In summary
A smart-looking, solidly-built, slimline digicam for snapshooters and travellers.Only 20mm thick at its widest point, Nikon’s 7.1-megapixel Coolpix S8 is almost shirt-pocketable and very smartly designed. Its metal body has a semi-matte finish with a gentle curve on one side to accommodate your fingers when you’re shooting. The 3x optical zoom lens tucks inot the top corner of the camera body behind a metal cover so you must guard against including the fingertips of your left hand in shots. A 2.5-inch, high-resolution LCD covers two thirds of the rear panel, leaving little room for the button controls, most of which are tiny! But no viewfinder is provided. . . [more]
Full review
Only 20mm thick at its widest point, Nikon’s 7.1-megapixel Coolpix S8 is almost shirt-pocketable and very smartly designed. Its metal body has a semi-matte finish with a gentle curve on one side to accommodate your fingers when you’re shooting. The 3x optical zoom lens tucks inot the top corner of the camera body behind a metal cover so you must guard against including the fingertips of your left hand in shots. A 2.5-inch, high-resolution LCD covers two thirds of the rear panel, leaving little room for the button controls, most of which are tiny! But no viewfinder is provided.
The largest control is the ‘rotary multi-selector’, a knurled wheel that replaces the arrow pad – and it’s not particularly big. You can press on it as you would on an arrow pad and also rotate it to select the flash, macro and self timer controls. When selecting items from the menu, pressing the zoom toggle to the right calls up a help screen with details of the current setting. You can scroll through the help menus with the multi-selector.
Buttons on the rear panel access the quick review/shooting, mode, menu and delete buttons. Pressing the mode button lets you toggle between auto, setup, movie, voice recording, scene and high-sensitivity modes. The shutter release, power button, zoom toggle and D-Lighting/One touch Portrait button are located on the top panel and they, too, are tiny and difficult to operate. The camera can be used single-handedly but it’s more comfortable with both hands.
The Coolpix S8 includes all the latest Nikon shooting aids and offers the same selection of shooting modes as other Coolpix cameras. Pre-set scene modes include four with Scene Assist) portrait, landscape, sports and night portrait) and 11 settings including Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close Up, Museum, Fireworks Show, Copy, Back light and Panorama assist.
The One-touch Portrait button provides a short-cut to Face-Priority AF, which detects and focuses upon faces in a scene, an automatic In-Camera Red-Eye Fix function and Nikon’s D-Lighting which corrects underexposed images or shots taken with too much backlight. An automatic ‘blurred picture’ warning activates when the camera detects unsharp shots and users can elect to discard the image and re-shoot.
A special ‘anti-shake’ mode can be accessed via the multi-selector. It combines an electronic detector with the Best Shot Selector (BSS) function and also boosts sensitivity and shutter speeds. Nikon warns that ‘Pictures taken in this mode may become somewhat grainy’.
BSS functions are the same four options as in other recent Coolpix models. So are the white balance controls and flash modes, although the S8 appears to have a less powerful flash than the Coolpix L6. Sensitivity in the S8 extends to ISO 1600. For continuous shooting, the S8’s buffer memory is restricted to seven frames at top resolution, with a capture rate at 1.4 frames/second. Movie shooting options are identical in the two cameras and the S8 supports the PictMotion in-camera slideshow system.
The camera is supplied with the Cool-Station MV-15, which is used for charging the battery and viewing recorded shots. It also allows the camera to be connected to a TV set for playback. The Dock Insert PV-10, also supplied, allows the camera to be connected to an ImageLink printer for direct printing.
Performance
Images captured with the test camera were similar to those from the Coolpix L6 with the same elevated contrast and saturation and slight warm cast in outdoor shots. However, at times the metering system produced slightly over-exposed images. Close focusing was more accurate than for the L6 but digital zoom shots showed similar artifacts. Shots taken at ISO settings of 400 and higher were visibly noise-affected, with the ISO 1600 being all but unusable most of the time. The flash required at least ISO 800 sensitivity to illuminate an average-sized room.
