The Coolpix 5400 is the first serious digital camera I bought back in 2004 when it was already a year or so old. I say serious because it allows full manual control if needed as well as shutter and aperture priority and RAW file facilities. At 5.1mp it’s resolution is OK but noise at ISO400 (the highest) is poor but, conversely, pictures at ISO50 (better than the SLRs) are very good.

It shows its age by being grindingly slow to focus and take pictures especially when saving RAWs or TIFFs.

The good points are the tilt and twist screen which is so useful one wonders why it is only just being included on digital SLR cameras? I know other compacts do this but it’s almost worth having a compact for this feature alone. The other useful feature is the optical finder which really does save battery power. My main reason for buying it was the 28mm equivalent lens. Few compacts do this even now so in 2004 the 5400 was about the only one that did. I still do not know why most stop at 35mm but 28mm is infinitely more useful.