My sister told me, right before my daughter was born, "you will want to take that camera and smash it into a wall!" She was right! Several times I have wanted to do just that. The lag time between each shot is just too long to capture those instant events. I have to take 20 to 40 shots to get my daughter smiling (I am not kidding). Little children and babies won't hold a smile or a pose for long. I have missed so many shots...it is depressing. Also there is a pre flash or a flash indicator which alerts my daughter to close her eyes...I am not a professional...so I really don't know what this accomplishes.

The quality of the shots you do get is very good as far as detail and crispness go but they definately lack something in the color arena. If you use auto setting the flash captures the action very well but the color suffers. My photos look too grey and harsh. If you use the "scene" setting the flash and the colors are very true and natural but the picture comes out fuzzy no matter what you do...either you move a little or the subject does (one mode is "party" and I would like to see the blurry fuzzy pictures of people dancing). If you don't use the flash in auto...you will also get slightly fuzzy pictures. I have spent hours color correcting my pictures and it is a lot of work. I would put up with it though if it would snap the darn pictures more quickly.

Also the photo cap is just completely "gimicky" and unnecessary. My daughter continuously wants to grab at it when I am trying to take a picture. It dangles within her reach. It also has ruined several shots I took of her laying down and I was standing over her and I did not see it hanging in the view...but in the image pic you see baby and right over her head a dark blob.

Battery life is very good. I can snap oodles of pics before charging. You can take clear detailed pictures up close if you use auto setting with the flash on.

This is an excellent camera, especially for those not too into the very expensive SLRs but still want good quality pictures. What i love the most is that it gives you the ability to store to CF cards. Its a big plus for me becuase i can interchange the card between the camera and my Clie PDA.

I bought this camera with very high expectations and for the most part it has done a good job. It takes wonderful pictures even in extremely dark areas with or without a flash. It captures beautiful color and detail has a great zoom and tons of options. The problem is unless you have a tripod with you at all times it is nearly impossible to get a good picture without any blur. This is not only from my experience, but also from friends and family who have used it as well. I even set it on a level rail and set the timer to take the picture and it came out blurred. So unless you want to carry a tripod all the time I would suggest buying one of the new Kodak cameras.

When you power on the Nikon 4300, it takes forever to be ready to take a picture (over 5 seconds). After you have taken one picture, you will have to wait another 5 second you can take another picture. So disappointed. -JP

I bought a Nikon Coolpix 4300 when it first came out, and from the very first day I found it not only gives me excellent photos but also is incredibly easy to use. We have a Canon Elph at work, and I can never remember how to view and trash the photos, but with the Nikon it's so intuitive that I was able to do everything without reading the manual. One of these days I will read the manual - I know there must be some features I'm not yet using - but I use this camera frequently and to date haven't been at a loss to do anything. It is also small and light, so I just leave it in my knapsack so it's available always. Downloading to the computer is also a snap. This is an excellent camera.

After spending over $450 on this camera, I expected it to last more than two years. It did give me great pictures while it lasted, but all of a sudden it died on me at the Grand Canyon. When I got home and called Nikon they told me that it sounded like a problem with the chip, and would probably cost around $200 to fix. I was shocked and disgusted. I read other on line reviews from people who had a similar problem. I think it is a flaw in this model, and if so, I think Nikon should be a little more flexible at helping us get it fixed. I will not buy another Nikon product again!

My family had a Nikon 4300 for a few years and we enjoyed it because of its small size and its photos weren't bad. However, we did come across some problems.

1. The shutter lag was utterly annoying and I missed a lot of photo oppurtunities.
2. It takes a long time to delete the photos.
3. Our lens got stuck or something and the camera gave us a "SYSTEM ERROR" in which the lens would not get pushed in our out.
4. Poor photos with low lighting (Very blurry), which includes indoors.
5. Battery life pretty short. Half of its energy was gone when I had the thing on for 20 minutes and I didn't have it on the whole 20 minutes.

