You HAVE to see this! The Nikon Coolpix P1100's 24-3000mm zoom range is bonkers

Crazy as it seems, the Nikon Coolpix P1100 is one of the hottest cameras around right now. And I'm glad, because I love the P1100 – and I especially love its party piece: its ludicrous 125x optical zoom, giving it an effective focal range of 24-3000mm.

That's just bonkers. And so is the fact that, only a few years ago, bridge cameras looked like they were going extinct. But today, the Nikon Coolpix P1100 is so popular that it's been on back-order since launch – and, just like the compact camera renaissance, there's new life in this brilliant camera category.

I still fondly recall the first time I ever used the Nikon Coolpix P1100's predecessor, the P1000. I was sitting outside a café in Cologne, Germany, with our lab manager Ben Andrews. He was reviewing the camera and brought it to the last ever Photokina, sacrificing precious hand luggage space to do so.

"Look at the moon," he told me, where I obviously craned my neck up at the sky. "No, look at the moon on this," he said, thrusting the camera in my direction. It was like he'd mounted a camera to a telescope – even in broad daylight, the amount of detail was jaw-dropping. And the Nikon Coolpix P1100, which is effectively the same camera, is every bit as bonkers.

Obviously they weren't reference-quality photos. After all, both the Nikon Coolpix P1100 and P1000 are built around a 16MP 1/2.3-in sensor that tops out at ISO6400. But that's not what this camera is about. Take a look for yourself:

See the incredible zoom reach…

Look at these images above, look at the utterly ridiculous zoom range – THAT is what the Nikon Coolpix P1100 is about. The zoom enables you to go from a panoramic view of the city, to a close-up detail of the abbey that is half a mile away (800m).

In a world where we're wowed by more conventional specs – megapixels, dynamic range, burst rate, image stabilization – we forget that the most useful thing on any camera is the ability to "get a bit closer". And that's exactly what the Nikon Coolpix P1100 does.

Camera snobs may turn their noses up at cameras like this, but it is targeted at very different user bases – parents who want to photograph their kids' soccer games, bird spotters who want to identify animals, general purpose shooters who just want a camera with the longest reach possible. Heck, it's aimed at people who don't own a camera at all – not the sniffy Nikon Z9 user.

And that's where bridge cameras like the Nikon Coolpix P1100 come into their element. They may not win you many photo awards, but they'll get you the photos that no other camera can.

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You won't get the same range or reach, but take a look at the best Nikon cameras and the best superzoom lenses for Nikon cameras for an interchangeable lens equivalent!