A smattering of gee-whiz features lifts this compact point-and-shoot model above the busy crowd of highly automated 5-megapixel pocket cameras. A less expensive stablemate of the 7-megapixel Coolpix 7900, the Nikon Coolpix 5900 shares its sibling’s Face-Priority Autofocus, postshot shadow-brightening tool, help features, and blur detection, all of which spice up an otherwise mundane feature set.
The Nikon Coolpix 5900 turned in mostly unimpressive performance figures and a few that were downright horrible. Despite the built-in focus-assist lamp, this camera’s autofocus system stumbled under low-contrast lighting, producing shutter-lag times of almost 2 seconds. If you shoot mostly under higher-contrast lighting conditions, you’ll be more pleased with this Coolpix’s 0.6-second response.
It took 4.48 seconds to awaken the camera from its slumber and take a shot; thereafter, shot-to-shot times were a reasonable 2.04 seconds (4.2 seconds with flash). In continuous-shooting mode, we captured 9 full-resolution photos in 5.18 seconds and were able to snap low-resolution shots until our finger tired. We got 108 640×480-resolution photos in 60 seconds.