it does have a small internal memory should your card get full for any reason. The lens is a super fast f1.8, making it outstanding in low light, although to be critical it is only f1.8 at the widest zoom setting, decreasing as the zoom increases.

Whilst the camera does not have a lot of quickly accessed controls, a quick press of the menu button brings you to the menu specifically for the setting you have set on the master control.

Simple Auto controls via the green setting or 'scene', together with good manual controls make this very versatile indeed. The image quality is superb and of course it has full HD video recording which is simple to use, simply by pushing the red record button on the back of the camera. Within a week of getting it, I was able to shoot a movie of a house party and with the supplied editing software was able to create a little movie, with titles and sound added that was a pleasure to watch. To me this feature was an added bonus.

The only real niggle I have with it is the price of the Nikon case. At over 40 dollars it does not come cheap and alternatives, without a zip fastener, which I hate on a compact camera case, are not easy to find.

The P300 does not have RAW capability. Is this a problem? No it most certainly is not. This camera is not intended to be bought by the Raw shooting experts, it is a point and shoot camera with a good range of manual control for those wanting to take their photography a little further. For me, it is a supplement to my RAW shooting DSLR, so the fact that it does not shoot RAW does not matter at all.

Enjoy it for what it is, I know I do....

Similar Products Used:

Samsung NX10