Imatest showed resolution to be well below expectations at both high and low ISO settings, although it was acceptable at ISO 100. We found shots taken in the ‘anti-shake’ mode showed higher levels of noise than we expected, probably as a direct result of the ISO-boosting system.
Edge softening was less than we found with the Coolpix L6 but similar barrel distortion was found at the wider angles of view. Lateral chromatic aberration was generally low and we found little evidence of coloured fringing in outdoor shots. Saturation was moderate with the Standard colour setting but extreme when the colour was set to Vivid. White balance performance was above average with the fluorescent pre-set delivering unacceptable colour reproduction and the tungsten pre-set failing to remove the orange cast of incandescent lighting.
Movie performance was about average for a compact digicam, although compression was moderate and audio was competently recorded – albeit in monaural form. The camera took just over two seconds to power up and shot-to-shot times without flash averaged 2.3 seconds. With flash, the recycling time extended to as much as 6.5 seconds. We measured an average capture lag of 0.65 seconds, which reduced to a consistent 0.1 second shutter lag when shots were pre-focused. Burst mode performance was to specifications. There was plenty of charge left in the battery at the end of our tests, which is to be expected as the battery is rated for 210 shots/charge.
IMATEST GRAPHS
With Standard colour setting.
SAMPLE IMAGES
Close up.
An enlarged section covering approximately 25% of a shot taken at ISO 800 showing image noise.
The auto white balance with fluorescent light.
The fluorescent pre-set under fluorescent lighting. Note the degree of over-correction.
The tungsten pre-set under incandescent lighting.
Specifications
Image sensor: 5.76 x 4.29mm interline CCD with 7.41 million photosites (7.1 megapixels effective)
Lens: Zoom-Nikkor ED 5.8-17.4mm f/2.8-5.0 (35-105mm in 35mm format)
Zoom ratio: 3x optical, up to 4x digital
Image formats: Stills ““ JPEG (Exif 2.2); Movies – Quick Time Motion JPEG with WAV sound
Image Sizes: Stills ““ 3072×2304; 2592x 1944; 2048×1536; 1024×768; 640×480 pixels; Movies ““ VGA at 30 fps; QVGA at 30/15 fps; QQVGA at 15 fps.
Shutter speed range: 2-1/500 second
Image Stabilisation: electronic
Exposure Compensation: +/- 2EV in 1/3 EV steps
Focus system/range: Contrast-detect TTL AF, with AF-assist illuminator; range 30cm to infinity; to 4 cm in Macro mode.
Exposure metering/control: 256-segment matrix metering plus Program AE and 15 scene modes, 4 with Scene Assist.
ISO range: Auto (ISO 50-800 equivalent), ISO 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
White balance: Auto with TTL control, 6-mode manual (Direct sunlight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Flash and White Bal. Preset)
Flash modes/range (ISO auto): Auto, Auto with Red-eye Reduction (In-Camera Red-Eye Fix), Flash Cancel, Anytime Flash and Slow sync.; range 0.3-7.5 m.
Sequence shooting: 7 frames at 1.4 fps
Storage Media: 14MB internal memory plus SD expansion slot
Viewfinder: n.a.
LCD monitor: 2.5-inch type; 230,000-dot TFT LCD monitor with brightness adjustment (170-degree wide viewing angle)
Power supply: EN-EL8 rechargeable Li-ion battery (Approx. 210 shots/charge)
Dimensions (wxhxd): 93 x 59 x 20mm (excluding projections)
Weight: 135g (without battery and card)
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Photographic Equipment & Supplies – Retail & Repairs. Click here for list of stores.
Ted’s Cameras
1800 186 895
Big range of cameras and photographic products with stores in most states and online.
Rating
RRP: $649
Rating (out of 10):
- Build: 8.5
- Ease of use: 7.5
- Image quality: 7
- OVERALL: 7.5