A review of the Nikon Coolpix S10 digital camera
The designers at Nikon were having a good day when they masterminded this creation. Although they released the swivel design many moons ago, it has always been a winner, which is why we think they have brought us the Nikon Coolpix S10 as it is a much more modern version of the 900 series of Coolpix. It seems to work well and to those who aren’t familiar with the 900 series, we’re sure, will be intrigued to find out how successful it really is. Design |
| It goes without saying that the Nikon Coolpix S10 has a very different design to your average ultra compact digital camera. The camera is split into two halves, one holding the 10x zoom and the other has the LCD screen and other function buttons. The camera then swivels in the middle with the idea that you can for example, hold the camera over a crowd of people to aim at a subject and swivel the LCD down so that you can see your subject. The front of the camera (when not in swivel mode) has nothing on it apart from the name. On the top of the camera is the lens, flash, power button, shutter release button and zoon rocker. We think the zoom rocker is in a great place next to the shutter release as you can move it with your finger when zooming and then move your finger across slightly and take the shot. On the back of the camera there is the VR (Vibration Reduction) button and playback button on the lens barrel and on the other half is the 2.5” LCD screen with all other controls located just above it. This doesn’t seem to work as well as the controls being at the side of the LCD as when you are pressing the buttons your hand is in front of the LCD restricting your view, but we suppose Nikon had no choice than to put them above the LCD because the camera is split in half due to the swivel mechanism. The cameras dimensions are 112.5mm (w) x 74.5mm (h) x 40.5mm (d) and it weighs 220g without its batteries so its not the smallest or lightest ultra compact digital camera around. |
| Features |
| The Nikon Coolpix S10 has 6 mega pixels and very impressive 10x Nikkor lens. It also has VR (Vibration Reduction), which automatically corrects camera shake to ensure you achieve clear and sharp results. A high sensitivity feature of up to 800 ISO is a great addition to the Coolpix S10 although we did find that images over 400 ISO were blurry and had quite a bit of digital noise, they also lacked in detail. Images were near unusable at 800 ISO and 6x4 was the biggest print that was passable. Nikon have included the Best Shot Selector with the Coolpix S10, which really like as it will choose the most desirable shot out of a series and select the image with the least under or over exposure and blur or a mixture of all three. There is a One-touch Portrait button that links you straight to the Face Priority function (which focuses on faces), D-Lighting (corrects under-exposure) and Eye-Fix (corrects red-eye) which we found to be extremely handy and saves space on your memory card as you only have optimum images and no second and third attempts which were not quite right. |
| Performance |
| The Nikon Coolpix S10 showed us to be a cool and competitive performer in most areas. It took around 1.8 seconds to start up and take the first shot and then approximately 2 seconds between each shot thereafter, without the flash. With the flash on it was only slightly delayed to 2.3 seconds and in brighter lighting conditions the shutter lag was a nippy 0.5 seconds. We were quite impressed with images taken with the Coolpix S10 as they had lots of fine details and colours were absolutely true and bright. There was very minimal fringing and digital noise. The 2.5” LCD has a whopping 230,000 dot TFT which makes the screen amazingly clear and bright and makes you want to call people over to have a look, honest we did. We recommend that you invest in a large SD memory card as the cameras internal memory of 16mb, only hold about 5 shots. The Nikon Coolpix S10 uses a Lithium-Ion battery compared to the AA batteries of the older S4 and we got a remarkable 300 shots from it. This is just above average for a compact digital camera today. |
| What's In The Box? |
| Rechargeable lithium-ion battery, Battery charger, Lens cap, Wrist strap, USB cable, A/V cable, CD-ROM featuring Nikon PictureProject, Manual. |
| Overall Opinion |
Although it makes a nice change to see a different design to a digital camera, we’re not sure that we would buy this instead of the fixed body cameras. It performed well but not above average and for £230 (approx) it really should. |
| By Hayley Malyon |
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Pros + 10x zoom + 6 mega pixels + 2.5” LCD 230,000dot TFT + Vibration Reduction |
Cons |
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Picture Quality 9/10
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Battery Life 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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27/11/2006
at 3:29:40pm
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Nikon Coolpix S10 Review I was very pleased with the Nikon Coolpix S10. Picture quality was impressive and the camera is easy to use compared to other super zoom digital cameras. It is also smaller and more compact than other similar models. Recommended... read | |||
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12/4/2007 6:53:00pm
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Nikon Coolpix S10 Video Guide The Nikon Coolpix S10 is a super zoom digital camera with a compact body size. Main attractions include a lens that rotates through two hundred and seventy degrees. This can help you when shooting at difficult angles. This short video walks you through all the main features... read | |||
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17/4/2007 10:47:00am
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