Size
Manual control
Low light capability
Build quality
Ease of use
Images are upto snuff

The only weakness I can see is the lack of RAW capability. I don't really need it so it doesn't bother me personally.

I've been searching for a number of years now for a color camera (digital) to supplemant my Leica CM. My requirements were minimal lag time (I do a lot of documentary work), a 'real' manual operation (not exposure compensation), low light capability, ruggedness and an easy to use menu...I'm a luddite and pride myself on not being a computer expert.
The P5000 does exactly as I require. It's lag time, especially with the flash shut off is minimal. It gives excellent prints, both in color and in the B&W mode...I've printed 8x10 that are as good as I can get in the darkroom.
So far the highes ISO setting I've used is 800, but at that setting the noise was minimal...no worse than what grain would look like with 800ISO film.
The big thing for me however was its ease of use. I've owned a couple of digitals in the past...an early Agfa and a Minolta Z5. Both of them required extensive time with their manuals to understand the funtions of the menus on the cameras.
The day I arrived home with the P5000 I had it out of the box, converted to a high ISO setting, in B&W mode, on manual control...all with in minutes after a quick look at the manual. Within 30 minutes I was downloading an image to see how it looked as a print.
So far I'm very impressed.

Customer Service

Non needed so far...but Nikon is usually pretty good.

Similar Products Used:

Agfa 1250
Minolta Z5