Nikon Coolpix S3100 review

The Nikon Coolpix S3100 is a slender 5x zoom compact camera that’s an ideal point-and-shoot for the style-conscious. But is the budget Coolpix S3100 a true winner?

Nikon’s latest line of “Style” Coolpix compacts ranges from the lower-spec S2500 up through to the S9100. The S3100, reviewed here, is towards the bottom end of this spectrum - with the onus on style, small size and simple point-and-shoot operation.

The Nikon Coolpix S3100 is a slender 18.4mm-wide and has a 5x optical zoom lens (26-130mm equivalent) that extends from the camera body when it’s turned on. The camera looks eye-catching and is available in a series of bright colours including blue, yellow and red, plus the usual neutral black or silver. The S3100 can shoot 14-megapixel images from ISO 80 through to ISO 3200 and there’s even the ability to capture 720p HD movies too.

On the rear of the camera is a 230k-dot, 2.7-inch LCD that dominates most space, with the majority of controls aligned to the right of this. The screen itself doesn’t have an especially large angle of view however - tilt it too steeply and the exposure and contrast go awry and won’t appear accurately to your eyes.

Control-wise and the S3100 makes it easy to quickly jump between Auto shooting, Scene selection, Smart Portrait and Subject Tracking modes using the one-touch Scene button on the rear of the camera. Macro (Close-up), Exposure Compensation, Flash and Self Timer controls feature around the directional d-pad and more hidden options, including AF Area and Colour Options, are accessible by pressing the Menu button.

The Scene modes are fairly exhaustive, with 18 various options and an Auto-selector available, though it’s the Colour Options that are more fun - offering the likes of in-camera Black & White, Cyanotype and Sepia toning. There’s also Nikon’s Smart Portrait system that features Smile Timer (shot won’t be taken until subject smile), is Blink Proof (warning when the subject’s caught on the blink) and has a Skin Softening feature (that smoothes out the face but not the crucial areas such as eyes, nose and mouth).

The one-touch movie button on the rear of the camera does have a 2-3 second delay before movie begins to be recorded and, when capture does begin, you’ll need to be prepared for an automatic crop cutting the top and bottom of the image off (as per 16:9 HD ratio). Although it’s possible to set the zoom length prior to capture, the optical zoom cannot operate during capture, instead only a digital magnification is available and that’s very much at the expense of final quality. It is nice to have an HD movie mode, but don’t expect bags of functionality here. 

The S3100’s autofocus system is relatively good in decent lighting conditions. Although really close-up focusing isn’t possible, the camera is good at identifying areas to latch onto and Face Detection is swift and accurate. Focus is final however, as there’s no manual adjustment or fine-tuning available. An AF-assist lamp projects a red light to assist with focus in darker conditions or at night, and a well-placed flash is useful for night portraits and the like.

At £116 from a number of online retailers, the Coolpix S3100 is well priced for those seeking a budget point-and-shoot.

If you’re looking for a camera that takes sharp, detailed and clean images for critical work then, frankly, the Nikon Coolpix S3100 won’t satisfy your needs. Although images are acceptable for the day-to-day snaps of your mates and the like, there are a number of issues: namely that there’s image noise throughout the full ISO range and processing artefacts are fairly obtrusive. However, if you’re not using full size images then these unwanted elements will be far less noticeable. At the higher end of the ISO range image details are significantly softened and colour becomes noticeably muted. Also 14-megapixels is well above and beyond the resolution that’s needed at this level - a lower resolution would have helped improve image quality and kept file sizes down too.

Verdict

While the S3100 doesn’t offer extensive controls and the image quality most certainly isn’t for critical work, the camera does deliver what it sets out to: it looks the part and is affordable. The variety of colours available means there’s a model to suit anyone, the 26-110mm range is perfectly decent and relatively wide-angle too, meaning point-and-shoot fanatics should have their majority of snaps covered. Perhaps a better looker than performer, and the image quality is far from decent, but the S3100 offers plenty for its price.

Pocket-lint

Nikon COOLPIX S9100 camera

The Nikon Coolpix S9100 is a solidly built, automatic camera with a huge 18x zoom lens, and it can produce very good images. It doesn't have extensive manual settings, which means it can be tough to capture a great shot in difficult lighting conditions.

