Nikon COOLPIX 950: 23 YEARS later! RETRO review of a classic camera reviews

October 27, 2022



Reviewing Nikon’s COOLPIX 950 from 1999, 23 years after it was launched!
Buy Gordon a coffee: https://www.paypal.me/cameralabs
Gordon’s In Camera book: https://amzn.to/2n61PfI / Amazon uk: https://amzn.to/2mBqRVZ
Cameralabs merchandise: https://redbubble.com/people/cameralabs/shop
Check eBay to find vintage gear: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=1&pub=5574908462&toolid=10001&campid=5338329149&customid=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg
Check MPB to buy and sell used gear: https://bit.ly/3ULU9yL
Lost photos? I recover mine with: https://www.dpbolvw.net/click-100568658-13808570?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stellarinfo.com%2Fphoto-recovery-software.php
Selected photos: Digital Kamera Museum / https://www.digitalkameramuseum.de/
Nikon lens adapter b-roll: Stu Maschwitz / @5tu

Equipment used for producing my videos
Sony A6400: https://amzn.to/3hul53c
Sony e 24mm f1.8: https://amzn.to/2TqWNzk
Rode NT USB mic: https://amzn.to/3AdHcUp
Rode Wireless Go II mic: https://amzn.to/3xkCvGo
Rode Lavalier Go mic: https://amzn.to/3ygzzKY
Godox UL150 light: https://amzn.to/2VpVbXE
Godox QR-P70 softbox: https://amzn.to/3yQfGdF
MacBook Pro 14in (16GB / 1TB): https://bhpho.to/3HiafJL

Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic

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31 Comments
  1. Reply
    Dino Bytes by Gordon Laing October 27, 2022 at 1:55 pm

    Reviewing Nikon’s COOLPIX 950 from 1999, 23 years after it was launched!
    Buy Gordon a coffee: https://www.paypal.me/cameralabs
    Gordon's In Camera book: https://amzn.to/2n61PfI / Amazon uk: https://amzn.to/2mBqRVZ
    Cameralabs merchandise: https://redbubble.com/people/cameralabs/shop
    Check eBay to find vintage gear: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=1&pub=5574908462&toolid=10001&campid=5338329149&customid=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg
    Check MPB to buy and sell used gear: https://bit.ly/3ULU9yL
    Lost photos? I recover mine with: https://www.dpbolvw.net/click-100568658-13808570?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stellarinfo.com%2Fphoto-recovery-software.php
    Selected photos: Digital Kamera Museum / https://www.digitalkameramuseum.de/
    Nikon lens adapter b-roll: Stu Maschwitz / @5tu

    Equipment used for producing my videos
    Sony A6400: https://amzn.to/3hul53c
    Sony e 24mm f1.8: https://amzn.to/2TqWNzk
    Rode NT USB mic: https://amzn.to/3AdHcUp
    Rode Wireless Go II mic: https://amzn.to/3xkCvGo
    Rode Lavalier Go mic: https://amzn.to/3ygzzKY
    Godox UL150 light: https://amzn.to/2VpVbXE
    Godox QR-P70 softbox: https://amzn.to/3yQfGdF
    MacBook Pro 14in (16GB / 1TB): https://bhpho.to/3HiafJL

    Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

  2. STUNNING IQ AND COLORS from a 2 decade+ camera! Where is the innovation gone in the past 20 years if then was already possible to capture such lovely images? Use this camera for all your Instagram and selfies needs and NO ONE WOULD EVER COMPLAIN that the images are not good enough. Great video as always, thanks Gordon 🙂

  3. Nice t-shirt btw.😁😁

  4. Col vid! Thank you! Brings back memories of my 995 which I still have. It was great for its time. I was the first grad student or maybe person at my university to use a digital camera in research. I am going to see if I can charge app the battery and see if it all works after 20 years.

  5. I still have one! It came in an iPix kit with a 183 degree fisheye.

  6. I really wish that Nikon kept the color scheme for their coolpix cameras. Seeing the red bar on the handle oozes cool and modern. It pairs well with the DSLR color scheme.

    Also I wish they made a rangefinder still coolpix. Imagine if we got a 15 mega pixel ccd rangefinder with the red handle color scheme? It would of been glorious

  7. Always excited to see new uploads from you! The slideshows are always such a good part of your awesome videos 🙂 Your channel is by far my favourite when it comes to camera content. Keep it up!

  8. Wow AGFA 1280, my very first digital camera with external battery pack! Thanks for making videos like this as they really bring back memories of my years of experiences with photography. My sister had the Coolpix 950 while I was shooting Olympus 2020 at that time!

  9. I really admired the 950 at the time. But hell you paid a lot for very little in the early days of digital. Once you got to 6MP and acceptable results at ISO800 it started to look not obviously worse than film for general photography. In the first 10 years every camera became obsolete compared to next year's model. Whereas now you can still get entirely satisfying results from cameras built 2010 and on even if they lack some nice-to-have features.

