Nikon's 2005 pocket compact — 7.1MP 1/1.8in CCD, 3x 38-114mm ED lens, EN-EL5 power, SD storage.
The Nikon Coolpix 7900 was a 7-megapixel pocket compact announced in February 2005 alongside the 5-megapixel Coolpix 5900, sitting near the top of Nikon's mainstream compact line. It offered one of the higher pixel counts available in a true shirt-pocket camera at the time.
The 7900 paired a 7.1-megapixel 1/1.8-inch CCD with a 3x Zoom-Nikkor ED lens covering a 38-114mm equivalent range at f/2.8-4.9, the ED glass helping control colour fringing. A 2.0-inch LCD handled framing, shutter speeds ran from 4 seconds to 1/2000, and Nikon's feature set included face-priority AF, D-Lighting shadow recovery, in-camera red-eye fix and a Blur Warning that flagged soft shots as they were taken. A generous buffer allowed bursts of 21 or more full-resolution frames. It stored images on SD cards and ran on the rechargeable EN-EL5 lithium-ion battery with the MH-61 charger.
As a used buy it suits anyone after a compact CCD-era camera with a bit more sensor than the typical 1/2.5-inch compacts of the day — the larger 1/1.8-inch chip and ED lens gave it strong image quality for its class. The 38mm wide end is tighter than modern compacts, so it favours people, street and detail shots over sweeping interiors, and there is no optical stabilisation, so light matters.
When buying, confirm an EN-EL5 battery and MH-61 (or USB-type third-party) charger come with it — EN-EL5 cells were shared across many Coolpix models and replacements are still easy to source. Plain SD cards work fine. Check the retracting lens cycles cleanly, look for dead pixels on the 2-inch screen, and take a dark-frame test shot to spot CCD hot pixels on a camera now two decades old.