The Coolpix S9100 has a 12-megapixel CMOS sensor and a 25-450mm zoom lens, and it's simple to operate. It's aimed at users who want something that's small and automatic yet capable of capturing shots from a distance, as well as taking close-ups. It's not for users who want to mess with aperture and shutter values — check out the Canon PowerShot S95 is you want a manual camera. The most you can do to change the exposure on the S9100 is play with the ISO speed and the exposure brightness. It's quite similar in its capabilities to the Ricoh CX5: It's basically a well-built automatic camera with a good sensor.

The mode dial includes auto, automatic scene selector, scene, effects and continuous mode. You also get dedicated mode settings for three scenes: Night landscape, night portrait and backlighting. The shutter button has a distinct two-step feel to it, and the camera's zoom rocker is not too loose. The rear has a dedicated button for enabling video mode, as well as a conventional 5-way thumb controller (with a rotating ring), and playback, menu and delete buttons. You can access most of its settings by hitting the menu button, and you can change the focus point by rotating the ring.

The Nikon S9100 captures high quality images for the most part; this is evident when you scrutinise the photos at their native size. Images look clear and detailed and there isn't much noise at low ISO speeds. Images captured at maximum zoom are blurrier though, especially if you shoot them while holding the camera, so you won't be able to crop them too much without seeing a drop in detail. However, as far as mega-zoom compact cameras go, the S9100 is a good one: It can definitely produce usable images at its maximum zoom.

Image stabilisation is built in to the camera, and you can actually feel it working when you press the shutter button half-way down. It performed quite well in our tests, but it's still no substitute for a tripod, especially if you'll be shooting at the maximum zoom (or close to it) or in low-light conditions.

Because you can't change the exposure settings, shooting in very bright conditions can pose problems. Often during our tests the camera didn't use high enough aperture and shutter settings and we ended up with very harsh-looking pictures (this is unlike the CoolPix S8000, which handled automatic exposures much better). The scene modes didn't help ameliorate this much either and we had to change angles instead to get better dynamic range in the shot.

When it comes to video, the S9100 is merely adequate. It can shoot at a resolution of 1920x1080, and the autofocus can work full time to make sure scenes are always clear. However, moving the camera while shooting produces footage that is noticeably choppy. Like most compact cameras, the best results will be obtained when holding the camera as steady as possible or using a tripod. We love the fact that the camera can shoot at 240fps; you'll definitely want to shoot everything you see in slow motion — once you start, you can't stop.

Overall, the Nikon Coolpix S9100 is a good camera. It can produce clear and vibrant images, it has some cool creative modes you can use (such as a selective colour filter), and its zoom range is versatile. We just wish it had manual controls so that you could tell the camera what to do in difficult lighting situations. However, novice users who don't require manual controls should find this camera to their liking.

PCWorld

Sigma DP1x digital camera

The Sigma DP1x is a compact camera promising professional digital SLR quality - at a DSLR price

Sigma is known for its third-party lenses for popular digital SLR cameras, as well as a modest line in complete cameras too.

The Sigma DP1x is positioned as professional compact camera, with high-quality optics and good sensor, in a no-frills metal case.

Unusually for any compact, the non-removable lens has no zoom function whatsoever. There are two telephoto-style zoom buttons on the back face, but they only serve to digitally zoom in and out on shot pictures (and also double up for exposure controls).

At heart is a proprietary Foveon X3 sensor from Sigma, a large CMOS device far larger than used in most compacts. Sigma's unique sensor tech claims to offer better image quality than any other brand's sensor, thanks to direct-image processing that doesn't require RGB filters to create full-colour output.

The Sigma DP1x camera is unashamedly low-tech in its design and features. That is, it doesn't offer the common consumer treats like smile sensing, panorama scene-stitching, GPS tagging or high-definition video.

It doesn't even include preset scene modes, although you can create your own user presets. Also absent is any image stabilisation.

It does offer RAW mode, as well as RAW+JPEG for photographers who want to extract the best from captured photos.

The mode dial on top resembles a DSLR's, with MSAP settings for manual, shutter- and aperture-priority, and program modes.

A rather slow auto-focus is joined by a manual focus option, using a small thumbwheel to adjust. With only the rear to LCD to compose, you need to zoom in for manual focusing, by first pressing the OK button in the centre of the five-button compass rose.

The 16.6mm F4 lens on the Sigma DP1x has a slight wide-angle effect, able to record an expansive scene, although there is some geometric distortion apparent toward the image corners.

With the attention on professional control rather than consumer bells and whistles, we found the Sigma DP1x a difficult camera to operate.

