Nikon Coolpix S4

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Front (7.5)

With the S4’s pivoting lens mount, it's difficult to say exactly where the front of this camera is. When the camera is positioned for storage, the front is mainly flat, with a chrome strip on the left, and a textured black plastic ridge curving down from the shutter release to serve as a grip. Most of the front is sheathed in satin-finished metal. It has a vaguely pink tone to it that marketers might call “champagne” or “titanium.” There's a slot between the left side of the camera and the rotating lens assembly. It's not entirely straight, with a little jog to the left near the top of the camera, apparently to accommodate the small flash wedged close to the lens.

 

The Nikon logo appears in shiny metal on the left side of the front, with “COOLPIX S4” printed in small, gray type. On the lens assembly, in smaller type, the lens specs appear, reading, “NIKKOR 10X OPTICAL ZOOM 6.3 – 63mm F3.5.” Once the user peels off the marketing department's garish decal, the camera will be a model of design restraint.

 

In use, the camera will normally have the lens assembly tilted forward. The 10x zoom lens has a larger diameter than the lenses on typical compact cameras, so it looks more impressive and also takes up more space. The pivoting design forced Nikon to jam a very small flash very close to the lens on the pivoting assembly. A small autofocus assist lamp and self-timer lamp is also squeezed in.

 

Back (7.0)

Let's not consider the back of the lens assembly when we discuss the Coolpix S4's back. When the camera is in use, the lens assembly might be turned any which way, and Nikon treats all the sides of the lens assembly (except the one with the glass on it) as gripping surfaces.

 

The back of the main body holds the LCD and most of the controls. It's as small as many subcompact cameras, and the controls are also very small. The layout is simple: along the top, there are four buttons in a row, plus a joystick-style four-way controller. The buttons control, from left to right, LCD display information, image deletion, the menu display, and playing back images. The joystick is a stubby projection, about 1/8 of an inch high. The joystick functions as the “OK” button when it's pressed straight in to the camera. Pushing it up activates the flash sync control. Push it left calls up the self-timer, and pushing it down calls up the macro mode control. In playback mode, pushing it in activates “D-lighting,” an algorithm to improve color and contrast of poorly-exposed images. There's a patch of bumps to the right of the joystick, apparently to enhance the user's grip on the camera.

 

The 2.5-inch LCD takes up the rest of the back.

 

Left Side (6.0)

The left side of the Coolpix S4 sports two Phillips-head screws on the side of the lens assembly. The rest is pretty baron.    

 

Right Side (6.0)

The right side of the Coolpix S4 features a cable jack for USB and analog video output. It's under a flexible plastic door. The door seems durable enough, but it doesn't seal against dirt as well as we'd like to see. Below that, the SD memory card slot is covered by a hard plastic door which slides and pivots to open. This mechanism seems durable and unlikely to open accidentally; however, it lacks good environmental seals and may act as a pathway for dust and moisture to get into the camera.

 

The wrist strap lug pokes out of the right side of the camera, toward the front and about halfway down the side. It's a robust piece of stamped metal, appropriate to hang the camera from.

 

Another flexible plastic door is at the bottom of the right side. This one makes way for an external power supply cable to enter the battery compartment, the main door for which is on the bottom of the camera.  

 

Top (6.0)

The top of the Coolpix S4 (or rather, the Coolpix S4’s main body) is crowded. From the left, it accommodates the speaker grill and mode switch, a hole for the microphone, a status light, the on/off button, and the shutter release. A ring around the shutter release operates the zoom in shooting mode, and image magnification in playback mode.

The mode switch offers three positions: fully automatic shooting, scene modes, and video mode. The on/off button is slightly less than flush mounted; press it to turn the camera on, and again to turn it off.

 

Bottom (3.5)

The bottom of the Coolpix S4’s main body features a plastic tripod mount. Because the lens pivots, the mount can't be under the lens, where it should ideally be to simplify aligning shots on a tripod. It's also not under the camera's center of gravity, meaning that the camera could tip those flimsy tabletop tripods that eBay sellers throw in when auctioning cameras like the Coolpix S4.

The other notable feature on the bottom of the S4 is the battery compartment door. It features a nice latch to hold the door shut securely, but not very much in the way of environmental seals.