Review based on a Production Model Nikon Coolpix 990, Firmware V1.0

Probably the most eagerly anticipated digital cameras of 2000. Last year I made that statement of the Nikon Coolpix 950. This years Coolpix 9xx has already achieved the same cult status and it's not even yet available in the shops! Then why all the attention?

The Coolpix 900

Well, it does come from good breeding. The 9xx range started way back in 1998 with the Nikon Coolpix 900 (E900), soon to be followed by the updated 900s (E910) this was the first time we saw the swivel design and also opened peoples eyes as to what a digital camera was capable of. I admit my first (real) digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 900s, soon to be followed by a Canon Pro 70.

The Coolpix 950

Last year came the 950 a completely re-engineered camera of a quality over and above what we'd seen in the 900. And it was well received by reviewers and owners alike, despite some shortcomings (chromatic aberrations and design-lame ergonomics) it soon became the de facto 2 megapixel digital camera, and in fact I still use it as my base comparison in reviews (stay tuned). Many other 2 megapixel digital cameras came, despite some very close competition (Olympus C-2000Z & C-2020Z) the Coolpix remained the favorite pro-sumer digital camera.

More pixels

What does the "megapixel war" mean to the digital photographer? Back in November 1998 when I was shooting with my Coolpix 900s I was stunned by the image quality, looking back on it now our expectations have certainly come a long way in a short time. Now we expect as good-as (if not better than) scanned 35mm slides, the flexibility of a pro-SLR, small enough to carry everywhere and enough pixels to generate prints that can fill your wall.

In the Coolpix 9xx family it's easy to trace the increase in resolution over time:

• 1998: Nikon Coolpix 900s (E910), 1280 x 960, 1,228,800 effective pixels
• 1999: Nikon Coolpix 950 (E950), 1600 x 1200, 1,920,000 effective pixels
• 2000: Nikon Coolpix 990 (E990), 2048 x 1536, 3,145,728 effective pixels

The 950 had 56% more sensors than the 900. The 990 has nearly 64% more sensors than the 950. The 990 has 256% of the image gathering sensors of the 900s. More sensors mean more pixels in the image and that means several things::

• Ability to print larger at the same resolution (10" x 7.5" @ 200dpi for the 990)
• Higher quality images, when the image is reduced in size (down sampled) for normal monitor resolutions (web publishing for example)
• Places higher demands on the quality of the lens system. Many experts agree that we're already close to the limits of standard lens systems to focus a sharp image down onto these tiny very high resolution CCDs (in fact the lenses found in most 3 megapixel digital cameras use glass of the same quality as only the most expensive 35mm systems), thus we're more likely to encounter problems such as chromatic aberrations as pixel count increases
• Increased storage demands, more pixels equals more bytes at the same quality. However, flash memory manufacturers are keeping up with this demand (and rubbing their hands together in the process).
• Increase internal processing demands, more pixels need to be processed in quicker and quicker times as photographers demand "pro-sumer" performance (cycle times) from digital cameras (high spec CPUs and specialised DSP chips)