Nikon Coolpix 4200 Review

AUTO record mode screen display. The Zoom indicator displays briefly whenever the Zoom is operated. Upper right is an icon to indicate we are using a SD memory card rather than INTernal memory. The "4M" indicates the image resolution is 4-megapixels at Fine quality. Flash is set to Auto and will fire when needed and there's 107 pictures remaining at the current image resolution.

When you half-press the shutter button it sets the exposure and attempts to lock the auto focus (AF.) If successful the AF area used is shown in green and it display a green AF icon.

Record menu options:

Image mode (Quality/Size) - Quality: Fine, Normal or Basic
Size: 4M 2,272x1704, 3M 2048x1536, 2M 1600x1200, PC 1024x768 or TV 640x480

White Balance - Auto, Manual preset, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent (FL1 or FL2), Cloudy, Shade or Speedlight

Metering - Matrix, Center-weighted or Spot

Continuous - Shooting mode: Single frame, Continuous, 5 shot buffer, Multi-Shot 16

BSS - Best Shot Selector, on/off

Image Adjustment - Auto, Normal, More contrast, Less contrast

Image Sharpening - Auto, High, Normal, Low, None

Sensitivity - Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400 (ISO equivalent)

Auto Bracketing - AE Bracketing, White balance bracketing, off

Saturation Control - Enhanced, Normal, Moderate

AF Area Mode - Auto (5-point), Manual (99 points), Off

Auto-Focus Mode - Continuous-AF or Single-AF

Noise Reduction - On or Off

You can let the camera automatically select one of 5 AF areas or you can manually select any one of 99 possible AF areas.

The un-assisted SCENE modes include: Party, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close Up, Museum, Fireworks, Copy, Back Light and Panorama assist

Shooting in one of the scene-assisted modes (Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night Portrait) the camera displays framing assist outlines on the LCD such as the Night Portrait mode screen shown here. Each of these modes has a sub-menu of other options available for that particular mode.

This is the sub-menu for the Portrait scene mode: Individual setups for Portrait, Portrait Left, Portrait Right, Portrait closeup, Portrait couple and Portrait figure. You can also select image size and quality desired.

When you must shoot without flash in conditions of low available light, the Coolpix 4200 offers several helpful features. The Camera Shake icon (red hand) warns when a slow shutter speed will be used. The 4200 will automatically increase ISO when necessary, warning you with the ISO icon that the resulting images may be noisy. Finally, the 4200's Best Shot Selector (BSS) feature can be enabled, causing the camera to take a sequence of shots when the shutter release is held down; the BSS feature saves only the sharpest image in the sequence.

Movie mode menu options:

TV Movie - Color 640 x 480 pixels, 15fps

Small Movie - Color 320 x 240 pixels, 15fps

Smaller Movie - Color 160 x 120 pixels, 15fps