Digicam Pics: A VW Beetle with the Nikon Coolpix A

A 35mm equivalent focal length isn't normally my choice for shooting vehicle photos, but when you're driving along on a fine summer day in Indianapolis and spot a pristine vintage VW Beetle and all you have with you is the Nikon Coolpix A, well... needs must when the devil drives, as they say.

Digicam Pics: 1967 Imperial with the Nikon Coolpix A

With its fixed focal length 28mm-equivalent lens, the Nikon Coolpix A isn't my ideal of the perfect choice for car spotting pics, but when this Haze Green 1967 Imperial Crown hardtop sedan rolled past... well, needs must when the devil drives.

The Coolpix A was Nikon's entry in the large sensor compact hipster street photography category, back in 2013. It basically packs the 16MP APS-C sensor from the D7000 DSLR into a shirt-pocket size point & shoot with a crisp, fast Nikkor 18.5mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens. It has the full array of PASM shooting modes, a hot shoe, and the ability to shoot RAW, of course. On the downside, it takes a sec to deploy its lens when initially powered up, and lacks any sort of viewfinder, either optical or electronic. While it stacked up well against the Ricoh GR, the downchecks kept it from really challenging the Fujifilm X100 series, which remain the dominant digicams in that niche.

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