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“The lens takes like 5,000 years to move,” is what Managing Editor Nilofer Khan said to me when I showed the Nikon Coolpix P1100 in our weekly video call. “By the time you zoom in, the bird is gone.” In many cases and situations, she’s not wrong. In fact, in most situations, she was right. And on top of that, there are some oddities to this camera that don’t make it feel like it was made by Nikon. When I put the camera in the hands of one of my fitness instructors, she too thought that it was heavy. Indeed, you can poke a lot of fun at this camera. The amount of times that I’ve made the lens extend out and tell a friend that I’m very happy to see them has brought me and several others lots of laughter. But is the laughter worth nearly $1,100?
It’s easy to sit here and hyperfocus on all the bad things about the Nikon P1100. I mean, it’s got a small sensor, there’s no weather resistance, the bird scene mode is a joke because it almost never goes to higher ISO settings when you need and therefore doesn’t use the full potential of the camera, and it’s pretty massive. Just the other day, I was in a Sony meeting where so many content creators (not established journalists) were calling the Sony RX1R Mk III just a point and shoot. And they were saying that they don’t know who will pay $5,000 for one. But we’re in a far different situation right now in the camera world, and most of those people truly haven’t been around for all that long to even remember the original RX1 camera.
What I’m getting at, is that modern point and shoots appeal to two very specific demographics of photographers: those who are new to the art, and those who are very experienced and want something different. Please read what I said again and notice the very key word here: photographers. This camera isn’t for content creators; quite frankly, I know that this camera could probably shoot some cool telephoto video. But I don’t care to do so with it.
“Have you ever met anyone in your life that you just found so addicting?” states Gabriel Janas in the book, The Initiation of Men: Poetry and Tales of Discovery. “No matter how long they’ve been gone you’ve missed hearing their voice? You missed being around them?” You probably think this quote is about a person, but for a camera adorer like me, you’d fully understand that it’s about a point and shoot.
Truly, if I could ever walk outside and see that it was raining point and shoot cameras, I’d ask whatever higher being there is for the strength and knowledge to enjoy every single one of them. And I’d ask for an extra pair of arms to be able to experience quadruple the effect until I get to my deepest feelings of fullness.
A few paragraphs ago, I focused on the negatives of the Nikon P1100. So it’s time that I talk about the positives. This is a small sensor, which means that you can zoom really far into a subject with a smaller package. It’s a lot simpler to use in so many different ways – though manual controls are lacking in the way you’d think of with old-school entry-level DSLRs.
By all means, OM System would’ve made a killing if they made this camera and gave it a lot of weather resistance or gave it a 4/3rds sensor. But the brand refuses to focus on products like this.
With that thought in mind, you should know that the Nikon P1100 doesn’t have weather resistance (which the world calls weather sealing.) However, I got caught in the rain during a walk with the Queens County Bird Club, which I’ve been a member of for a few years. And these days, I consider it to be negligent by manufacturers to not build weather resistance into their cameras. This entire summer has given us some of the most unpredictable weather we’ve ever seen here in NYC. When the weather forecast says it won’t rain, that changes within a few hours. That means that I absolutely had to bring a camera bag with me when using the Nikon P1100 instead of knowing that it would stand up to the elements. Worse yet, I had to find cover under an awning and wait out the rain.
But that’s the thing, when you’re out on a preservation of some sort, you don’t always have cover to protect yourself. If the weather says that it’s not going to rain, then it shouldn’t rain, of course. At the same time, Nikon should be giving cameras like this weather resistance. Reasons like this are why I created the Photography Care Program.
Because this is a point and shoot, it’s excused from a lot of the things that we’d hold higher end mirrorless cameras to. Compared to those cameras, the autofocus feels like those extra slow and extra painful movements you make when you’re at the gym and lifting really heavy weights or doing body training accordingly. Except in that case, you’ll always see gains. With the Nikon P1100, the only gain you get is the reward of knowing that you’re shooting in a very old-school way. The Nikon P1100 doesn’t have AF-C. Instead, it has AF-S and AF-F. Scene detection is pretty much nonexistent except for human faces. And you’re really best off shooting a single frame a second. On top of all that, the image stabilization isn’t as great as an interchangeable lens camera. The Active VR mode is also turned off by default. And activating it still doesn’t help the fact the autofocus doesn’t even always lock onto what you want it to.
For many of you reading this, that might seem awful. But for an entry-level photographer, it will mean that they’re going to learn good shooting form. For the experienced photographer, it will reach deep into our past and force us to harken to the good form and habits that modern technology has made us throw away.
And that, my friends, is real human photography.
