Stories about: Maxwell Optical

Removable media may be dropping in price, but hard drives are still more cost-effective. That's why Nikon has launched the CoolWalker, a portable digital storage device for digital photographers.

Nikon's 8Mp Coolpix 8700 com-bines high resolutions, long lenses and stacks of features for $1999. It is capable of delivering the same 3264x2448-pixel images as its 8Mp peers - around 25 per cent more than a 5Mp camera offers, and enough detail to make good-looking A3 colour inkjet prints. Images are saved to CompactFlash cards, though you'll have to supply your own. However, IBM's Microdrive is also supported. Photos can be stored in TIFF, RAW or JPEG formats and, of the three JPEG levels available, photos at the highest quality measure around 2.8MB each.

Nikons have a reputation of being cameras for the hard-core photographer, but the company’s new Coolpix models are targeted at the neophyte. I looked at a pre-production version of the $849 Coolpix 3100, a small, light and nicely designed 3.2-megapixel camera.

The Coolpix 2000 is Nikon’s first foray into low-end point-and-shoot models for novice users, and offers an excellent combination of value for money, features and ease of use.

Both of these 3-megapixel shipping models slip easily into a shirt pocket and will please both the casual shutterbug and the more advanced photographer.

The Canon PowerShot Digital Ixus 300 and Nikon Coolpix 995 are two powerful digital cameras to hit the market.