Nikon Coolpix S5 Digital Camera Review

There is a button specifically made for accessing the auto mode, which is ironically the most manual mode on the camera. The S5’s auto mode comes complete with white balance, ISO, exposure compensation, color modes, and other settings. The camera even remembers the settings when it is turned off and on again. Despite the irony, the auto mode is still easy to use and works well in good lighting. In dimmer light, its pictures turn out blurry and under-exposed – unless the awful flash fires, in which case the subject will have red eyes and stark shadows.

 

Movie Mode (7.0) 

The Nikon Coolpix S5 has lots of options in the movie mode, but still isn’t entirely satisfying. Movies can be recorded with 640 x 480, 320 x 240, and 160 x 120 pixels at 15 or 30 frames per second for each size. There is an electronic vibration reduction system, but it honestly doesn’t make much of a difference. Perhaps it isn’t very noticeable because there is no optical zoom available. Instead, the 2x digital zoom degrades image quality quickly. Users can choose to activate single or continuous auto focus modes, which both seemed to work well: the camera focused quickly even on subjects in motion. Once again, movies looked great in great lighting but suffered in low light.

 

The S5’s movie mode has two special options. The first is a Pictmotion mode that records 320 x 240 pixels at 15 fps for up to a minute. This mode is specifically for recording movies to be merged into a Pictmotion slide show sequence. Interestingly, the mode records monaural audio as WAV files, as do all the modes, but the background music in the sequence drowns it out. The second special option is the time lapse movie mode, which takes a string of still images and records them as a single video clip. The camera can take an image every 30 seconds, or 1, 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes, for up to 1,800 shots (which is far beyond what the battery can handle, so the optional power adaptor is recommended for this mode). This is perfect for users who want to track the progress of the high-rise building going up across the street. Videos are played back with QuickTime once loaded onto the computer.

 

The Nikon S5 has an average burst mode that shoots about 2.2 frames per second for up to 5 shots at a time. This is the same speed as the WiFi-enabled S6. Both cameras also have multi-burst modes that snap 16 pictures and stitch them together into a single 6-megapixel file that looks like a patchwork quilt. The mode has a continuous auto focus system, but it still isn’t fast enough to capture subjects moving erratically toward and away from the lens. Like the movie mode, the burst mode has a time lapse feature that takes a picture every 30 seconds, or 1, 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes. Unlike the movie mode, however, this mode saves each picture as its own file instead of merging them all together into a video. Of note is the self-timer, which takes a picture after 3 or 10 seconds.

 

The Nikon Coolpix S5 has a button on the back of the camera that enters the playback mode from the shooting modes. There are a variety of ways to view pictures on the S5 and, with the 2.5-inch screen, users shouldn’t have to grab their glasses or squint at the image. The rotary dial can scroll through pictures quickly or one by one, and a feature in the setup menu automatically rotates them. The ability to view pictures in index frames with 4 or 9 images makes finding one even simpler.

 

There are very few editing options. Users can resize pictures to a more email-friendly 640 x 480, 320 x 240, or 160 x 120 pixels and touch them up with the portrait button. In playback mode, this button activates the D-lighting compensation that brightens the picture if needed. A preview next to the original file lets users confirm the process.

 

Playback mode can display shooting information and zoom in up to 10x on pictures, as well as protecting them and marking them for transfer. Users can easily scroll through and select pictures for printing or deletion. Finding pictures on a large memory card is simple, too. The rotary dial helps, but there are also calendar views that bring up the first image on a specified date and a date function that shows the number of pictures taken next to the date on the screen.

 

Videos can be played back within the camera, although the audio isn’t very good and there are no editing features. Users can play normally or scroll through the movie frame by frame.

 

The best part of the playback mode is the innovative Pictmotion by muvee mode. This is just a fancy slide show, with interesting transitions and background music that transform pictures on a memory card (the mode cannot be accessed with internal memory only; a card is required) into a bona fide energetic video presentation. Users can scroll through the pictures and video clips and select up to 30 to be merged into a Pictmotion sequence. Then users must select background music from the following preloaded soundtracks: Pachelbel Kanon, Scarborough Fair, Pomp and Circ. March, Turkish March, and Grandfather’s Clock. These are all remixed classical pieces that last about 10 seconds and just play over and over again while the pictures zoom by. More soundtracks can be loaded with the included PictureProject software, although only with the Windows operating system. After the music is chosen, one of the following effects can be applied to the Pictmotion sequence: Moody, Pro-Slow, Pro-Fast, Classic, and Motion. The Moody effect slides pictures across the frame horizontally and vertically, while the Pro-Slow option is more traditional in its simple fading technique. The Pro-Fast choice looks incredibly jumpy because of its quick movement of the pictures in all directions, and could give viewers motion sickness. Classic puts a sepia filter onto all the pictures. The Motion option is similar to the Pro-Fast effect but incorporates fading, panning, sliding, and disappearing aspects into the show.

 

There is also a traditional slide show that displays pictures for 2-10 seconds and can be set to play on a loop. Overall, the Nikon S5’s playback mode is one of its best assets. It is a little light on the editing options, but it does have some great organizational features and perhaps the best slide show mode on a digital camera with its Pictmotion feature.

 

There are 15 custom image presets on this digital camera, with four of them located directly on the mode dial. These include the Portrait, Landscape, Sport, and Night Portrait modes. These four differ from the other 11 in that they offer framing assists for subjects on the left or right sides of the frame, for close-ups, and for couples and figures, while most scene modes only allow users to change the exposure compensation and image size choices. Framing assists superimpose yellow lines on the display screen to show where to line up subjects’ faces. Landscape assists include the following: Scenic View, Architecture, Group Right, and Group Left. The Sport mode has spectator and composite options, although the latter is basically the same thing as the multi-burst mode. The Night Portrait mode has the same aforementioned options as the portrait mode.

 

The rest of the scene modes are located in a menu found under the Scene position of the mode dial. Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close Up, Museum, Fireworks Show, Copy, Back Light, and Panorama Assist are available. All of them work well in their respective situations. The Panorama Assist mode shows a light overlay of the last picture taken to aid users in lining up the next shot. Pictures are not stitched within the camera, though. Instead, users must wait until the files are loaded into PictureProject to put them together. There aren’t many options for the scene modes: exposure compensation and image size are about it. Some modes allow access to the flash mode setting as well.

 

The Nikon Coolpix S5 has a one-touch portrait mode that is being marketed as the best thing since the Internet. Previous Nikon digital cameras have had this technology, but only in this year’s models is it actually easily accessible. Before, each of the three technologies was buried in a separate menu. In the S5, though, the portrait button provides access to all. The camera employs face-priority auto focus and red-eye fix in the shooting mode and D-lighting compensation in the playback mode. The face-priority focus mode takes a few seconds to locate a face, then places a yellow smiley face over the subject’s to indicate it’s ready. The red-eye fix is a digital algorithm applied just after the photo is taken and before it is written to the memory. These features don’t really work well in all situations. In fact, they don’t work well at all unless snapping passport-like shots with faces and eyes looking directly at the camera. I still ended up with plenty of red eyes in testing, but all of them came from shots with the subject looking down or not perfectly straight on the camera. The D-lighting feature in playback works much better, enhancing pictures to look decent.

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