« Please read the fine print, a review of the Nikon Coolpix S710 »

Well, Nikon doesn't exactly tell you to do so, but having put the Nikon Coolpix S710 camera through a weekend of exhaustive testing it is what I recommend prospective buyers of the camera do. On paper the camera looks very promising with a 28-101mm lens (in 35mm terms), f2.8 maximum aperture, 14.5 MP sensor, full manual control and Vibration Reduction (VR) built-in.

After having spent the weekend in the heart of British Columbia's wine country with the camera as my sidekick, I am left with the feeling that the camera has been photographically limited by Nikon's engineers (intentionally or not, I don't know) effectively taking away what made it so attractive on paper. And that is a shame.

↓ The Coolpix S710

Aperture, focus and zoom

Aperture starts @ f2.8 at widest 28mm setting which is great. Unfortunately, it soon dawns on you that the f-stop range is limited to between two and a half and two-thirds of a stop (f2.8-f7.7 @ 28mm and f5.6-f7.7 @ 101mm) which is not so great. Though, the aperture setting is intuitive to use with the scroll wheel.

Focusing with the S710 is both yea and nay. 'Yea' is the selective focus feature allowing you to move around the AF point with the scroll wheel. That's pretty cool. 'Nay' is that focus can be slow to lock on. The camera doesn't tell you whether it is because you are inside the minimum focusing distance or because it simply cannot find enough contrast to lock focus. Confusing and a bit frustrating.

The zoom was good. The widest 28mm is a good for group and landscape photography. 101mm is good for portrait and medium telephoto settings. The digital zoom is pretty fuzzy, but that's the case with all pocket cameras as the pixels stretched ultimately degrading the image quality. The macro-setting was a bit disappointing. With a minimum focusing distance from 10-30cm Nikon does not list what that translate into in terms of magnification factor, but I would put it around 1:2 perhaps even less. For someone who enjoys macro photography that is not good enough. As a reference point, a lot of Canon's pocket cameras will allow you to focus from just a couple of centimeters away when in macro mode.

↑ Taken @ f2.8

↑ Notice how the background is 'smudged' @ 300mm.

↓ Macro-setting tested. Some of the images are further cropped in editing

ISO, flash and sharpness

For a pocket camera my impression of the ISO is good. Like Nikon's higher-end DSLRs the S710 comes with an auto ISO feature where the camera picks an ISO value between 100 and 1600 depending on available light and aperture/shutter speed. It would have been nice to have been able to set the lowest shutter speed yourself, and not be forced to shoot with what the camera picks (as low as 1/3 s). ISO is good up to 800 when printing small or using for web. Above that the camera automatically (as in you cannot turn it off) applies noise reduction smoothing out details and minimizing contrast.

The flash is a run-of-the-mill pocket camera flash. OK, but not great by any standards. One positive element is the degree of control you have over flash settings: Auto (equivalent to green-mode on DSLR where flash is triggered when camera deems too little light is available), Always Fire, Never Fire, and Night Flash. The last setting is new to me. The setting essentially lowers flash output to just light up your subject while lowering the shutter speed to allow for a better exposure of the background. What a great idea! A shame it doesn't really work as shutter speed can be lowered to 1/3 s. I don't know how steady the hands are on Nikon engineers, but my shots @ 1/3 s comes out slightly blurry. A regular flash compensation dial would have been better.

Sharpness is good. Only caveat is that critical sharpness/focus does seem hard to obtain with the relatively large AF point, but this is a general problem for pocket cameras.

↑ ISO 800 (left) and ISO 1250 (right)

↓ ISO 1600

↑ No flash, ISO 1600 (left), Night flash, ISO 1600 (middle) and Flash, ISO 100 (right)

Screen, look and feel and ease of use

Nice, bright large 3" LCD screen. Can be hard to use in direct sunshine, but I have yet to see the LCD where this is not the case. Without a physical viewfinder this does make composing shots difficult from time to time. Info on screen both while shooting and reviewing is one of my biggest dislikes about this camera. With the 3" screen real estate you would think Nikon could find room for more useful information such as ISO setting (though, the camera will tell you if you divert from base ISO of 200), histogram, battery info (other than "low" and "depleted"). On the plus side counts that the macro 'flower' lights green when you're within macro minimum focus distance, and a grid for rule of third composing. When reviewing the images, Nikon choses not to include vital photographic information such as shutter speed, ISO and aperture settings, and histogram. Strange.

Nice, sleek looking camera. Brushed aluminum. Not too heavy with a comforting solid feel. If it was any lighter it it would have felt flimsy. I have to admit that going to the Quail's Gate Winery's restaurant in Kelowna (which by the way is the best food and wine I have had in Canada so far) the S710 was much more convenient to bring for situational shots than my D300 with a 50mm lens. Kudos!

The camera is easy to use and very straightforward. I will give Nikon's engineers that credit. But it is slow, very sloooow. From pressing the ON button you have to wait a full 4 seconds before the camera is ready to take a picture. That's a long time. What ever moment was there has probably passed. Time between shots is also around 4-5 seconds. Yawn!

So despite the photographic limitations only mentioned in the fine print, the Nikon Coolpix S710 still takes very good pictures. But if you are looking for a lighter camera to stand-in for your DSLR you are better off looking for a camera that offers more photographic freedom in real life and not just on paper.