5. Speed, Battery Life

4.5'' for booting 1.2'' for wide angle focus 1.5 to 3'' for telephoto focus 9'' wait in RAW 16'' in TIFF 2 to 3'' in JPEG HD

The Coolpix 8700 turns out to be quite slow. The figures speak for themselves, especially when compared to rival results. TIFF is obviously unusable in ordinary circumstances, which confirms our feeling that this camera is a studio wizard. The focusing time matches that of rivals, no more. We would have liked the access time to be shorter, as it restricts speed of response, but it's not a great problem.

A much bigger failing is the battery life, which we reckon is the real problem with the 8700. Other cameras let you take several hundred flash shots before the battery fails, but the lithium-ion one on the Nikon is a poor thing - fewer than 150 shots without flash before it expires is not good enough, and there's no defending it.