I DID get some good photos from the camera. It's not as manual as I'd like it to be, but I recommend to get a lens protector to avoid the System Error. I tried the Canon S1 IS in Best Buy and it turned on really fast and took photos really fast indoors. Also it wasn't blurry!

Purchased the coolpix 4300 in March of 2004 and loved it. Great photos and loved the features. In mid June, just 15 months later, the zoom and focus died. Nikon wants a check for $249.00 mailed with the camera to even look at it. A local camera repair shop wants over $200.00. Cannot believe it when the camera was only 3 months post warranty. Have replaced it with a Canon A95 from Amazon for about the same price as the repair would have been but I lost some $260.00. To say the least I bought an extended warranty. Will never buy another dig camera without one. Is that not a shame???

This camera was my "step up" from a 2 megapixel camera. My first camera was also a CoolPix. Yes, this camera does have deficits (i.e., shutter lag time which is not great for kid shots). But at this current price, you will be very pleased with the quality of the end product. Although I do use manual controls, I have had fabulous results with Auto. I have taken pictures of my laughing, flailing grandson in the bathtub and the vividness and accuracy of water droplets and moving water is stupendous. I would rate this camera as "beginner." I have learned to select a camera which is beyond my capabilites. With rapid, advancing technology, the 4300 is in this category for the novice shootist who is interested in quality photos and quality product which can be edited in Photoshop Elements.

Plus's:Very good camera...easy to grip, good pictures at night.
Minus's:red-eye, longer time from one picture to another.

I loved my Coolpix, but being a gaget geek, I kept looking for bigger and better-more zoom, more pixels. I gave my beat up and battered baby to my teenage son, and "upgraded" to a camera I had researched as better. A year later, I am scrambling to get myself another Coolpix. My son uses it like crazy, and won't give it back. My mother, who is in her 60's and can't figure out how that mouse thing on the computer works, can operate it with no problems. My son won't give it to her, either. It will be a sad day when this model is no longer available.
One con: watch the battery door, this model has a bad habit of loosening at the battery door latch, which weakens the contact and causes battery life to decline drastically. Extra batteries on hand and duct tape pretty much will solve that, but that tape does make the camera a little less pretty!

I have this camera for 3 years. The image quality is OK, optics are good. Battery life is good. Now 3 years later cameras have bigger displays, but thats not a negative point for this camera as it came out in a time this size was usual.

The big bad thing with this camera is its respond time, and this really makes the good things pretty useless. It needs about 1-2 seconds from the moment I hit the shoot button until it actually takes the picture, and I have had so much occasion with peoples, where this ruined the take. Specially with kids, you have a good moment and shoot, but the picture is taken long after the good moment passed away. Also the time the camera needs to save the image after the take is extremely slow, there go other 10 good moments until the cam is ready again. Maybe the save file time can be shortened with a better highspeed flash card, the one I use is a standard card. But it will still be too much time to save the image. I am going now purchasing a Canon Powershot A710.

This camera is light weight and fairly smart with the auto-flash. I recommend using the highest photo quality (Fine) to approach film-like quality of moderate enlargements. Do buy a 256MB or larger CF card as the included card fills up rapidly. At the highest quality level (Fine), a 256MB card will hold about 300 photographs at 1600x1200. The actual picture, which is represented on the LCD, is larger than what is shown through the viewfinder at all optical zoom levels.

It is fairly easy to change between photographic modes in SCENE and take several shots of the same scene in fairly quick succession to compare how they treat the same light conditions. The digital zoom works well on horizontally/vertically linear objects such as text or buildings, but not so well on non-linear objects such as mountains.

The low battery warning icon comes on when the battery is about 1/3 depleted, but carrying a spare battery which is fully charged will get you nearly 3 hours of continuous photographing. My replacement/spare battery depletes at a slightly slower rate than the battery included with the camera.

