The Coolpix 990 was announced in January of 2000 by Nikon, heralding the new millennium with a 3.34 megapixel sensor.
Interestingly, the 3.34MP 1/1.8" CCD sensor was manufactured by Sony, who would use it in their own Cyber-shot DSC-S70, released later that same year, and sell it to other camera manufacturers as well, such as Olympus, who used it as the centerpiece of their Camedia C-3030 Zoom. Both Sony and Olympus marked their cameras with "3.3 Megapixel" badges, but Nikon wrung every kilopixel out of the 990's marketing, emblazoning the front of the Coolpix's body with a sticker reading "3.34 Megapixels".
Not only was this new 3.3MP sensor higher in resolution than the 1.2MP sensor in the '99-vintage Mavica, it was physically larger, measuring almost 9mm diagonally versus the 6mm diagonal CCD in the Sony.
While it was labeled a 1/1.8" sensor, this didn't correspond to any actual physical dimension, but was a holdover from analog video tube days. Despite having a bigger, higher resolution sensor, the Coolpix 990 boasted an MSRP a hundred dollars less than the Mavica FD-88; Moore's law was marching on.
Powered down, the Coolpix 990 was about the size and shape of a modern compact crop-sensor DSLR body.
It featured a body style that had begun with the original 1MP Coolpix 900 of 1998 and 1999's 2MP Coolpix 950. The controls and LCD monitor were all in the side of the body that had the handgrip. The lens and optical viewfinder were in the other half of the body, and it...pivoted!
The lens assembly could be rotated through more than 180 degrees. You could hold it in front of your face and use the optical viewfinder, or you could shoot using the screen for live view and hold it over your head or at waist level or wherever you needed by twisting the grip. After the demise of these two-piece Coolpix models, this feature would be missed until tilting or articulated LCD screens started becoming commonplace again a decade or more later.
The construction was rugged, with a magnesium body shell that gave a solid feeling.
Most of all, that 3.34MP sensor was about as high-res as you could get in 2000AD, equaling that of Canon's first all in-house DSLR, the 3MP D30, which cost three grand for the body alone, lens not included.
What does 3.34MP look like? About like this...
3 comments:
That was my first digicam that actually produced what I thought of at the time as "usable" photos. I must have wrung over 100K frames out of that thing. Loved it!
My wife and I got married in 2001. 3 Mp was her threshold to go digital.
She got her first digital camera right after out wedding. All I remember about it was that it was an Olympus, so it probably had that chip.
A few months later she gave her darkroom equipment and enlarger to her friend. She's never regretted it.
ScribblersDad,
I remember being impressed with the difference in dynamic range between it and the Sony it replaced. The Sony was fine for taking pictures of guns for the internet, but the Nikon actually had some pop for shooting sunsets or fall colors.
Nathan,
Probably the C3030, yup. Going back and reading the old reviews is a reminder of what a big deal the 3MP threshold was.
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