Nikon’s CoolPix P1000 DSLR Comes with 125x Optical Zoom

For those who thought things can’t get any more bonkers with Nikon’s P900 with its 83x optical zoom, you were wrong. Nikon has announced its new Coolpix P1000 camera which is capable of a ridiculous 125x optical zoom, which is now the longest lens of any superzoom camera on the market.

The P1000 is the successor to the P900 and features a lens with the world’s highest zoom ratio: at 24-3000mm equivalence. Despite being a Superzoom camera, the Coolpix P1000 can even do close up macro shots, up to 1 cm close.

Specs & Features

The Coolpix P1000 has all the amenities of modern digital cameras, such as 4K UHD video support at 30 frames per second, and burst mode at 7 fps. It also has a 2.36M-dot OLED electronic viewfinder, a fully articulating 3.2 inch LCD (non-touch) screen, supports RAW image capture, has manual exposure control, external microphone and works with Nikon’s SnapBridge Bluetooth image transfer system.

The P1000’s lens only opens up to f/8 for the longer shots versus f/6.5 on the P900. The trade off is worth the range you get at the cost of focal length. Plus with that much zoom, even the tiniest camera shake translates into big shifts in the viewfinder, for which you’ll want to use a tripod anyway.

Both cameras’ lenses start at f/2.8 and are paired with a small 16-megapixel 1/2.3-inch sensor. The newer model has a BSI CMOS sensor that supports an ISO range of up to 6400, unlike the last model.

If you want to take things up a notch from its 3000mm zoom you can use the Dynamic Fine Zoom feature that offers a 6,000mm zoom and even a ridiculous 12,000mm equivalent, but you’re going to be giving away a lot of quality for that.

You can control the camera over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, via either the smartphone app, the MC-DC2 wired shutter release or the ML-L7 Bluetooth remote that is going to be sold separately for $49.95.

Portability

Portability wasn’t the aim Nikon had in mind while making this camera as it weighs about 1.4 kilograms with its 14-inch long body when fully extended. It was designed for extreme zoom scenarios like nature and space photography, and to that end it has dedicated bird-watching and moon-shooting settings on its mode dial.

Extreme Zoom Shots

People have used the super long lens on Nikon’s Coolpix P900 to capture pics and videos of the moon, some even managed to capture shots of Saturn as well. The new P1000 would be able to do more with its 125x zoom.

Here’s the P1000 in action:

Here are a few samples to give you an idea of its zoom capabilities:

Standard 24mm zoom

500mm

1000mm zoom

2000mm

Closest possible, at 3000mm

Pricing and Availability

The pricing of Coolpix P1000, as mentioned on Nikon’s official website is $1000, and it’ll be available in September.