My one problem/complaint is with the hyperactive auto-focus. In all of the modes I use, except Landscape, I have to semi-depress the shutter button for it to stop focusing back and forth through the object I am trying to photograph. The camera tends to focus through close objects, even in Close-up mode, and bring the background into focus instead of the flower/butterfly/bird/etc. that is the center and dominating portion of the image I am composing.

Love it.
Compact, great pictures, good for those that don't like to figure out settings, lighting, pixels, exposure, etc.
I especially like the "macro" setting that allows very close-up photography.
Software included lets you download to your computer so images can be saved, emailed, or kept on hosting sites.

This is the first digital camera I have ever purchased, and I have learned a lot since then.

1) Avoid cameras where the lens extends outward from the body! These are prone to many problems, ranging from impact to debris effecting its performance.

2) Make sure the camera suits your purpose, test it in the store if you can. If you want a camera to capture action, this IS NOT the camera for you.

For simple snap shots, this is not a bad camera, for action it is virtually useless.

I now have a Nikon D50, which is infinitely superior, and worth the extra $$$.

Just wanted to share that I've had this camera for 5 years now and it is still working great. It's got some scratches from being dropped a few times. We've used the camera for indoor and outdoors. Night use. Day use. Parties, schools, picnics, hikes, travelling abroad, halloween, christmas, family, business. This camera has been almost everywhere with us (except for underwater, ha!) Practical features too: Zoom in, sports shots, quick video clips, special effects shots, reduce back lighting and glare, timer, auto, manual, portrait, sunsets, and so many more.

Incidentally, over 20 years ago, I had my first Nikon camera, an FE. I didnt think that the lens of the simple coolpix could compare with the professional quality lenses I could place on my FE, but the ease of digital photography with the coolpix has more than compensated for its "amateur" level service. I have even been able to take some professional looking chiaroscuro images that hearkened back to my photography buff days. I was surprised and happy with the results.

We've even sent this camera in once for repair under warranty in its first year. It came back working better than ever(if not as it should have all along). Even my kids have gotten their turns with the coolpix. Yes, the battery has a short life, we have found that depending on use, we can get one day to 3 days of use on the battery life. We just charge it often and in between uses. So it still comes through for us despite the battery charging.

We have had an easy experience with the coolpix 4300. its filled up our photo albums and library both digital and printed. We have all enjoyed this camera for family and fun use.

We have just gotten a smaller, newer, more sophisticated and expensive Sony digital camera---I'm still on a wait and see mode on it. But, from durability alone, 5 years of use, I recommend the coolpix. And again, on ease of use and the immense and wide applications our whole family has and is still getting out of this camera, I highly recommend this and the coolpix family of nikon digital cameras.

I've had this camera for almost six years now and I have to say it's pretty durable. BUT the image display screen is painfully small (especially compared to some of the newer cameras) and everything this camera does takes FOREVER! It takes about 10-20 seconds between each shot to "think" and don't even ATTEMPT to delete pictures because that will take you up to a full minute for each picture! Plus, the batteries die very easily and it's kind of a hassle to charge the camera because the batteries must be taken out of the camera and plugged into a specific charger. This is much more inconvenient than the newer cameras, which tend to simply take AA batteries or else plug straight into the computer or wall. Also...this thing is very clunky and awkward. Not sleek at all.

That being said, the quality of the images taken on this camera tend to be very good! The close-up function can produce some very nice, finely detailed photos, and the coloring and light always seems good. I enjoy the end product of using this camera, but it really is a hassle most of the time, so for the easily-frustrated...this is not for you!

Also, I found in the instruction manual, hidden deep somewhere there, that it says you should take the batteries out of the camera when it is not in use and that that will help them last longer between chargings (which I've never done so perhaps that would've helped them not die so quickly).

This camera is designed for photographers of all levels, from a simple point and shoot to a complicated moving object and with just one button upload to the internet you will be on your way to greatness.