Nikon - COOLPIX 4600 Digital Camera Review

I am reviewing the Nikon Coolpix 4600 Digital camera. Let me just start off by saying that this is really a great camera for the novice, or experienced photographer. It has an effective range of 4.0 megapixels, and a 3x optical zoom! I have found that the 4.0 megapixel range is capable of reproducing great high detail pictures, which make great 5x7 prints. Nikon cameras, even when rated at a lower megapixel rating still tend to have a higher quality cmos sensor capable of capturing more vivid detail than many other consumer brands. The 3x optical zoom is also a very nice addition to the unit itself. The optical zoom is really great for adjusting and getting a little closer for those special shots. After one has reached the threshold of 3x, it goes into the mode of digital zoom, and maintains its quality rather well until it has reached its furthest zoom point. The Lense is a nikor lense, which is of the highest quality optics one can reach before going into speciality optics, such as carl zeiss, and leupold. The camera's size is also particularly good. It can fit into your pocket or small carrying case very efficiently, and is easy to tote around on the go. It also is designed with a very hard shell case,built of very high quality plastics. The camera is also chock full of camera field modes settings, such as macro, snow underwater, birthday party, fireworks show, museum, and oudoor modes. Each of these preset modes work great with the corresponding fields associated to that unique field. Macro is exceptionally good for taking up close shots, even in combination with the zoom  feature, museum is great for taking high clarity inside shots, snow is great for bright light situations, or high white tonalities, Underwater mode captured pictures through the waters surface, and in settings such as aquariums really well, Birthday party is good for image stabilization, and bright colors, and fireworks show adjusts the flash timing to get great high clarity pictures a night without over exposing with the flash burst. One can also adjust the individual iso settings, pertaing to the exposure of the photograph. The unit also offers a video capture mode, which is great for capturing those oments in a small but high quality format. It will output them as a .mov file extension, viewable in quicktime, or Windows media player with the proper plugins. There is a small amount of onboard storage in the unit, but the bulk of your memory will be expandable memory in the form of an sd memory card. These must be the full size cards, but will work with micro and mini sd cards with the proper adapters. It will read cards well over 4gb in size, and has several quality modes for either reducing or greatening the amount of memory the pictures actually take up. There is also a mode which is used specifically for capturing high energy and high motion shots. it is on the click wheel of the cameras control center. The setup memue lets you adjust the background image on your cameras lcd viewfinder screen, and you can choose various sounds to use when performing certain actions. The control panel is very intuitive and easily controlable. It consists of a rotating click wheel, zoom buttons directly beside this, and straight down another arrow pad, with delete, and view buttons directly below it. There is also a menu button, and an lcd viewfinder and a traditional viewfinder if you choose to conserve energy and take pictures that way. The on and off switch are directly on top of the unit, and the unit comes with a wrist strap, to help one avoid dropping the unit, and breaking it. Battery power is a must with this unit, and it wil run smoothly off of two nickel metal hydride batteries. Do not use regular double a's as they will be sucked dry in about 5 or 10 minutes. At the base of the unit is a place to screw in a tripod attatchment. Your connection to the computer is done via Nikon's own proprietary plugs, which when connected with provided unit, will allow one to hook their computer to the camera, for image transfers, and removal of the images from its memory. There is also a  cord that comes with the unit, which provides a connection to the televison, and allows  one to show slide shows or watch the videos saved on their camera. Battery life is about several 3-5 hours of use, after at least one five hour charging. The unit itself is a very capable one in the Nikon line of cameras, and for an affordable price as well. I have taken many pictures and work in photoediting and image restoratiom, and everything I've ever shot  really is brought to life with the color and vision of this camera. It is one of the finest quality cameras outside of the slr stage cameras from nikon, which are unbelievable. It is very reliable, and rugged to a point, but it is always ready to bounce into action when one calls on it.The images adjust much of the tonality inside the cam before even having to edit and masterusing adobe photoshop, and others . The unit is a very straightforward one, and taking pictures really is pleasurable, when you know that your pictures are ging to do