Nikon Coolpix S1

Reviewed July 2005

Image Quality

The Coolpix S1 is clearly designed to fit the needs of people who want a camera that is very portable and simple to operate. The S1 meets that need by providing a fully automatic shooting mode that is designed to handle every day subjects, and 16 scene modes that are preset to suit diverse, but still common, photographic subjects.

But, though these modes should be useful for many users, they are by their very nature limited by their pre-established and non-modifiable settings.

For example, the Night Landscape mode has a maximum exposure time of 2 seconds, limiting it to urban night-time subjects that are very brightly lit. And, while the Fireworks mode allows an exposure twice as long, it is limited to 50 ISO and is unsuitable as a replacement for the Night Landscape mode.

Remarkably, the tiny lens of the Coolpix S1 has little distortion, and its entire focal length range appears free of chromatic aberration. Similarly, the matrix metering pattern is generally reliable, but yields the best exposures when the subject is evenly lit.

Indeed the quality of the image the Coolpix yields depends on the lighting available to the camera. When lighting conditions are poor, the shadow areas of images can show little detail, which is when the D-Lighting function can come in useful to bring out details in these areas.

In fact, even if relatively limited, the Auto shooting mode offers the most flexibility, and should prove to be the most useful. For instance, exposure compensation is only accessible in the Auto Mode. Yet, it is an important tool to brighten exposures that use flash — the small built-in flash has a limited reach — as increasing the compensation has the effect of increasing the camera’s sensitivity in increments that cannot be directly selected with the Sensitivity option. (see the Still Life images presented in the Test Photos section of the review).

The same holds true for the white balance which can only be adjusted when the Coolpix S1 is set to the Auto shooting mode. It allows setting the white balance for specific lighting sources, or even setting the white point for unusual mixes of lighting sources. All other modes depend on the Auto White Balance, and while it is effective, it can take the camera awhile to establish the correct white point; a process which can be observed on the monitor as it takes place and which, unless the user is careful, can lead to an incorrectly colour-balanced image if the user takes the photo before it has had enough time to complete.

In all modes — Auto or any of the Scene modes — the image size can be selected. But, it is only the largest image size, 5 megapixel, that offers a choice of compression, with the 5M* (high) format offering the least compressed image quality. Still, the 5M* compression is still quite strong, commonly more than 10:1, and some loss in definition can be seen in very detailed subjects. But, as always, this effect becomes less noticeable with macro shots as details get magnified by the camera’s proximity to the subject.

Overall, the Coolpix S1 will produce good quality images when these are captured under bright lighting, such as is available on a sunny day, and when the photographer remembers to apply the golden rule for a good exposure: keeping the sun at one’s back when shooting outdoors. While under other circumstances, the camera should be allowed time to adjust, be it for exposure or white balance to ensure the best possible results.