Video: Unboxing the Nikon COOLPIX L810
Video Transcript
Hi, I'm Dave Johnson, editor of eHow's Tech channel, and let's unbox the Nikon L810. So, this is the COOLPIX L810, one of Nikon's best-selling larger point-and-shoot cameras, and it's a really cool little model, so let's take a look in here and see what we've got. I like the way this thing folds up. First stuff we've run into here, we have a little warranty card, and the Quick Start guide, and software. And, my advice with cameras like this is almost always not to bother with the software that's on the CD or DVD that comes with the camera. Bottom line is Windows does what you need it to do. It's easy to transfer pictures from the cameras to Windows, just using the Windows software that's built in. And if you install some free software, like Windows Photo Gallery, you can edit and organize your photos without this software, which I generally think isn't very good. So, now we're hiding something, so let's pull this guy out. And, ah! Here we go. Now we get to the good stuff. We've got the camera, and that's what she looks like. And, there's a bunch of stuff hiding on the side as well. We've got a Nikon COOLPIX camera strap. We have connection cables for connecting the camera to the PC, and for playing audio and video, that sort of thing. It comes with a lens cap, which is nice. This is the USB cable that you're going to use to transfer. And last, but not least, we get some batteries. So, this camera takes four AA batteries, and we get to it on the bottom here. Just insert the four batteries. You'll notice something that they did not give us in the box is any kind of memory card, and you're gonna need one. So, I have a trusty SD card here, that goes in this slot. Looks into place. And, you will want that, because without it you can take about one picture with the camera. So, we're all ready to rock and roll, so the power button is right here. We press it. Camera comes to life, and it's all set to go. Initially, it will say, do you want to set the time and date, so you can go ahead and work through that. And, major controls, we have a wheel here that you can go left, right, up, down and okay. I'll show you that in a moment. There's the delete button for deleting the current image, and a menu control. Now, if you want to just start taking pictures, just go ahead. You know, you can look at the viewfinder here. Press halfway down on the shutter release, and that freezes the focus, and then press the rest of the way down to actually take the picture. That's great for, you know, getting the focus locked and then recomposing the shot. Also here, you have a zoom control. So, that zooms in, and that zooms out if you press it in the other direction. And the flash, the flash does not automatically pop up on its own. There's a flash button, right there. So, you press that and it pops. And, there's a little piece of plastic in there that you probably want to throw away. So, great, we're in really good shape. You're ready to get going with the camera. It's useful to know, after you put the memory card in, you're going to want to press Menu and format the memory card. And, also, this button right here, the green button, lets you change modes on the camera. So, there's Easy Auto mode, and if you click down, you can go through different settings. So, for example, I go down to the second spot, and then I click the right part of the ring. There's a whole bunch of scene modes I can choose from. And, they're labeled. There's icons that are really hard to figure out what they mean, but there's words at the bottom. Like, this is landscape mode, this is sports mode, this is night portrait, and the user guide explains in more detail what each of these do. But, for example, say, I wanted to take a landscape, so I want to have a picture that has lots and lots of depth of field, I'll click okay there, and now I'm in landscape mode. Also, I can go down here and choose Smart Portrait, where the camera will not take the picture until people are smiling in the photo and so on. So, you have a whole bunch of options there. And then, if you want to play back the pictures you've taken, that's this button right here. Look, there's a picture of the studio that I took a little while ago. So, also if you want to shoot video, there's your video button. Just press it, and it starts recording. So, in a nutshell, that is the Nikon COOLPIX L810. It's a really solid little camera with a lot of different scene modes and exposure options for somebody that wants a somewhat more advanced, really deep zoom camera.