  10. I learned the trade with this camera in my local newspaper in Norway. Hated them a bit then, because ours were beat up after a few years use. But impressive in hindsight for a pre-2000s consumer priced camera. That form factor really made room for a good amount of glass, I guess that compensated quite a bit for the low sensor quality. Wouldn't mind trying a modern camera with that twist

  11. This was my first digital camera. My granfather bought it for me in 2000 and I still have it today and it still works! Love these reviews!
    I read that it is well suited for infrared fotography, but I haven't tried that out yet.

  12. Unfortunately these are getting popular again . again. 😂

  13. Burp. Thanks for the serving of nostalgia: Tasty.

  14. Amazing camera 📷 which makes complete sense now.
    But 23 years ago how do you take this 'film' to the local chemist and get the 24 / 36 pictures for your photo album ??
    What's a photo album , dude ???

  15. The Nikon Coolpix 990 was my third digital camera, but more important than having this equipment today were the photos I took at the time. Still bring back great memories

  16. The battery door of my 990 was the weak point of that camera. Too strong springs, weak plastik latch. Guarantee was just over and Nikon refused to sell me the part, repair price was too high, and so I decided my next camera would definetly not be a Nikon. The lens had strong chromatic aberrations, the start-up time was slow, I had to try three copies to find one with a correctly adjusted infinity button (no further manual focus), but for a while I was quite happy with the 990, great ergonomics. My first digital! I had tele and wideangel converters and a slide-copier. After that coolpix 990 I had a Minolta Dimage 7 for a short time, then Canon DLSRs

  17. Great review! Man I feel old, lol…I used the Coolpix 950 for product shots of all the inventory of lighting products for an e-commerce startup I was working for back in 2000. I remember all of my co-workers and myself thinking it was the coolest digital camera we'd ever seen or used at the time.

  18. Thank you gordon. coffee on me. love your channel. you are my top 5 camera reviewers. cheers.

  19. The 950 got me into photography. I even shot weddings with it, mounted on a bracket with an external indirect flash and all. Sadly, it died the usual death of a broken battery door. Got a 990 to replace it, same death, then a D70, and so on.

  20. I owned a Coolpix 950 and 990. My daughter called it the Rubik's cube camera! I used the 990 to photograph used cars for dealerships. It was a good investment, even though it seemed pretty expensive at the time. I still have a flyer done for a client with a 5×7 inch product image taken with the 950. It still looks very good, even by today's standards. To get good images without film, without processing and without scanning was HUGE at the time. While CMOS sensors are state-of-the-art today they started out with inferior image quality to CCDs.

  21. I still have the Coolpix 4300, a piece of charm.

  22. Well mine was broken, dug it out after seeing your video and still no joy. Used a screw driver and cleaned the battery and now works!

  23. I remember selling this one when I was a photographer seller back in 2002, I guess models lasted longer on shops selfs??. Such good memories!

  24. I have the same model and just bought it for like $80 not too ago! I still use it and I gave it a new life using off the shelf rechargeable AAs (and use a portable USB powered battery charging dock. Having so many USB cables and fast charging plugs or a power bank are so handy here), a 1 gig Type I CF card, USB CF card reader, and a USB A to USB C adapter so I can transfer images to my smartphone. I love this camera to death and I get funny looks every time I use it!

    It's truly is a marvel of engineering. Hats off to Nikon for making this camera.

  25. thanks Gordon! great video – I do own a 950 as well as a 4500, great cameras!

  26. Love these trips down memory lane but I have to ask, where did you get that cool t-shirt?

  27. Reply
    V-SIMPERS -Kirinukist- October 27, 2022 at 1:55 pm

    These are awesome!! 👍👍

  28. Reply
    Camera Nostalgia Club October 27, 2022 at 1:55 pm

    The Nikon Coolpix 950 will forever be iconic to me absolutely love the silhouette and how they experimented with different crazy designs back then 🤩

  29. I still have the 990 that I bought back in the day. Unfortunately although it still works, the battery door latch is broken making use very difficult. My first digital camera was another split body camera, the Minolta D’Image V. With the Minolta you could even separate the lens module from the body and use it via a supplied interface cable as a semi remote setup.

  30. Oh man. I never really saw these split designs in real life, but I might have seen them in magazines. For some reason, I always associated the Coolpix brand with Nikon's lower-end point-and-shoots, but now I see there is more to it!
    Also, I still wish Nikon had kept their Nikon 1 line and released those Nikon DL models that were meant to rival the Sony RXs. I had a Nikon J1 and at the time it was pure innovation: it had a fast and accurate hybrid AF in photo and video modes, an insane RAW and JPG burst rate (60fps!) that still can't be matched by most cameras today, and a dual gain sensor that took the low light performance to the next level. Good times!

  31. The colours and ‘look’ of the photos remind me of images from educational videos around the late 90’s/early 2000’s (as you’d expect). Still impressive quality of such an old camera

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