PHOTO QUALITY. This 16-megapixel advanced point-and-shoot camera captured images with good quality. Pictures were sharp, which means you can see most details and subtle patterns in the image. In low-light situations without a flash, pictures were not quite as sharp as most models. We judged this model very good for outdoor performance, such as shooting landscapes in the daytime; very good for indoor performance, such as photographing a well-lit basketball game in a gym. And fair for low-light performance without a flash, such as capturing a birthday party. Photos taken in our low-light performance tests displayed little image noise; subjects retained most of their correct detail and color.
FLASH. The Coolpix A1000 captured flash shots that were good. In our distance test, we found the camera's flash could illuminate most subjects that are closer to the camera, but had some problems with distant subjects. The flash also has very good, even coverage.
LENS. It has a very long 35x zoom lens that can be great for travel and sports shooting when you need to zoom in far to capture your subjects. The lens also has very wide-angle (24mm) capability that's very useful for landscapes and group portraits, although you may notice a bit of distortion when you're shooting faces up close, for instance.
IMAGE STABILIZATION. This is an important feature with a long zoom lens; taking hand-held shots at the telephoto end of the zoom range can generally blur or soften images due to the slight movement of your hands. Shooting zoom set at 4x in well-lit scenes, this model did an excellent job of minimizing the effects of camera shake. Shooting telephoto in well-lit scenes, this model did only a fair job of minimizing the effects of camera shake. In low-light settings, it performed excellently and almost never produced blurry photos. Overall, the shake reduction results from our tests were very good.
SPEED. In terms of performance, the Nikon Coolpix A1000 powers up very quickly. It has a very short interval between shots, which can be important when shooting fast-moving or unpredictable subjects.
VIDEO. The Nikon Coolpix A1000 takes good video. It also captures 4K-UHD video at 3840 x 2160 60p or 30i. As for sound, it captures very good audio in stereo.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS. Like most advanced point-and-shoot models, this camera does include an electronic viewfinder, which means you have flexibility when composing your photo or video; this viewfinder has good quality. This advanced point-and-shoot is smaller and thinner than most in its class.
