Nikon CoolPix 300 (1996)

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The Nikon CoolPix 300 was announced and demonstrated around the same time as the CoolPix 100 on 1996-06-21. Nikon initially expected to sell 60,000 units per year. The camera was a total novelty at the time and was unmatched. It was basically a PDA with a digital camera. It had a large 2.5" TFT viewfinder, optical viewfinder, memo function, touch screen, pen, playback function, freehand writing, audio recording and 4MB internal memory, which was a lot back then actually.

The camera was entirely business oriented. This was not a beginners digicam or something for the average user switching from film to filmless photography. More versatile users could take snapshots, record voice memos, draw hand-written memos or make annotations along with the images. Images and memos however were stored separately and were merged when the images were transferred to a computer. This could be done by serial connection and even by SCSI!

By turning on the camera one was greeted with a welcome message and a status screen. Sadly this screen dissappears after a few seconds and cannot be invoked anymore except by turning the camera off and on again. Language settings was possible in four different languages, english, french, german and japanese.

As mentioned in the Nikon Coolpix 100 entry, the Tripod Mount Adapter ET-1 was one of few accessoires for the Coolpix 300.