Nikon 12.1 Megapixels Coolpix P500 Review by PR With Rating 8/10

The COOLPIX P500 is listed for retail at $399.95 MSRP and is offered in black and red. It is currently selling at around $399 (went up from $380 about 2 weeks ago). Here is the summary of review by PhotoReview Australia, giving the camera a rating of 8 out of 10:

"Images straight from the review camera appeared slightly soft, even at ISO 160 (the lowest available) and noise-reduction processing at higher ISO settings made them even softer. Otherwise, performance was similar to the P100, higher resolution notwithstanding. Autofocusing in bright lighting remained fast when shooting stills, although it became erratic with moving subjects at longer focal lengths. It also flagged seriously in low light levels. The camera will continue shooting when the focus is slightly off so there's a high incidence of unsharp photos in these situations. The image stabiliser was effective under low-light conditions but had problems coping with windy conditions when the camera was used at long focal lengths. Metering was generally good and exposure balance appeared to be slightly better than we found with the P100. Digital zoom shots were slightly soft and artefact-affected, although usable at modest output sizes. Imatest showed colour accuracy to be significantly better than we found with the P100 and saturation was more conservative. Skin hues were accurately recorded in most types of lighting and colour shifts, where identified, were relatively small.

Resolution was slightly below expectations in our Imatest tests and well below expectations for most aperture settings at the shortest and longest focal lengths we were able to test. We obtained the best performance at 9.4mm with the aperture set at f/5.6, after which diffraction reduced resolution quite sharply. The graph below shows the results of our tests. Edge softening was even more obvious than we found with the P100. As expected, it was most obvious at wide apertures. Our Imatest tests across the review camera's sensitivity range produced similar results to the P100. Resolution remained relatively high up to (and including) ISO 1600 and only plunged for the ISO 3200 setting. Video quality was poor, particularly with the HS settings.  We also encountered many instances of the rolling shutter effect when shooting  moving subjects. In addition, the AF system had problems keeping pace and clips were generally soft and artefact-affected. However, audio quality was better than average and you can use the zoom and autofocus while shooting clips without them being picked up by the microphone unless you're recording in a very quiet place. Clips from high-speed movies, although low-resolution, appeared sharper and less artefact-affected than HD clips; VGA movies were somewhere in between."