Nikon Coolpix S4 Digital Camera Review
By Richard Baguley
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
December 12, 2006
The $300 Nikon Coolpix S4 is a throwback in some ways. Nikon stopped using the pivoting lens design on its film cameras in the late 90s, but the style is revived in the Coolpix S4. The rest of the camera is new, though. It features an incredibly long 10x zoom lens, a 6-megapixel image sensor and reasonably-sized 2.5-inch LCD screen. It had an initial retail price of $399.95.
The split body design with pivoting lens has many advantages. For one, you can hold the camera over your head but still see what you’re shooting by angling the LCD screen. It also keeps the camera thin. Despite having an incredibly long 10x zoom lens, the body of the S4 is just 1.4 inches thick and the lens is entirely within the body; none of those fragile telescoping lens mechanisms here. This makes the Nikon S4 one of the most portable ultra-zoom digital cameras on the market. The Panasonic TZ1 has a 10x optical zoom lens in a 1.6-inch thick body, while the Kodak V610 has a dual lens system that offers a total 10x internal zoom in a 0.9-inch thick body. Both of these cameras have a more traditional design too, which many people find more desirable than the split-bodied look.
This slightly larger base also makes it comfortable to hold; you use both hands without thinking about it, which leads to steadier shots. The controls are well placed, but with a few quirks. The four-way controller, for one, is too easy to push in instead of up or down, which leads to selecting the wrong option on the on-screen menu. But apart from this, the Nikon S4 is an easy camera to use.
There is no proper Manual mode, and the camera doesn’t display information about aperture or shutter speed. This will frustrate the more experienced shooter who wants to at least have some idea how the settings are being used. There is a decent selection of 15 shooting modes, though.
The Coolpix S4 can also shoot movies at a resolution of up to 640 x 480 pixels, but the frame rate maxes out at 15 frames per second. This leads to jerky movement; shoot a football game and it’ll end up looking like a poorly animated cartoon. To make things worse, the long 10x lens isn’t optically stabilized, so movies will be even more jittery. The chunkier Canon PowerShot S2 IS has functional 12x zoom in Movie mode, and can record television-quality clips at a smooth 30 fps with its image stabilization.
Speaking of cartoons, the images the S4 captured had grossly oversaturated cartoon-like color. This might have been acceptable if the images had plenty of detail, but they didn’t; images were undersharpened and lacked the resolution we’ve seen in other 6-megapixel cameras. Fine details were not distinguishable, and there was a lot of noise in our test images, even with short exposures and low ISO settings. This noise was more pronounced when we bumped the ISO up to its maximum manual setting of 400, but it will be a problem in most shooting situations. Most digital cameras perform better. The Canon S2, for instance, produces more accurate colors and less noise.
Shutter lag is also a problem. The camera took 2.39 seconds to boot up, and had a shutter lag of 0.71 seconds. Both of these are too long, and will lead to lost shots. The flash is also a problem; located right next to the lens, it produces a lot of red-eye (although there is a feature to correct this after shooting that works relatively well) and produces high-contrast, unflattering shots.
The 2.5-inch LCD screen makes it difficult to judge the images you’ve taken; with just 110,000 pixels, images look very grainy and seriously unappealing. This is the lowest resolution screen we’ve seen in some time, and it is difficult to judge images effectively on it.
It’s nice to see that Nikon is bringing back the pivoting lens design; it has some big advantages. However, the S4 just isn’t that good of a camera. Sure, you can carry this ultra-zoom camera everywhere you go. But the image quality is terrible, the LCD screen is grainy, and there is no image stabilization or manual control. You could argue that point-and-shooters don’t need these features, but even the most casual user will be able to spot the problems with this disappointing camera.
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