Evaluation: 
Conclusion: Love this camera!
Review: We are a real estate company and use the Canon Rebel XT for our property filming. Last year one of our agents purchased this camera and when I saw the results I was astounded. I recently purchased it for my "portable" use and have found it to be perfection for taking great photos while on the run.
Evaluation: 
Conclusion: Happy with the P5000
Review: I've had the P5000 for over 6 months now and I'm pretty happy with it overall. By far, it is the most comfortable (to hold) compact camera I've ever tried and the build quality is excellent. The layout & design of the body & buttons is outstanding, and the menu system is intuitive and easy to navigate.
The LCD is big, bright, and beautiful and sufficient 99% of the time. I've had the rare occasion outdoors where I could not see the screen so I used the viewfinder instead. Picture quality is very good. I really love the colours this camera produces, and the images are sharp and detailed.
My only complaint is that the focus/shutter speed could be better. I would not recommend this camera if you need it for children who can't stay still for more than one second. If you are shooting still life and/or landscapes then you will be very happy with the P5000. It also has manual control for those who want/need/know what to do with them.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: A good PhD [press here dummy] camera
Review: The camera features are fine for a point and shoot camera and the images come out fine, whether displayed on a monitor or printed.
I used the camera extensively while writing Best Hikes Near Seattle, a guidebook to hiking within 60 miles or 60 minutes of Seattle which will be coming out mid-2008. During my field work I moved constantly through several scene modes but mostly used the macro, landscape and sport functions. The latter two modes are located next to each other but the macro mode selection is further away. It would be nice if there was a way to customize the scene modes to group together the ones a photographer uses most often.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: A fantastic camera for the price
Review: I just got this little camera the other day, having ordered it right here on Amazon via a 3rd party seller in excellent condition, new in the box with warranty etc.
First of all, let me say that I have done some research and knew what I wanted/needed in a camera. I'm beyond mere point and shoot type photography although there are times when going fully automatic can be a godsend. My needs were more advanced and also had to consider my budget too in this process.
My first digital camera was an old Kodak CX series 4mp camera that did allow for exposure adjustment, but that and ISO ("film" speed) only and had about a half dozen, if that scene modes, lens range is about the same for both however the Nikon is a 3.5x zoom whilst the Kodak only does 3x, both had digital zoom capabilities too.
When the old Kodak took a tumble to the floor in the fall of 2005, I was able to nurse it along for about a year and a half off and on until it seemingly died this past January. To be honest, the Kodak was pretty good for what it was, it's macro was OK and I did get plenty of use from it which is more than I have with any film camera I've owned previously.
First thing was I had been eying the Nikon cameras after some initial research on the previous 7600 and 7900 coolpix models and came close to buying one then, but my financial situation was dire and the funds had to be diverted to more important things so no camera then. And in that research was the fact that Nikon in it's coolpix line tend to not be as aggressive, generally, in their Jpg compression, nor as heavy handed with noise reduction compared to many companies for this type of camera.
So when the situation finally came for me to be able to actually look into a new camera, I had been looking at several models, including the L12 and the S500 but ultimately, found myself suddenly able to afford a P5000, which is comperable to the old 7900 in features etc.
Now I've also read the reviews here and elsewhere, and on major camera review sites such as DPReview, C/Net and others and the reviews of the P5000 were mixed with both good and negative comments, namely it's slow start up, slow shutter lag and focus, but it had very, very good image quality despite the 1-7/8" 10MP sensor and it had a really good layout, good menu that is along the lines of their DSLR's and a very good grip, which allows for steady 1 handed shooting when needed.
I was not able to get my hands on one to try out and then heard that it was being discontinued so had to act fast if I was going to get one and by that point, I found myself with funds to do so and ended up buying it without a tryout at a local camera store.
In the 3 days since it arrived, I've been snapping pictures like nobody's business, mostly in manual mode and am learning quite fast it's idiocrycasies and how one goes about adjusting aperture and shutter, sadly, one can't do true manual focus, but one can tell the camera how you want it to focus and one feature allows the user to move the focus metering brackets around to get the best readings for both exposure and focus, in this instance, when shooting a dark scene with a bright spot, I can then scoot the metering bracket to get both the dark and light so when I adjust both the aperture and shutter, I can then see whether I'm over exposing or underexposing in either setting before I pre-focus by holding down the shutter halfway for a second before taking the shot. One thing the reviews do say is that this camera really isn't the best choice for sports type shots or any other fast action type shots although I've seen one case where it proved to be no so useless in that situation due to slow shutter speed and frames per second capture speed.
Some pros/cons of this little darling.
PROS
Excellent grip
Easily navigated menu system, easily learned
Good button layout and a nice set of separate buttons on the left of the LCD for functions such as preview, view options and to bring up the histrogram, sadly not available in real time but a minor quibble, the menu access and the delete button, on the right is the 4 way control button and OK button for navigating the menus along with accessing flash options, macro etc.
Good low light sensitivity
Wide ISO range (64-3200) However with 3200ISO, the MP count drops to 5MP though
Option to turn off noise reduction
Optical vibration reduction
CONS
Slow focus
Definite shutter lag
Noisy at higher ISO's above 200 ISO (I've heard it's quite noisy but have not really tried it yet)
Power button could stand to be a bit larger and in a better location
No RAW capabilities for such a flagship camera for more advanced users while it's direct competition, the Canon G7 has it (I think and it's more expensive too).
LCD is washed out in very bright light although one can adjust the settings and that might help some, don't know though.
Overall, I found the con's to not be of issue to me based on how I use the camera and what I'm shooting. I hope to slowly get more and more familiar with it and slowly begin to stretch it's limits some in the future but from what I've experienced with it so far, it's a very excellent camera, it's easy to use, feels comfortable in a minimum of time spent with it and I'm really impressed with what I'm getting out of it already. One thing is for sure, I'm fast learning what to look for to determine if overexposing (or underexposing as well) as I go along and yesterday's photo shoot proved, 95% of my shots were more or less correctly exposed by the end of the day.
A couple of caveats, it's now discontinued and is being replaced by the P5100, but at 12MP instead (and we don't know if it's image quality will suffer as of yet either and it's the same sensor as what's in the new Canon G9, the G7's replacement and it's proving a dissapointment) and has some changes to the AF system which might address the slow shutter lag/focus issues. It's not in stores yet but was announced about a week ago though.
If you are a beginner type or simply prefer a simple camera, this is more camera than you need and some of the reviews here have born that out where people bought it based on price and ended up returning it for it overwhelmed them with too much stuff.
Overall though I really am liking this camera quite a bit.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: Great Little Camera
Review: I already have a D200 and a D80, but I also needed a small compact camera for those times and places when you don't want to or are not able to haul around one of the big boys. The Coolpix P5000 is perfect, very easy to stick in a pocket or hand bag and yet you still have 10 megapixels, a long battery life, a huge screen and it's easy to use. What's not to like. I waited a long time before I bought a small camera, the P5000 was worth the wait. My wife loves it too.
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