If you complain about image stabilization, remember that tripods and monopods exist. If you complain about the small sensor, remember that there’s built-in noise reduction and RAW files. If you’ve got a list of complaints, than this camera isn’t for you. And its existence shouldn’t rob you of your joy of enjoying the gear you have.
But if you’re an experienced photographer that didn’t bring a tripod/monopod with you and knows how to control your breathing, you’ll probably also still be disappointed. I know for a fact that if I had used a Nikon Z5 II or a Nikon Z6 III that I would’ve gotten the shots I wanted and needed. Of course, those cameras, and the lenses that I’d need are much more expensive. Shooting in RAW only barely helps — and that’s because the high ISO noise also muddles the details no matter what noise reduction setting you’re working with. Adobe Lightroom can use its “denoise” setting to help with this a bit. But it’s not going to do a whole lot.
To that end, this camera isn’t for me either. I rarely want to go do birding photography. And the reason for that is because it’s only really good between Spring and Fall here in NYC. That’s the time when I’m so incredibly pre-occupied with work. It’s currently summer here, and if I go out for two hours, I’ll need to come inside, plop down on my bed with air conditioner blasting, and I’d need to nap for several hours.
Let me be honest here, the Nikon P1100 delivers some of the most beautiful telephoto images of birds I’ve seen in a while. The photos are sharp, vivid, and attractive. But the camera will do a good job shooting standard bird photos and not necessarily something unique. That’s due to how the autofocus works.
So who is this camera for? Well, there are a lot of you. Nearly every city, town, and state in America has a bird group of some sort. Lots only use binoculars. But this camera should be in the hands of every single one of those people instead.
And that’s who it’s for.
For this crowd, I’ll give you a few pointers. Be forewarned about a number of things.
“Camera batteries are affected by everything,” my buddy Ian, while we were birding.
I responded with, “Yeah, if it’s too cold, they hate it. If it’s too hot, they hate it.”
In a period of only a few hours, the Nikon P1100’s batteries died. Nikon didn’t send me a spare to use, and the camera was fully charged when I started shooting it. I started at 7am and before 10am, the battery had died. Luckily, if you’re birding during the summer, that’s also probably when it gets too hot outside and you’d want to head inside too.
At higher ISO settings, the image quality becomes useless when shooting JPEG photos. Don’t bother going above ISO 800. And that’s a big problem. But if you’re shooting RAW and you commit to the idea of using Lightroom, culling images, and picking out only your best, then you’ve got more of a chance at getting nice photos.
The following images are unedited.
The following images are edited.
Image stabilization at the longer end really also sucks until you realize that you have to set the VR setting to active. I didn’t know this; and I didn’t expect the woman who’s been a Nikon shooter and an avid birder for years to know this either. Why isn’t this on by default? Still, it’s not as good as what I get when attaching a good Tamron lens to an interchangeable lens Nikon camera body.
During my walk, I encountered a woman named Coco. She’s an elderly woman who owns the P1000, and it had quite a bit of wear on it. In fact, she dropped it during a trip to Mongolia and cracked the side of the lens casing. Yet the camera still worked. Coco also always shot in either P mode or bird mode because she didn’t know much about photography. And that’s totally fine. Bird mode seems, at least to me, to limit your ISO choices to lower settings. And I ultimately never found it to be productive to work with. Instead, most of the group used Sony cameras — with the Sony RX100 Mk II being a big winner. Of course, it doesn’t zoom anywhere as long because of the bigger 1-inch sensor.
She found my camera and hers to be too heavy for carrying around all the time and even told me that most women she knows prefer the Nikon P900 because it was lighter.
But she wanted to see if Nikon would repair her older camera, and I told her to give them a call. But the probability of her needing to buy the newer camera is more likely.
Essentially, the Nikon P1100 is a camera for people who know nothing about photography, and want to take decent bird photos. You’re not going to win awards with this thing at all. But it can do the job.
We’re giving the Nikon P1100 three out of five stars. I’m not sure it’s worth the price of around $1,200 either. The truth is that it’s the best point and shoot camera for bird photography. But the other side of that truth is that there’s nothing else like this really around. The closest would be the Panasonic ZS99, and it’s not nearly the same thing.
Nikon P1100 Review: The Best Point and Shoot for Bird Photography
We’re giving the Nikon P1100 three out of five stars. I’m not sure it’s worth the price of around $1,200 either. The truth is that it’s the best point and shoot camera for bird photography. But the other side of that truth is that there’s nothing else like this really around. The closest would be the Panasonic ZS99, and it’s not nearly the same thing.
