Nikon P900 Review Part 3 Performance

P900 Focal Length Equivalent 220mm, 1/500 sec. Hand held. Bright sun, front lit, static subject. On close inspection at 100% there is some loss of detail in the fine foliage. However in the original you can see individual leaves on the eucalyptus trees behind the houses. Overall a very good result.

On the basis of specifications and appearance the P900 seems as though it might be ideal for birds, wildlife, sport and action photos. In practice it does birds and some wildlife well (but with reservations) and sport/action not well.

Here are some of the details:

* The lens zooms from one end to the other in 3.5 seconds which I think is very good considering the amount of glass which has to move a substantial distance.

* Using single shot, single AF, ADL off, focussing on each frame, the shot to shot time is 1.0 seconds at the wide end, 1.1 seconds at mid zoom and 1.2 seconds at the long end.

Most of my long zoom, running dog photos were out of focus or more often out of the frame due to the limited continuous shooting performance of the P900. Some like this were good. FLE600mm 1/1000 sec. There is loss of hair detail on the dog's back.

* EVF blackout time. When you press the shutter button to make a photo the EVF blacks out for about half a second. Some time during this blackout the exposure is made.

This blackout has consequences. At the long end hand held, subject framing alters significantly between the action of pressing the shutter button and the actual capture. This produces a lot of incorrectly framed photos in my hands which are reasonably steady.

The slow shot to shot time and long EVF (or monitor) blackout time make it difficult to photograph moving subjects when zoomed out.

* AF speed. Compared to other consumer type superzoom cameras the AF speed is commendably fast and is quite adequate for static subjects. But P900 AF speed is not in the same class as some other cameras such as the Panasonic FZ1000 which I tested alongside the P900.

* AF accuracy. I found this to be very good outdoors with few frames out of focus. Sometimes the shutter would fire without focus having been attained and a few photos of dark subjects at the long end were a little off focus.

Indoors I found the AF system more reluctant to grab focus but at least it put up the red box to warn me that I should try again.

Generally a reliable performance with single shot capture.

FLE1400mm, 1/500 second. The dog stood still for a second.

* Continuous shooting/predictive AF. In order to capture sport/action a camera needs to have the capacity for predictive AF at a reasonable frame rate. The P900 does not manage this well.

In Continuous High the EVF locks up at the first frame so cannot follow a moving subject. This setting might be useful for checking, say, a golf swing.

In Continuous Low the frame rate is about 2 fps. The AF box disappears after the first frame. The view you see in the EVF is a review of the previous frame not a preview of the next one. The EVF blackout means you are looking at a black rectangle more than half the total time. These factors make it extremely difficult to hold a moving subject in frame especially if it is moving across the frame.

With cars moving slowly towards the camera and the zoom at FLE400mm I got about 60% of frames sharp. With surfers moving across the frame and FLE about 1000mm, I got no useful shots at all.

The camera locks up after shooting a burst of exposures while data is writing to the memory card. I used a Sandisk Extreme Pro 95MB/sec card, which is about the fastest available.

There is a Sports mode available via the [Scene] setting on the Mode Dial. Some users posting on forums are getting good results with this. However as described in the Reference Manual (Page 5 of the Reference section) exposure and focus are set at the first frame of the set of 7.

The P900 is difficult to use for sport/action with limitations on follow focus and continuous viewing.

I spent a morning at the local wetlands photographing birds, switching back and forth between the P900 and the FZ1000. I used the FZ1000 up to FLE800mm with JPG capture (i-Zoom).

I found the FZ1000 was better for overall speed and responsiveness, highlight/shadow detail, autofocus speed, autofocus accuracy, continuous AF/follow focus, EVF quality, EVF refresh, write time to memory and overall picture quality up to FLE600mm.

The P900 was better for zoom reach and picture quality above FLE600mm.

The point of this is that up to about FLE600mm there are better cameras to be had than the P900. So the P900 has to be very convincing in the higher focal length range to make a case for someone to buy one.

Loss of highlight detail on the trunks of the Casuarinas. I forgot to set Active D Lighting. If the camera allowed RAW capture I probably wouldn't have to remember ADL at all.

Auto Panorama is one of those features the market seems to think that consumer cameras must have these days. The P900 has it but the resolution and sharpness are rather low.

The self timer is easy enough to set but it self cancels after every shot.

I forgot about this every time I used the camera on a tripod. Proper cameras provide an option to hold the self timer function until the camera is powered off or a different mode is selected.

FLE550mm, 1/320 sec, ISO 1600. Very good result for ISO 1600 from a small sensor. Note shallow depth of focus. The wing is sharp, the eye not quite sharp.

Vibration reduction (VR) performance Nikon claims in its promotional material that “ ….shots are stabilised at a shutter speed of approximately 5.0 stops faster…..”.

Faster than what, they do not say.

A footnote says “..Based on CIPA standard measured at approximately 350mm (35mm format equivalent)”.

I ran as series of tests in controlled conditions and compared the results to my photos out and about.

The controlled test was to photograph a page of newspaper, hand held with VR off then on, with the zoom at widest, mid and longest positions, hand held, standing, viewing through the EVF.

Zoom range	Slowest sharp shutter speed VR OFF	Slowest sharp shutter speed VR ON	Advantage Stops or EV steps	Real world slowest sharp shutter speed VR ON
Wide FLE 24mm	1/20	1/10	1.0	About 1/15
Mid FLE 240mm	1/100	1/20	2.3	About 1/125
Long FLE 2000mm	1/1000	1/320	2.0	About 1/800

Notes:

* VR stabilises the EVF image and allows the remarkably long zoom to be used hand held, with some limitations, if the camera is held very steady.

* When I review my ‘out and about’ photos (hundreds of them) I find that the shutter speeds I need to use for reasonably reliable sharpness are higher than those obtained in controlled testing.

* VR works well up to FLE about 800-1000mm with a decently high percentage of sharp enough frames. But in my hands , which are quite steady with no rest or intention tremor, the percentage of sharp frames falls as focal length increases to FLE2000.

I am seeing photos published on user forums which would suggest that some other P900 users are getting better results at the long end. Maybe there is sample variation in VR effectiveness. Maybe other users have better technique than me. Many factors affect sharpness at the long end.

By the way, when testing I several times left VR ON with the camera on tripod, with no apparent ill effect.

Nikon advises switching VR OFF with tripod use but in practice it seems OK to leave it ON.

In fact it may be advantageous. The reason is that at FLE2000mm the preview image becomes unstable in the slightest breeze. In addition if the shutter is actuated by pressing the shutter button with the timer set to 2 seconds, which is my practice, the camera can take all of that time to settle down and leaving VR ON helps it to do so.

VR effectiveness on the P900 is of the same order as IS effectiveness on the Canon SX60 which I tested concurrently.