Product Review of the Nikon CoolPix S4

The Nikon Coolpix S4 is the latest offering from The Photography giant Nikon. The S4 has a unique swivel design in super-zoom category of digital cameras. It may not be the best but at this price it has loads of features to be explored by the casual photographer.

Description:

When the S4 arrived at my doorstep and I opened it up I was like WOW. The S4 has such a fine finish and curves that it looks more of a decoration item than a camera. Its metal clad brushed steel and chrome finish is worth mentioning. Although the case is made of plastic, it looks like metal and this explains the light weight of the S4. The most important feature regarding the design of the camera is the Swivel lens; it makes the camera very compact as compared to other cameras with similar specifications. The buttons on the S4 are easy to use and conveniently placed. On the topic of the lens there isn't much to say. It's a standard 10x Zoom-Nikon with 12 elements in 9 groups. The diameter of the lens is a bit small as compared to other Super zooms but so the S4 isn't quite the best of both worlds. The S4 comes with 13.5MB of internal memory and an expansion slot for SD/MMC cards is built in. It has 15 scene modes (which is pretty standard) naming Portrait Assist, Landscape Assist, Sports, Sport Composite, Night Portrait, Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Close-up, Museum, Fireworks Show, Copy, Back Light, Panorama Assist. One feature that should be explained here is the "Copy" scene mode. It captures the image in black and white so that text or printed materials are clear. The movie mode is very mediocre with having only 15 fps. The monitor found on the S4 is of good quality and is usable under most lighting conditions but it does solarize much when you view it at an angle. The image results were a bit disappointing for such a nice and handy camera. Daylight shots revealed low noise as well as good color saturation and color accuracy. There was a little fringing, though. When shooting dark objects against the sky prominent purple fringing occurred. The flash had good coverage, but the resulting image was contrasty and slightly underexposed. The flash shots revealed little noise but did show some fringing, and there was too much Contrast in the image. I also found a bit of the usual barrel distortion, though no pin cushioning. The video mode of the camera is not worth using for good quality shooting. The S4 allows you to shoot 640-by-480 video at 15 fps. The test video had grainy images and produced weak and trebly sound quality. The colors also looked washed out and had a bit of reddish mix.

Pros:

1. Extremely compact design, easy to carry and operate

2. Simple menus and switching between modes

3. Good choice for the budget buyer

4. Superb zooming capabilities

5. Has a good mix of Scene Modes

Cons:

1. Image quality not as good as advertised

2. No image stabilization mode available

3. The swivel design maybe prone to damage

4. Very poor video quality

5. Slow boot up

Conclusion:

Although the Nikon Coolpix S4 seems to be an excellent camera at a low price but it doesn't fulfill the requirements of a professional photographer but at this price ($358.00) it is a great camera for the occasional shooter or wannabe Photographer.