I was on holiday and borrowed this from a friend. I was totally surprised by how light it was, easy to handle, the zoom was amazing and having the built in video was great. It would work on manual or preset but in either case the result was great.

Ease of use

Night shots weren't great

Originally I was going for the Nikon P510 or the Canon SX50. After checking both in the high street stores, there was not that much noticeable difference in the zoom of both cameras 50X compare to 42X for Nikon.

Nikon is one of the world's top brands when it comes to professional digital cameras, lens and equipment, and there's a reason for it: their high level DSLRs have consistently been the most feature packed and reliable, used by thousands of professional photographers all around the world.

The Nikon Coolpix P520 boasts the most powerful lens in Coolpix camera yet, incorporating a 42x optical zoom lens which provides an effective focal range of 24-1000mm.

Competition in the bridge camera market at the moment is pretty fierce. It's one of the only growing segments in the compact camera market, as users look for something much more advanced than their phone, especially in regards to zoom functionality.

Competition in the bridge camera market at the moment is pretty fierce. It's one of the only growing segments in the compact camera market, as users look for something much more advanced than their phone, especially in regards to zoom functionality.

42x zoom; Articulating; high-res screen; Full manual control

No raw capture; Limited EVF; No quick menu

The Nikon Coolpix P520 was announced in January 2013 and is a bridge camera with a 42x optical zoom lens, 18 megapixel backlit COMS sensor and a 3.2 inch vari-angle LCD screen.

42x optical zoom lens; Vari-angle LCD monitor; Full 1080p HD movie recording with stereo sound; Built-in GPS; 1cm minimum focusing distance; Auto HDR mode; Easy Panorama 360°/180°; 7 fps continuous shooting; Plenty of rubberised grip; Decent image quality and colour reproduction; Two year warranty

EVF is quite small and has a low resolution; Battery life expectancy is a little low; Slowish focusing and shutter response; Purple fringing and chromatic aberration in images when shooting at long lengths

Competition in the bridge camera market at the moment is pretty fierce. It's one of the only growing segments in the compact camera market, as users look for something much more advanced than their phone, especially in regards to zoom functionality.

The huge zoom range makes this a great bridge camera for the travelling photographer; Autofocusing, including macro focusing, is accurate, making it possible to photograph subjects from flowers to far-away wildlife well

With no raw capture available; flexibility in post-processing is limited; especially when it comes to removing those filters that seemed like a good idea at the time

More point-and-shoot than dSLR in terms of features and performance than some competing high-end megazooms, the Nikon Coolpix P520 is a very good camera for those after a big zoom range, better control over results, and fine picture quality.

Give the Nikon Coolpix P520 plenty of light and it can turn out some excellent photos throughout its 42x zoom range; It has a lot of shooting options for those who like to fiddle with settings or straight snapshooters; a nice flip-out rotating LCD; and built-in GPS and support for Nikon's Wi-Fi...

Its autofocus system is slow when the lens is zoomed in, especially when compared with other models in its class; battery life is short; and the camera feels cheaply constructed

This camera is my first step from digital compact towards SLR. I am delighted with it and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. I particularly like the zoom facility (good for close-ups of wildlife in the garden).

Great Features; Great Picture Quality; Lightweight; Simple Controls