Nikon Coolpix P500

Introduction

Specification summary
Announced	February 2011
Camera type	Bridge camera with EVF
Camera size	116 x 103 x 84 mm 495 grams (inc. battery)
Sensor type	BSI-CMOS
Sensor size	1/2.3" (6.17 x 4.55 mm)
Resolution	4000 3000 (12 megapixels)
Memory card	SD/SDHC/SDXC
Battery	EN-EL5
Lens	4 - 144mm f/3.4-5.7 (full-frame equiv. 22 - 810 mm, 36x zoom ratio)

If you just want to see some photographs, skip straight to the results section.

Winning image in the 2011 Historic Scotland photography competition. I have to admit this camera has never really been an official part of my collection… I've never really been fond of so-called 'bridge' cameras (that is to say, small sensor digicams styled to look like mini DSLRs, with a powerful fixed zoom lens and, usually at least, an EVF). Also, I didn't actually buy it… this is the only prize I've ever won in a photography competition in pretty much my entire life! The competition in question was the Historic Scotland annual photography competition back in 2011. (Historic Scotland is now known as Historic Environment Scotland, and see the Spring 2026 edition of Historic Scotland magazine for this years winners.)

The subject is Tantallon Castle (just outside of North Berwick), and it was taken using a Pentax K-7 fitted with an SMC Pentax DA Limited 15mm f4 lens. The slightly annoying thing was that the previous year the prize was a very interesting Sigma DP1 camera. Not a camera that I would have necessarily actually bought myself, but one I would definitely have enjoyed playing with and one that would still be worth something today almost 15 years later. To be honest, once I'd tested out the Coolpix P500 it just got stuck in the back of my gear cupboard and never saw the light of day again until I dug it out when writing this article! I really should have sold it as soon as I got it when it would still have had some value, but somehow that would have seemed… well … a bit ungrateful! And today it's worth very little despite being boxed and in close to mint condition.

Nikon Coolpix P500 in use

It's easy to see the appeal of a camera like the P500 as soon as you take it out of the box: it allows you to carry a camera with full DSLR style manual controls and what seems to be a full bag of lenses that stretches all the way from ultra wide-angle to ultra telephoto in one tiny 500 gram package. But for me it just never quite worked in practice. As much as I love small cameras (see my current love affair with the Pentax Q!) the P500 is just too small to be comfortable. And have you ever tried finding your subject with an 800mm (full-frame equiv.) lens?! It really isn't easy! The first 4 photographs bellow where taken recently when I thought I'd give the P500 another try ahead of writing thit article. The were taken at a local park a few minutes walk from my flat that has a small loch at its centre that attracts a surprising amount of wildlife. It was really nice to be able to get closer to these birds than I can with any other camera I own, but finding even stationary birds in the viewfinder at 810mm is already quite a challenge, but birds-in-flight? Forgedaboudit!! (Though, to be fair, my general rubbishness as a wildlife photographer is quite a large part of that .)

What's really funny is that the 36x zoom ration on the P500 looks pretty pathetic against modern bridge cameras. Nikons current top-of-the-range bridge camera, the Coolpix P1100, has a zoom ratio of 125x and a maximum full-frame equiv. focal length of 3000mm!!!! The P1100 really is more of a spotting scope with a camera attached, than a normal camera. One area that the P500 beats most modern bridge cameras is actually at the wide end of its zoom. Most modern bridge cameras go no wider than 24 or 25mm, and while the P500 isn't much wider as 22.5mm, it's still a step in the right direction that I'll take over that 3 squillion mm telephoto lens any day!

But at least the manual controls allow for at least some creativity… for example, see the intentional camera movement examples below taken during the Edinburgh Frange Festival.

Nikon Coolpix P500 results

So if the P500 is somewhat sub-optimal in use, what about the results? If you Google for reviews of this camera, you'll see that it actually got quite positive ones! But for me, there is a subtle, but unmissable, smeariness about the images that I always found off-putting, and I still do. There's actually a reasonable amount of detail, but that smeariness give the photographs a slightly artificial quality which meant I was never tempted to use this camera on a regular basis.