Nikon Coolpix L100 Digital Camera Review

Nikon Coolpix L100

First Impressions Review

2.7 The new Nikon L100 ultrazoom is sober and professional-looking camera compared to the brightly-colored Nikon compact models. With a 15x wide-angle zoom lens and a $279 pricetag, the 10-megapixel L100 is an intriguing addition to Nikon's product lineup.We had the chance to take a pre-production sample for a test drive at PMA in Las Vegas, and here's what we discovered.
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Controls
 
image Modes Page 6 of 8 Conclusion image

UPDATE: our full review of the L100 is now live.

Manual Controls


The only semi-manual control the L100 offers is a exposure compensation with ± 3 EV.
 

Focus


The L100 has an auto-focus lens and an assist light for low-light conditions. There is no way to turn off auto-focus and focus manually. It does have Face-Priority AF that will automatically identify and focus on up to 12 faces at a time..
 

ISO


The L100 has nine ISO levels between 64 and 6400, although the two highest levels - 6400 and 3200 - can only be applied at resolutions of 3 megapixels or lower.
 

White Balance


The L100 has an Auto white balance mode and a custom mode to set white balance based on current conditions. Beyond this, there are presets to cover taking Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy, and Flash.
 

Metering


The L100 has 3 metering modes - continuous, spot, and center-weighted average. As previously mentioned, you can manually adjust the exposure ± 3 EV.
 

Shutter Speed


The L100's shutter speed specs have not yet been published, and there were no options in any menu to control shutter speed in any way.
 

Aperture


The L100 will automatically adjust the aperture from f/3.5 to f/5.4. There is no manual aperture control.
 

Image Stabilization


The L100 has Nikon's Optical VR Image Stabilization feature that will move the image sensor to compensate for camera shake. It can also detect movement in the scene and adjust the shutter speed and ISO automatically to compensate for it.
 

Picture Quality & Size Options


The L100 offers a number of picture quality and size options:
- 3648 x 2736 (10M)
- 2592 x 1944 (5M)
- 2048 x 1536 (3M)
- 1024 x 768 (PC)
- 640 x 480 (TV)
- 3584 x 2016 (16:9: 3584)
- 1920 x 1080 (16:9: 1920)(16:9)
 

Picture Effects


The L100 offers color effects that can be applied during image capture, including vivid, black and white, sepia, and cyanotope effects. Images that have already been captured can be modified in the Playback menu using a D-lighting menu option that will automatically adjust dynamic range to optimize a photo. The L100 will also automatically remove red-eye from captured images without requiring any action from the user.
 

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