Similar in appearance to the 990, changes include a switch to a high-impact plastic case for the lens half of the swivel body, a pop-up flash to reduce red-eye by moving the bulb away from the lens, an increase in zoom capability to 4x, CompactFlash Type II compatibility and use of the EN-EL1 rechargeable Li-ion battery in place of the previous four AA batteries.

This allowed the user to rotate the lens with respect to the LCD screen and controls providing comfortable viewing in a wide range of shooting positions.

The swivel body also allowed a physically much larger lens to be packaged into the camera with a wide telephoto range and exceptional macro capabilities.

The diameter of the mounting ring happens to coincide with that of most clinical microscopes, resulting in the 9xx series becoming popular for hand-held eyepiece-projection photomicrography.

Photographic quality was considered excellent with some minor lens distortions and chromatic aberration.