A review of the Nikon Coolpix L2 digital camera
Nikon are well known for producing a great range of digital cameras for all types of consumer and with three different varieties to suit any user you can choose from Style, Performance or Life. The Nikon Coolpix L2 falls into the Life category, which is aimed at the family user who requires a simple, budget digital camera for everyday life. Design |
| The Nikon Coolpix L2 has an elegant sleek, silver body with a nice curve shape, which assists in holding the camera. The body feels quite chunky to hold but also solid and sturdy with a disillusioning weight of only 120g unloaded. The dimensions are 91mm (w) x 60.5mm (h) x 26mm (d) so it is definitely pocket sized and can go anywhere with you. The front of the camera has very minimal features with the 3x optical zoom lens dominating the space. There is a flash above it and a self-timer light. The top of the camera has a shutter release button and a power button, which are both mounted on a shiny chrome panel. The back of the camera has most of the action with the small 2” LCD screen to the left and controls to the right. There is a zoom rocker at the top with the menu panel below. There are three shortcut buttons: menu, display and delete which come is rather handy and a mode switch at the bottom. Some digital cameras have the mode dial on top of the camera but we prefer it on the back like this so you don’t have to keep moving the camera round when changing the mode. There is a compartment on the bottom of the camera, which hosts the battery and memory card. In all, it has a nice rounded silver body and all controls are in easy reach while shooting. |
| Features |
| The Nikon Coolpix L2 has 6 mega pixels and a 3x optical zoom so you be assured that some great results are coming your way. There is the fantastic Face Priority feature on this model, which will automatically focus on faces within your image and ensure that they are correctly focused and clear so you an avoid blurry faces when it comes to printing. The effective D-lighting function will select and create a copy of an image that has excessive backlight and add light and detail wherever needed while retaining the rest of the image as it were. There are 15 scene modes to choose from so everyday situations can be improved with desired effects achieved. The Nikon Coolpix L2 can also shoot movies and play them back in a variety of sizes to suit your needs. They can play back in wide screen or computer size and even two smaller sizes for Internet use. It’s so annoying when we get our photos and everyone we know look like devils from hell with red-eye, well not any more as there is a clever function called red-eye fix which will automatically detect red-eye in an image and correct it before you go to print. |
| Performance |
| Although the Coolpix L2 is a relatively simple camera, it provided us with some spectacular results that we were not really expecting (to be honest). The images that we achieved were of a particularly high standard and colours were accurate and crisp. There was minimal purple fringing that is hardly worth mentioning and white balance did bleach out some lighter colours. Unfortunately, the speed of the camera was not as impressive as we should have used an alarm clock to wake this baby up with a start-up to shoot time of 4.5 seconds and we timed around 7 seconds between shots which was just miserable. However, the shutter lag time was pretty snappy at 0.9 seconds. The disappointing timings were such a shame as the Nikon Coolpix L2 would have been a great ‘Life’ camera for all the family to use. In order to take pictures of your kids or pets you can forget using this camera as you will need something much faster. |
| What's In The Box? |
| Rechargeable Ni-MH Battery EN-MH1 x 2, Battery Charger MH-71, USB Cable UC-E6, Audio Video Cable EG-CP14, Strap, PictureProject CD-ROM |
| Overall Opinion |
The Nikon Coolpix L2 is a good 6 mega pixel digital camera that produces high quality pictures with accurate and crisp colours. It's simple to use and has a very friendly user interface. On the down side, the start up time and the time between shots could be a bit shorter. |
| By Hayley Malyon |
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Pros + Good features + Solid body + 6 mega pixels + Good clear LCD + Good images |
Cons - Poor timing performance |
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Battery Life 8/10
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Picture Quality 9/10
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Setup Simplicity 8/10
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Build Quality 8/10
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Ease of Use 8/10
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Overall Rating 
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15/12/2006
at 5:07:30pm
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