| Likes |
|
- Stylish camera body
- Splash-proof design
- Large LCD screen
- Help guide
- Decent battery life
|
| Dislikes |
- Short shutter speed range
- Horribly inept at capturing action shots (action meaning anything that moves)
- High price
- Grainy and slow 15 fps movie mode
- Wire-infested COOLSTATION
- Poor LCD resolution |
Conclusion
The Nikon Coolpix S2 is built with style in mind, as well as ease of use for the fashion-conscious point-and-shooter. The 5 megapixel 1/2.5-inch CCD comes packed in a splash-proof metal body with a 3x optical zoom lens that remains flush with the camera body at all times. The stylish design includes a sliding lens door that protects the lens and flash while providing a nice mirror for your own fashion purposes.
The Nikon S2 has 15 scene modes as well as its generic automatic mode. There is no manual mode and there are hardly any manual controls, although there is a manual white balance setting. The S2 isn’t supposed to have manual controls though; this camera is built for people who don’t want to bother adjusting the aperture – they just want to take great pictures. Unfortunately, even that may be hard with the Nikon Coolpix S2. Many of the photographs I took turned out blurry, even in bright daylight. The image quality obviously isn’t emphasized on this model, as it boasts a lot of features that digital camera manufacturers are flaunting this year. The camera has a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, but its resolution is substandard. It has 12MB of internal memory, but that’s only enough for about ten pictures. It has fancy Nikon technology that claims to recognize faces, fix red-eye, and compensate for poor lighting; however, I found these features a little lacking. The Coolpix S2 does come with a unique time lapse mode for still and video, as well as a nice help guide to aid those point-and-shooters. Retailing for a pricey $449.95, Nikon hopes consumers will be enamored with the S2’s design, because internally, it is just another expensive digital camera with a shortage of manual options and substandard picture quality.
