Digital Camera Blog

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Make now mistake, Nikon’s latest digital camera is incredibly small.

At only 18.5mm thick, the Coolpix S200 will fit easily into just about any pocket – it’s also incredibly light, yet feels well constructed and is suitably stylish.

Startup is reasonably quick given that the lens must extend itself fully from the camera body before shooting. And if you’re worried people might not have noticed you own a Nikon, you have the option of turning off the quick startup mode in favour of a little animated Coolpix logo accompanied by a soothing chime.

However, when taking quick snaps, we found the S200 often took a long time to ready itself, occasionally missing the moment.

Like many other cameras in the Coolpix range, the S200 uses Nikon’s face-recognition system to ensure correct exposure of portraits no matter where they may appear within the image - there’s no need to lock focus on a face and then re-frame.

Unfortunately, the S200 wasn’t quite as good at finding faces in low light as some of its larger stable mates. Indeed, we found the face-detection features on competing digital cameras, such as the Ixus 950 from Canon, were far better at locating faces than the Coolpix S200.

Despite its tiny battery - about the size of an after-dinner mint, the S200 can happily snap away all night, shooting hundreds of photos with flash on a single charge. However, the absence of a battery-level indicator leaves you unsure of just how many shots you’ve got left until you’re right down at warning level, so you’ll never know if it needs a top up before heading out on a shoot.

Other features include in-camera red-eye reduction and Nikon’s D-Lighting enhancement; the latter allows you to quickly correct poorly-exposed photos inside the camera in ways which would require more advanced techniques on your PC.

The Coolpix S200 employs an electronic form of vibration reduction. This uses sensors in the camera which detect movement, providing the image-processing algorithms with data that can be used to remove motion-blur effects from the captured image. While this isn’t as good as stopping the blur from occurring in the first place, as is the case with mechanical image stabilising systems, it goes a step further than simply ramping up to a high ISO setting to reduce shutter speeds.

You’ll know when the system has kicked if, after taking a photo, the Coolpix S200 pops up a message saying “reducing blur” while the image is processed. Unlike, some electronic anti-blur features, it’s a system that appears to work very well, producing a marked increase in image clarity,

A high ISO option is also provided, which boosts sensitivity up to ISO 1000. At such high sensitivities, CCD noise inevitably creeps in, but the S200’s noise-reduction algorithm does a very good job of reducing the effects; colour noise, in particular, is kept to a minimum. Close inspection of the image does reveal that plenty of processing has occurred, but even at ISO 1000 usable pictures can be printed straight from the camera or improved still further with PC-based software.

The 20MB of internal memory is next to useless, so you’ll need to factor the cost of a SD card into the price.

Considering its diminutive proportions, the S200 is capable of decent image quality and, thanks to on-screen help and a small but useful set of controls, it’s also easy to use.

Advanced photographers will be disappointed with the lack of aperture/shutter priority and a full manual mode, but those who just want to take decent photos with the minimum of fuss will find its fifteen simple scene modes and helpful on-screen explanations make it easy to take the best pictures in a wide range of situations.