No, not a review and certainly NOT a new camera. My last “proper” camera was the Nikon P900 – which after taking countless moon photos I sold off (you can only take so many photos of the moon) in favour of my then favourite phone – Pocophone X3 (4K video and decent stills). From that point on I progressed along the phone camera route and have been and remain more than happy with my current Samsung S22 Ultra.
I was browsing the local Facebook market last week and up popped a Nikon P510. It was covered in dust (we’ve had dust storms here) but the lady selling it insisted it was perfect. The P510 was going cheap so I took her word for it. We had a 3hrs road-trip to Alicante with my wife driving so I took the camera, cloth and my favourite light-blue-can Servisol cleaner with me. You can’t beat the therapy of giving something a good clean.
2 hours later I had in front of me a brand-spanking-new-looking SPOTLESS, shiny Nikon 42x optical zoom digital camera… and it was only then that I realise it was designed in 2012 before Nikon had twigged to the modern WIFI world. What to do…
On our return I took some photos and a little video on the utterly inadequate 2GB SD inside the camera (don’t even mention the internal RAM).
It was after then that I realised – no WIFI – so I hooking it to my phone from whence I’d upload video to Facebook or Youtube. This was not, it seemed, an option. I binned the 2GB SD and fitted an SD adaptor with a handy 32GB microSD (Amazon – nothing special).
Then I realised the camera has USB data transfer – i.e. turn it off, connect USB lead to a PC and magically the images and videos will appear as a drive on the PC.
I tried a USB adaptor to USB-C to send the images instead to my phone – no joy to date. However, the data DID quicky transfer to the PC – can’t gripe about that and the quality is ok – focus adjustment while zooming in could be better but the rest is fine.
At this point I found an “EZSHARE” SD unit on AliExpress for little over 20 Euros – which takes a micro-SD – I’ve lots of those + adaptors and NO full-size SDs (does anyone still use full size SDs?). This particular adaptor though contains a WiFi access point which helps bring the camera into the 3rd decade of the 21st century…
Meanwhile note in the lead image – The Nikon really does look NEAT when cleaned up as in the composite shots above right (courtesy of my phone which took the above pics in the moving car).
The camera came with nothing more than a decent case and a USB lead for charging/data transfer. Note that the Nikon DOES have built-in GPS which is nice – not to mention a reasonable FLASH (not just a LED). In one of the composite bits above you’ll see the lens extended. There is also a rear, moveable LCD display which is about as much use as my phone screen on a sunny day in Spain so I may end up using the viewfinder. Indoors and in the shade the screen is just fine.
The white “marks” around the camera below are my fault – kitchen roll wasn’t the best idea for cleaning in the car – all gone now and aside from the tiny nick on the lens cover (dirt cheap to replace) the entire camera could well be brand new.
So, working camera, looks like new and now I have the EZShare SD to wirelessly connect to my phone or my PC.
Once the Camera is turned on and PC or phone is set to use the ezShare access point (default password 8888888) the ezShare screen should come up in a browser. For admin setup – the name is “admin” and password is “pass” by default. Both can be changed.
So there it is – an older design of camera bought somewhat up to date with a little attention.