Nikon COOLPIX 4500 Digital Camera

The Nikon Coolpix 4500 is considered to be the best user digiscoping camera on the market. Mostly used with microscopes and adapters it makes itself the perfect candidate for natural world close-ups. There are so many detailed pictures of insects, flowers & natural textures revealing the most artistic and beautiful images ever taken – and the majority will have been shot with the 4500.

As a replacement to the Nikon 995 they have preserved the twisting body design but have made an array of changes which, in my opinion are crucial improvements on the previous model, the rotating body is ideal for getting the perfect shot in hard to reach areas or for taking pictures above a crowd and with the magnesium alloy casing, not only does it make the camera lighter but more robust – adding a few more years to its life span.

With many modes including the standard Auto and the ever increasingly rare Manual mode, it lays claim to scenic or programmed modes and aperture and shutter priority, the latter producing some phenomenal shutter speeds not seen on any advanced compact to date. Additional functions include exposure compensation, continuous shooting, white balancing.

The 4.0 MegaPixels is quality for this all-rounder, with an improved CCD sensor it’s just what is needed for portrait, landscape or digiscoping, however I would not recommend blowing anything up to over A4. The focal range offers a 38-155mm and can provide resolution up to 2272 x 1704.

The good points:-

Macro focus, auto pop-up flash, sound recording to add audio memo’s and a playback option, on top of these it has one of the biggest ranges of Macro, Microscopes, Fisheyes and Wide Angle lenses for any compact.

The bad points:-

My only criticism is the battery life, compared to the later EN-EL range it’s the only thing that disappoints, they are reasonably cheap though so back-ups are easy to come by.

To summarise; the most popular digiscoping camera ever to exist – until there is a serious contender this will still be the creative microscopers’ choice.

Super Power Photography 2009