Exposure was often a hit-and-miss affair on the Sigma DP1x despite our patient flipping through the three metering modes and painstakingly adjusting exposure in either M, S or P modes. Many pictures came out badly over- or under-exposed – and this is despite the author's hard-earned experience of using the equally obstinate Sigma DP2 compact.

We hoped that with a large sensor and good quality glass, convincingly high-quality pictures wouldn't be too hard to achieve this time. In reality, the raw quality available disappointed.

The sensor is not especially sensitive, and often needed ISO speed set to at least 400 to capture indoor scenes without blurring.

Unfortunately, even at ISO400, noise levels were higher than we'd hope for a pro-level camera. There is a built-in flash, but it's very underpowered for any subjects more than a thre or four feet from the camera.

It's also a slow camera to work with, as if its processor was underpowered, taking several seconds for captured images to appear on the rear screen.

Video quality is so poor we wonder why Sigma bothered to include it at all. At 320x240 pixels it's very low resolution, and would be bettered by a five year-old mobile phone.

It its favour, battery life was good (mitigated perhaps by the difficulty in squeezing off many shots so easily), and the camera never crashed in the period we were testing it.

We wish we could report that this Sigma DP1x camera is expensive, slow and awkward to operate; yet capable of taking stunning pictures to make it worth every penny of its asking price. Unfortunately we only found the first part of that statement to be true. As much as we wanted to coax some of the lauded pro quality from this compact, it proved slow and inaccurate to use, with so-so images to show for it. Ultimately we found image quality inferior to what can be found on cheaper, and it must be said, far more user-friendly cameras.

PCWorld

Nikon D5100 rivals the Canon 600D, we go hands-on

The Nikon D5100 is the replacement for the Nikon D5000 and Pocket-lint was on hand to spend some time with the new step-up entry-level camera that looks to take a bite out of the new Canon EOS 600D.

The Nikon D5100 sits between the Nikon D3100 and D7000 in Nikon’s range and offers a wide range of features that will appeal both to those coming to DSLR photography for the first time, as well as giving control to those with more experience.

Technically, the D5100 has the same 16.2-megapixel EXPEED 2 sensor as the Nikon D7000, so offers an ISO range from 100-6400 with higher shooting options, including a whopping 102,400 “Night Vision” effects mode, accessed via the Effects position on the shooting mode dial.

The new Effects mode offers seven key shooting options easily selected using the thumbwheel on the rear of the camera. These shooting modes include: high key, low key, miniature, silhouette, colour sketch, night vision and colour accent. From our quick play they seemed easy enough to use, producing interesting results.

Bringing enhancements to the video capture, you not only get a dedicated record button, but there is also an HDMI out for viewing your videos on your HDTV and an external mic input, supporting the new ME-1 external stereo mic (£119.99) that Nikon have designed specifically for DSLR videography.

Video capture now steps-up to 1080p, offering frame rates of 24/25/30fps, competing with the capture offered by the Canon EOS 600D. You’ll also be able to apply the effects to video as well as stills, but capture is retricted to 20 minutes as H.264 MPEG4.

In stills shooting you’ll benefit from Nikon’s 11-point autofocus, using the Multi-CAM 1000 AF module and the frame rate of 4fps is typical for this class of camera.

Around the back you’ll find a 3-inch vari-angle display offering a high resolution of 921k dots. There is a new return action switch to activate Live View beside the mode dial which, it has to be said, has an excellent and purposeful action.

Nikon tell us that the Live View focusing has been improved, which is something we’ll have to take a look at when we get a chance to review the camera in the not too distant future.

The design is distinctly Nikon, although Nikon pointed out to us that they’d managed to reduce the size and weight over the D5000 by about 10%. There is more space given over to the handgrip, which is designed to give better stability for those not shooting with the viewfinder - as the vari-angle display allows.

It feels great in the hand and is light enough to steadily hold aloft for those high angle shots, with, at first glance, the controls falling easily and naturally under the fingers.

As these were prototype sample cameras, Nikon wouldn't let us take the cameras out of the room, let alone take real pictures with for you to peruse. However, we did snap off a wicked gallery of the new camera for your delectation.

The Nikon D5100 will retail for £669.99 body only, or £779.99 with the 18-55VR kit lens. The new DSLR is due to be on sale from 21 April 2011.

