Nikon's Coolpix P900 lets you gather memories of family, friends, neighbors or strangers without them knowing

Nikon's Coolpix P900 lets you gather memories of family, friends, neighbors or strangers without them knowing (hands-on)

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PreviousNex

March 1, 2015 8:01 PM PST / Updated: March 2, 2015 12:48 PM PST

The word "whopping" doesn't really do justice to the zoom range on the new Nikon Coolpix P900.

The camera's 83x zoom lens starts at an ultrawide f2.8 24mm and ends in an astounding f6.5 2,000mm. Those are 35mm equivalents, of course, calculated with its 1/2.3-inch 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor.

Despite the facetious headline, there are legitimate uses for a compact camera (compared to an SLR with a 2,000mm lens, at least) with a telephoto lens this long, including photographing birds and other wildlife, moon shots, examining architecture and ships at sea and shooting from the nose-bleeds at outdoor sporting events. You get the idea: anything that's really, really far away.

Telephoto autofocus speeds haven't been the best with Nikon's other extreme megazoom cameras, but the company says the P900's lag when fully zoomed in should be 0.75 seconds in overcast conditions. So as long as you're not too tight on your subject and they aren't moving fast (or you're very good at predicting movement) you should be able to get a clean shot.