INTRODUCTION

The Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 120 ED AF is a compact 35mm film viewfinder camera made in China by Nikon around 2000.

BEST SUITED FOR:

Good for nothing!

PERSONAL NOTES

The (deeply inhale) Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 120 ED AF, is a japanese compact camera designed to easily make photos, but is has some big flaws.

It's a bit shorter, wider, and deeper than usual compact cameras. Even if it has a nice zoom, it does not have a protruding lens when it's turned off, so it's easily pocketable.

The flash is also integrated, and it pops out automatically when turning on the camera, even if you are in broad daylight, the flash is always up there, it's a bit annoying. It would be better to pop it up only when needed, right?

The LCD screen shows the film counter, even when turned off, which is nice. When turned on, it shows other info like flash modes, film presence, and battery status. Which is useful, because if your battery is low on power, the camera is useless. And by the way, you need a very fresh CR123 battery to power this camera, if the battery is just a bit low, the camera won't even turn on.

The finder is small but ok, it zooms when you zoom the lens, and it also has parralax lines for close subjects. It also has a good diopter control.

Next to the finder are the classic red and green lights to tell you if there is enough light to take the photo.

This camera is compact, and has a nice zoom and descent image quality, but in my opinion, it has 2 big flaws :

When you half-press the shutter button, it take a long time, about one second, before lighting the green or red light to give you info about if you can take a photo of not. This feels -very- slow.

The other thing is that, when you fully press the shutter button, it is really unclear at which precise moment the camera actually takes the picture. It feels like there is another delay, there is a first motor sound which make no sens to me because the focus should be done at this point. But is it the focus ? Maybe not. Anyways, there is some noise, and then it takes the picture, but you do not know at which point it does. Then finally it make a longer motor noise obviously to advande the film.

It feels like this camera is very slow and give very little feedback to the user. I really hate using this camera.

There are 2 buttons to change the modes. And the modes you can control on whis camera are very limited. You can change the flash sync, the presence of a remote, the timer, and turn the autofocus on, or off at infinity, that's all. Which is comparable to cameras of this kind. But switching modes with these 2 buttons is not really user friendly.

Also, when you are actually pressing the shutter to take a photo, it's quite difficult to hold it steady, as the pressure to press down the button seems just a bit too much compairing with the grip you have.

The fact that the camera does not give enough feedback to the user is very frustrating, Even if it has a few more options than cameras of its kind, I really, really hate using this camera.

CONCLUSION

This Nikon camera should die. Don't buy it, it has a poor user experience.

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