There is a whole category of camera users who could give a hoot about ruggedness, matrix metering, or hyper-fast motor drives. These folks recognize that the quality from most point and shoot cameras leaves something to be desired and they want something better. 

They’re not buying a camera because they’re passionate about photography. They’re buying a camera to capture their kids first time at bat in Little League or take on family vacations. In this category, ease of use and light weight triumph over speed and features. Enter the N55. 

Compared to the N65 currently in Nikon’s lineup, the N55 has far fewer features and is lighter in weight. Compared to competitors such as the Maxxum 5 or even its big brother the N65, the N55 gives users far less capability to experiment with more advanced techniques. 

But those of us who see this as a drawback aren’t looking at it from the perspective of the folks buying this camera. The N55 is aimed at precisely those who don’t want to know about advanced features, folks who want to let the camera worry about everything – and since these folks are shooting print film there is a fair amount of latitude built in. 

Used this way the camera requires little photo knowledge and will generally make sound decisions about shutter speed and f-stop. You won’t have Dean Collins or Art Wolfe fearing for their jobs but you won’t make any gross errors either. Exposures will be right in the ballpark with print film and will yield results that will enable any lab to make a good print. 

The flash pops up automatically when needed in auto or vari-program modes (except when you’re using landscape or sports modes) and the auto focus assist light comes on to help the camera find focus in low light conditions. This light also acts as a red eye reduction light and, bless you Nikon, the light doesn’t strobe the way some others do. 

The built in flash is relatively weak (as are most on-camera flash units in this category) making it useful for family portraits but little else. An interesting design decision was to make the on-camera flash TTL, but if you use an optional speedlight with the N55 you’ll find that it will only work in non-TTL mode! You can speculate that Nikon doesn’t expect the entry-level buyer to be in the market for a $300 add-on speedlight and in fairness they’re probably right. 

The most serious drawback to the built in flash is that it doesn’t do a great job. Most flash systems tend to be a little hot for my taste but the N55's flash produced noticeably blown out highlights in many cases and a good number of our flash photos needed some tweaking to get a good image. There is no flash compensation adjustment. 

Should you decide that the meter might be fooled you can set exposure compensation using a button adjacent to the shutter release or bracketing with another small button adjacent to the lens. While those of us with big hands are rarely fans of functions operated by small buttons those on the N55 were easy to operate and were spaced well apart to prevent accidental button pushes. 

On a day at Longwood Gardens with my nieces I was able to put the camera in program mode and let them experiment. They had a ball taking pictures of each other and had no problems using the camera. It’s that simple. The 28mm to 80mm G zoom lens included with the camera provided reasonably sharp images and covers a useful range. 

A nice feature showing up on most new cameras today is the built in diopter adjustment. I never gave much thought to this feature until recently. But suddenly as my eyes approach forty years it’s a very important feature indeed. 

Switching to a Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens for a little league game produced pleasing close-ups of the future hall of famers, and sports mode allowed me to take some “action” shots. The maximum shutter speed of 1/2000^th of a second is fast enough to freeze the action. In this mode the camera automatically detects motion and switches to continuous focus. Missing at this level however is Nikon’s impressive focus tracking with lock on. This means that if something comes between you and your subject, such as someone standing between you and a base runner, the camera may momentarily lose focus. You can also choose between three focus points by depressing a button adjacent to the shutter release and rotating the command dial. A surprise though was that the N55 had problems driving this common consumer lens. More on that in a minute. 

When swapping lenses you’ll notice the lens mount on the N55 is polycarbonate rather than metal. There has been a lot of hype written about metal vs. composite lens mounts in online newsgroups and you may hear similar tales from behind the sales counter at the camera store. This seems to be a particularly touchy issue among the “Nikon Faithful” for some reason. In reality it doesn’t matter a bit. 

If you’re a professional or serious amateur who is constantly swapping lenses, or if you’re using 400mm f2.8 monsters, a metal mount is a necessity. But many of the folks buying this camera will buy it with one lens, either the 28-80mm lens in this kit or with someone’s 28-200mm zoom. Once that lens is mounted they’ll likely leave it mounted for the life of the camera. For those folks, or even for those with two lenses who swap them occasionally, the composite mount is more than adequate and will likely show no signs of wear for the life of the camera. 

Speaking of lenses. It became obvious pretty quickly that this camera was designed for use with lightweight G lenses. When shooting with a Sigma 70-300mm lens (also sold as a Quantary) the camera struggled not only to focus, but also to drive the heavier lens. It faired better with a 28-105mm zoom but it really had trouble with an 80-400mm. I concede that not many N55 buyers will be fitting $1,400 vibration reduction lenses. But the 70-300mm Sigma is targeted at this market and it’s not inconceivable that N55 owners would purchase such a lens. 

Manuals are important in entry-level cameras, and in the past were often treated as something of an afterthought. The good news is that manuals have gotten much better and Nikon’s are no exception. The N55 manual is written with the novice photographer in mind. Among the useful features for the novice photography are the "tips" under each section. First is the explanation of how that feature works. Then a “tip” that explains what that feature can do for you. This format has become popular in how-to books recently and it works just as well in camera manuals.

Special thanks to our models for this article Ashley and Christina White the  "giggle twins". 

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