Nikon Coolpix P900: First Impressions

If you read nothing else in this post, just know that I recommend this camera. It is fantastic. I'm very grateful to those on Twitter who responded to my tweet and recommended it to me. I could not be more pleased with my purchase so far.
I wanted to write an article to capture my initial enthusiasm before I begin to look a bit deeper into modes and settings. Consider this as a review rather than a how-to guide, because I'm still very much learning!

An initial disclaimer: I'm not a photographer - I know the photos I am posting wouldn't win any awards, but nor do I want them to. I am a birder with a camera. My main wish from my camera is that I can take a record shot (or slightly better) of the birds that I see and if the bird poses particularly nicely perhaps a photo that would be considered good.

The P900 fulfils this purpose and surpasses it. This is largely due to its most impressive feature, and the feature that I'm sure will have initially attracted any prospective buyer reading this - its zoom. 83x optical zoom on such an affordable camera is jaw-dropping.

Normally if I were to find an unusual bird and were able to take a photo of it, and that is a big if, it would be very much a case of I identify the bird with bins/scope and hope that it is close enough for photo good enough for others to confirm it. With the P900 its a different story. I have found myself photographing the bird as a means of identifying it. Taking a photo at full optical zoom and zooming further in on the photo itself, gives me identification range which pushes the capabilities of my Swarovski telescope.

Not an award-winning shot, but these Lapwings were taken at over 100m range on the far side of a field

For me, starting out with a camera was a rather daunting task. I didn't know which modes to use and how to get the best out if it. If you are nodding your head at this then I'd recommend you take a look at Gavin Haig's fantastic article on his blog about the setup he uses for his P900. I have followed his settings near exactly and have got on well with them so far.
Of course, I will test some alternatives myself, but at this early stage I have found Gavin's advice very useful.

I'd heard bad things about the P900's in-flight capabilities, being a bridge camera with a large zoom and a small sensor. But I've been pleasantly surprised. Following Gavin's suggestions on S Mode, avoiding full zoom and particularly fast-flying birds, I've had some good results including the Buzzard photo below.

My main piece of advice would probably be don't use the digital zoom. It forces autofocus and gives poor results. If you need to zoom more than the 83x optical, which frankly is unusual, then zooming it on the photo afterwards (once you have taken a nicely focused shot) provides better results. I am sure this is the case with all cameras though.
It is just that the incredible optical zoom range on the P900 means that taking a photo at full zoom and then zooming in offers the ability to identify birds at seriously incredible range.