"I own both the 8800 and 8400. The cameras are identical except for the zoom and the image stabalization on the 8800. If you shoot mostly landscapes, get the 8400, the wide angle on it is the best around.
THIS IS NOT A POINT AND SHOOT CAMERA.
Don't expect to zoom to 10x and take a good picture in anything less than bright light. You will need some support, ideally a tripod. This isn't a problem with the camera, it is basic physics. No other camera is this category will do any better. The image stabalization helps, but will not fix everything. Make sure your expectations are reasonable and this camera will exceed those expectations. You will be unhappy if you think you can use this or any 8x, 10x+ camera handheld in any light or zoom length.
You'll get great images with either the Extra or Fine mode (jpg).
Stay away from the Hi (Tif format), there is no benefit and it takes forever to save. The resulting file is huge.
RAW is excellent, but slow to save. You can put it in burst mode and take several images while it is saving.
There is no CF card included with the camera. Get at least a 12x or better CF card. The Sandisk Ultra or equivelant work very well. You'll want a 512 or better if shooting at the largest images size and quality. A 512 will hold about 67 images at 2592 x 1944 in Extra, 45 at RAW and 124 at Fine. I'd recommend two 512 cards rather than one 1GB. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Use a card reader, don't plug the camera into the computer, it is an accident waiting to happen if you catch the cord on something.
That being said, you'll be amazed at the quality of the images this camera can take as well as the flexibility. You'd have to have a handful of lenses to achieve what this camera can do.
It is not pocket sized (unless you have large pockets).
You can buy Nikon filters or get an adapter and put any filter on it.
The batteries last forever on a charge, but get an extra one for a full day of shooting.
A lens hood is a useful accessory.
Both the 8400 and 8800 are IR capable with a Hoya R27 filter.
Check the Nikon Talk forum at (...) or the Nikon 8mp forum on Yahoo for more information on these cameras. "

    "I have owned every coolpix from the 900 to this one. Every time they come out with a new model, I sell the old, and buy the new. There are always some new feature I'd like to have, items on my wish list that have been answered. (Some of my best shots were taken with the 900 1MP model.) I certainly miss the smaller twist models (last:4500).

The good: I'm comparing mostly with the more recent coolpix models, not similar cameras from other manufacturers. I could go into why I've stuck with Nikon, but that's another story. Nikon has wisely taken their most often used controls away from an inconvient buried menu and put in on a dial right net to the shutter release. The have threaded the front lens mount for easier use of lens add-ons. (the 5700 and 8700 require slide on adaptors). the Vibration Reduction was a big upgrading feature for me. Past owned coolpixes: you're taking a shot of people outdoors in shade. The coolpix wants to use the flash. You disable the flash and find that your resultant shots are blurry. Agggrhhh!!! The VR helps in this respect. I've pushed the use of this feature, and its certainly not a miracle worker, but an improvement. The 10X zoom lens is a real winner- keeps away the temptation to use an add-on tele conversion lens. The short movie feature is better in quality than past cameras and very handy. There is a new battery model- needed for the more power hungry 8800. If your coming from a smaller MP camera, the 8MP's value is in allowing you to crop in software and still get a sharp print. Also for making very large enlargments. For regular snapshots and email/web photos it is gross overkill. There is a remote control which is nice for taking slow shutter speed shots and the times when the photographer wants to get in the picture without having to run like the devil before the self timer releases. For those not familiar with the coolpix line, the build is excellent, the camera is comfortable, the close ups breathtaking, the photos are very sharp, the features are numerous. The monitor swivel is very handy- i'd say indespensible. This is a choice if you want the top without getting into interchangable lenses and the expense and inconvenience of same.

The bad: The 8800 is a tad larger than the 8700, but just enough to make it feel bulky. The 8700 felt perfect. The shutter delay is still annoying. The low light functionality is still inferior. The manual mode is still relatively useless. (It would be great to be able to focus and zoom the lens by turning the lens barrel like you could in prehistoric times. The monitor is a tad small for a camera of this size. And the auto exposure has a tendancy for too much, forcing you to manually under compensate (easy to do, but annoying to have to do) in many lighting conditions.

Necessary add-ons: Nikon makes a great $25(?) leather case. An additional battery (the after market ones for other Coolpix cameras were good enough, but not available yet for the 8800). A filter lens cover (so you are cleaning that and not the lens). And a Birt Sirkin CheatSheet. And you might consider buying (eventually) one of those real small (e.g. Casio) cameras as a pocket model when your photo needs are light.

General complaint about digital cameras: Low light sensitivity. What's this 'noise' BS. This is (almost) 2005. We should be shooting at ISO 1200 with no noise. "

    "I own a D70 and bought the 8800 for my wife. Initially she was very resistant to use the camera because it can be somewhat intimidating what with all that extra text in the viewfinder and the buttons and modes.

With time, she warmed up to the camera and now loves it. The VR stabilized zoom is a critical plus feature with the VR making a noticable difference.

The camera takes great pictures in Auto in a variety of situations and it does a pretty amazing job of figuring out what the exposure should be for some pretty hairy conditions. (Ironically this seems to be even better than my D70, but this is only an impression, not a calibrated fact). We have not tried to use some of the more advanced features of this camera, but "Movie Mode" works well. I don't know why 640X480 60FPS mode has a 60 second limit though. (It must have something to do with write buffering, because when you finish a 60 second clip, the camera goes busy for QUITE some time.) The bottom line is that you can get a lot of great pictures with this camera just leaving it on "auto".

