Nikon Coolpix 8700 Review

When you flip the Mode switch to the Play position it will display the last image stored in full screen mode as shown above. You can press the Left or Right portion of the 4-way selector switch to scroll backwards or forwards through the stored images. The muscial note icon means that there is an audio memo attached to this image.

Rotating the Command Dial lets you select any one of three screens of exposure settings or a histogram as shown in the following frames.

The first page of exposure information displays the camera model name, firmware version number, metering mode, recording mode, shutter speed, aperture.

This page has the settings for exposure compensation, lens focal length, focus mode, speedlight (flash), image adjustment and ISO sensitivity.

This page has the white balance, saturation, sharpness, digital telephoto, converter lens and the physical file size.

This page contains the histogram, the metering mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and ISO speed equivalent. Potentially over-exposed areas will blink.

The last page of Play information contains the lens focal length, shutter speed, aperture and focus mode. It also shows which AF point was used.

While displaying a picture full screen you can press the Telephoto zoom control button and magnify the image. There are 25 intermediate magnifying steps all the way up to a maximum of 6x. At any magnification step you can scroll around inside of the image using the 4-way selector.

To enter the thumbnail (index) playback mode just press the Wideangle zoom button. The number of thumbnail images can be toggled between 4 or 9 per page by pressing the button again.

You can quickly search through your images and display one in full screen mode by pressing the Telephoto zoom button.

The QuickTime MOVies that you record can be played back full screen on the color LCD and the audio can be heard on the internal speaker. The A / V cable allows you to send both the video and sound to a television set.

The menu options available in Playback mode let you Delete images, change the active image folder, start an automatic playback slideshow, protect images from deletion, hide images, set the DPOF print information, mark images for Auto Transfer when the USB cable is plugged in to the host computer, move images between image folders, format the CF card or create a Small Pic (640x480, 320x240 or 160x120).

The NikonView 6 software lets you download, view, edit and print your pictures. The Coolpix 8700 can now store images in the proprietary NEF raw format and you'll need NikonView 6 to view/convert these types of images.

For further editing of the raw NEF files there is a handy Photoshop plug-in that lets you import these 12-bit images "as shot" or you can adjust the exposure value or the white balance.