The control panel is located on the top panel of the camera. It is actually a small LCD window:
This control panel contains the same information when the camera is in the A-REC mode and the M-REC mode. However, the PLAY mode only shows the battery icon.
The first and perhaps most important icon shown on the control panel is the battery icon:
When this icon shows halfway full, the battery power is getting weaker and changing batteries will be necessary very soon. When this icon shows an empty battery and is blinking, the batteries are too weak to permit taking photographs. The camera will soon become inoperable, and it is the time for changing batteries.
This number indicates the maximum number of photographs you can take if you do not change the quality (or resolution) and size of the photographs. This number is determined by the resolution and size of each photograph you take and the size of the CompactFlash memory card being used. Please refer to Selecting Image Quality and Image Size for further details.
This indicator shows the image quality and size being used. Please refer to Selecting Image Quality and Image Size for further details.
This mode indicator can be P for Program mode, A for Aperture Priority mode, or S for Shutter Priority mode. By default, when you turn on the camera, it is in the program mode, which could be the mode you will be using most frequently.
This shows the current flash mode. There are five flash settings discussed in The Built-in Flash. By default, the flash mode is AUTO as shown above. This means the built-in flash fires automatically if necessary.
Nikon's Coolpix 950 supports three exposure metering methods: 256-element matrix, spot, and center-weighted. The default method is the 256-element matrix method as shown above. Please refer to Exposure Metering Methods for further details.