There are two caveats about this camera that cause me to only give this four stars. The first is that the camera is slow, particularly to focus. In fact, this slowness is the real reason it took so long for my wife to get used to it. By the time you have framed the shot of the kids and the camera goes through the full range of focus, the moment is gone. By comparison with my D70 in rapid fire mode, I have turned the camera on, zoomed to size and taken a half dozen shots. (One of those 6 pictures "worked" vs. zero with the 8800.) Once you learn to manage the "half depression" for the take button, you can somewhat compensate, but it is not intuitive operation.

The second caveat is not so much of an issue as it is something to be aware of. For some evil reason only known to the cruel marketing folks at Nikon, they made an incompatible (with the D70 that is...) battery pack for this camera. There is no "real" reason Nikon cannot use a common battery pack across several camera models, they just do not. This is important because this unit goes through a charge at BREATHTAKING speed. It is entirely possible to be outdoors in a nature environment and need to change the battery over the course of a single day. If you buy this camera, be *sure* to also buy an additional battery (maybe even two) and if you go on vacation, be sure to remember to bring the charger and charge the battery(ies) fresh each night. (A simple international plug adapter works fine as this is a broad range international charger.) Contrast this with my D70 which only required a recharge once a week (*and* I took three times more pictures...). Whereas I wasted my money buying an extra battery for the D70 (a simple charge each day works fine), for the 8800 this extra battery is essential and if you do not buy one or forget to bring it along, I *guarantee* that you will run out of power.

Other than these two caveats, it is a great unit.

****

Well, a third caveat which would cause me to drop the number of stars to two but I cannot as amazon won't let me. We too have been victims of the Coolpix 8800 "lens error". We sent it in for warranty repair, and they fixed it but sent it back with the page of the manual highlighted about how you are supposed to keep the lens barrel clean.

Gee whiz, thanks for the tip, Nikon.

P.S. Nikon: the lens barrel *was* clean...

We went on vacation after the warranty service and yet again got the maddening lens error. I discovered, by an act of sheer frustration and desperation, that to work around this you need to mechanically disturb the lens. One reviewer mentioned that they grabbed the lens. This strikes me as being a bad idea and you are likely to break something. What worked for me was to turn the power on, and while the lens was extending, immediately activate the telephoto followed by wide angle, and cycle it back and forth. This seemed to "clean" the already clean lens barrel.

Based on the number of comments about this and based on the fact that when we encountered the problem any reasonable person would have concluded that the lens barrel *was* clean, I have to conclude that Nikon's expectation is that this camera was designed to be operated in a "class 1 clean room".

However in the real world where you carefully protect it from the elements, it might miss-behave.
"

    "I consider myself a typical prosumer photographer (if such a thing exists) -- I have had several digital cameras over the past 3 or 4 years from 1MP, 2MP 3.2MP, 5.1MP and now this 8MP wonder. It produces quality shots with a "virtual" SLR viewfinder; unless your stubbornly dogmatic about needing a "real" dSLR, this camera is equal to, if not better than, most dSLRs that cost 2-3 times as much. The only place where a dSLR might prove more advantageous would be for the photographer who is looking to take alot of VERY FAST moving action, such as war correspondents and sports journalists. Considering the vast majority of professional photographers do everything else - from wedding/portrait photography, macro photography, wildlife, etc. - this camera equals and exceeds its pricier kin manyfold. I would also remind everyone that the megapixel value is higher on this than on most dSLRs, and the noise is almost non-existent except in severely bad (I mean SEVERELY bad) lighting conditions. Tip: use lumatix and autobracketing, coupled with Photo Ninja on your pics and you will rarely ever have a bad photo (technically, not compositionally) as it pertains to exposure and grain/luminance noise. Final verdict: this one beats out all the other 8MP models and fulfils 90%+ of the professional photographer's needs as well or better than the pricier (and lower MP) 4-6MP dSLR's do (except for very-fast-moving photo work, which is only an issue if your a photojournalist in all likelyhood.) "

    "I have owned the Nikon 8800 for two months now and I do love this camera--sharp photos, accurate color, and good ergonomics. Very well-built. This is a very feature-rich camera and I am still trying various features. Mostly I have been taking photos (about 1800 already) in both Program mode and Aperture Priority mode and getting to know the camera.

I don't really have much problem with the auto focusing. I owned the 5700 before this and several other Nikon digitals. While the Nikon uses a contrast-based focusing system, this particular camera has a very effective focus assist light that allows good low light focusing, even in a completely dark room. Focusing in general is very quick, though the camera hunts just a little at full tele. Shutter lag is minimal but this camera is a little slow in writing to card. The use of Quick Response, though, allows you to take immediate shots if you do not need to refocus (though you can recompose) and there are a variety of continuous modes so this is a minimal problem for me in the type of photography I do, even when taking photos of my husband riding his bicycle (Panning with him in focus and background blurred). I take most of my indoor photos near wide angle and I choose to turn off the 9-point area focus system. If this is on, the camera has a smaller area to try to focus in. I tend to use an exposure of a minus 1/3 outdoors and a plus 1/3 indoors.

Outdoors the 10X stabilized lens is fun and the VR stabilization technology works very well.

Photo quality is very high and there is very low noise at ISO 50. I do not usually need to use an antinoise program on my photos unless I use the higher ISOs.

TTL focusing is possible with the SB600 or SB800 external flashes. You can use all the features except the focus assist of these flashes, but you already have a good focus assist light on the camera.

Negatives? I find the placement of the function button awkward, but all the other buttons and dials are very well placed. Also, Nikon is slow in getting accessories available for us. While the Nikon filters are an odd size, most of us have chosen to use a filter adaptor from nextphoto.com which allows the use of generic filters. I find the zooming mechanism a little jerky. And there is a little barrel distortion at wide angle, not a problem in my photos. CA including PF have really not been a problem for me.

I rate this camera very highly! "