Pocket-lint

Samsung NX10 review

The number of serious DSLR-style compact cameras has been slowly growing over the past year, but all the models we’ve seen so far have been based on the Micro Four Thirds system. The Samsung NX10 offers a similar approach, trading the mechanical mirror and optical viewfinder of a traditional DSLR for lower weight and a smaller size.

It gets there in a slightly different way, however: the main difference between the NX10 and its fellow compact DSLR hybrids is its sensor. Remove the lens and what you see is a far larger sensor than in Micro Four Thirds cameras. In fact its 14.6-megapixel CMOS sensor is the same size (APS-C) as employed by the majority of consumer DSLRs, promising greater dynamic range and lower noise in low light.

Another advantage the NX10 holds over its competitors is a built-in viewfinder – not optical but digital – a serious advantage when shooting in bright conditions (others charge extra). As you raise the camera to your eye, it switches from screen view to viewfinder, enabling you to focus and frame your shots without having to squint or shade the screen with a hand. It’s sharp too, boasting a resolution of 920kpixels.

Not that the screen is a bad one. In fact, the NX10’s 3in OLED, 614kpixel display is about as bright and clear as you’ll find on any camera, compact or not, and the OLED panel’s self-illuminating pixels aren’t only good news for image quality but should help battery life too.

Even better news is that it manages to squeeze all this in, along with a pop-up integrated flash, without compromising on portability or build quality. The NX10 may look like a full-blooded DSLR but in the metal it’s a lot smaller, measuring 121mm front to back with the 30mm pancake lens, and 77mm with the standard 18-55mm kit lens.

The shaped, rubberised grip to the right of the lens makes it comfortable to handle, the body feels extremely solid, despite its small size, and there’s a good selection of manual controls littering the top edge and rear panel. A four way control offers shortcuts for focus, white balance, metering and ISO, while a wheel at the top allows quick shutter speed and aperture adjustments.

There are downsides to the design. It’s still a little worrying to see the sensor exposed to the air when you change lenses and not tucked away behind the protective barrier of mirror – this isn’t a camera you can change lenses on casually.

The new NX lens mount system means you don’t have access to the same range of lenses that owners of Micro Four Thirds cameras currently do. In addition to the optically stabilized f/3.5-f/5.6 18-55mm (27-83mm equivalent) kit lens mentioned earlier, there’s only an f/2 30mm pancake lens (46.2mm equivalent) and a telephoto zoom 50-200mm model (75-300mm equivalent), again optically stabilised, with an aperture range of f/4-f/5.6. Both are reasonable priced, however, at around £170 exc VAT each and Samsung has announced a further five lenses that will be added to the range soon.

And, as with the Olympus PEN cameras and Panasonic GF1, the NX10 relies on contrast detect autofocus, which is slower than the phase detect system used in DSLRs at this price. But the system here is fast for its type, focusing in under a second in the majority of situations, and that performance is generally reflected elsewhere too.

The NX10 took fewer than two seconds from off to first shot, under two seconds between shots in standard drive mode, and shot at a rate of 2.6fps in continuous mode.

Image quality is excellent too. The standard kit lens is sharp and demonstrated no sign of chromatic aberration or optical distortion in our tests, retaining very good sharpness right out to the corners of shots.

No matter what the lighting, we found the automatic settings did a very good job of getting the colour balance right, and low light performance was exceptional, with shots exhibiting no trace of noise at ISO 400 and, though some crept in at ISO 800, photos were still perfectly usable.

We’d recommend avoiding ISO 1600 and 3200, though, as noise is unacceptably intrusive at these levels. Add great dynamic range and it’s easily the match of the Micro Four Thirds cameras we’ve looked at.

The Samsung also shoots 720p HD video, and although quality is again exceptional, there is a fly in the ointment. The live autofocus tends to hunt around a little too much and its struggles are clearly audible on the soundtrack. The trouble is, it’s also rather difficult to focus manually, as the focus assist zoom view isn’t available in video mode.

But, the price makes up for this. For under £400 exc VAT you get not only a well-made compact camera that’s the equal of its Micro Four Thirds rivals in terms of build and image quality, but also one that’s better equipped, with a viewfinder and pop-up flash. The equivalent Panasonic GF1, purely in terms of features would set you back £621 exc VAT. The focus system still places the NX10 behind the best budget DSLRs in terms of pure performance, but for those who want top image quality from a compact package, this Samsung is a fantastic deal.

Author: Jonathan Bray
PCPRO