Nikon Coolpix L5

Reviewed February 2007

Image Quality

The Coolpix L5 is one of Nikon's more technologically advanced point and shoots. This is a camera that offers a 7.2-megapixel resolution, a 2.5-inch monitor, but more importantly, it is equipped with a stabilized 5X zoom that folds neatly into what remains a very reasonably compact body size.

The Coolpix L5 is fully automatic. The camera makes all photographic decisions, setting the aperture, shutter speed and even ISO sensitivity. Only the white balance can be set when the camera is set to the Auto Shooting mode.

The monitor has good contrast and remains visible under most lighting situations. Its resolution, however, is quite low, and occasionally makes it difficult to be sure an image is sharp.

The 5X Nikkor optical zoom is equivalent to a 38 to 190 mm in the 35 mm format. Starting from a near normal focal length, its focal length range is well suited to portraits and can even isolate part of a landscape.

Some barrel distortion is noticeable at the wide end, usually when the subject is close, but there is no pincushion distortion at the telephoto end. Sharpness is homogeneous throughout the focal length range and there is no chromatic aberration on the edges of strongly contrasting image elements.

Optical stabilization on the Coolpix L5 is not only effective, it is in fact necessary, as the widest aperture of the lens at telephoto end starts at f5. That aperture restricts the amount of light reaching the CCD, and could easily capture a image blurred by camera shake.

The optical stabilization system acts to cancel out the involuntary movements of the photographer, and makes it possible to capture sharp images at shutter speeds that are less than what would otherwise be necessary.

It is interesting to note that of the two stabilization modes available with the Coolpix L5, the VR-Active mode is able to take into account purposeful movement with the camera and only stabilizes unwanted movement, be it vertical or horizontal. This makes it possible to pan the camera to follow a moving subject while the camera stabilizes any opposite movements.

An added benefit of the optical stabilizer on the L5 is that it often allows the camera to use low ISO settings, and thereby avoid noise as much as possible.

As noted earlier, the Coolpix L5 is in control of the CCD sensitivity, setting it from a range that covers from 80 to 400 ISO. While photos captured under bright light and at low ISO show little noise, some noise becomes discernible in shadows as of 100 ISO, and becomes visible throughout the image from 200 ISO onwards.

The Matrix metering is generally excellent, and produces images that are well-exposed, but it is sometimes advisable to use the centre-weighted pattern with subjects that are in shadows and have brightly lit backgrounds. Or, failing that, take advantage of the built-in the D-Lighting option.

D-lighting makes it possible to correct the brightness and contrast of images that have already been captured, bringing out details from the shadows without affecting the highlights.

Under good lighting conditions, the L5's autofocus performs very well, however, in darker surroundings, it becomes a bit hesitant, making the lack of an AF assist lamp noticeable. On the other hand, the camera is equipped with face recognition () that allows the autofocus to settle on a face in the frame, even if it is off-centre.

All images captured with the Coolpix L5 are saved in JPEG format, and only at the highest resolution, 7.2 megapixel, is there a choice of image quality. 7M* (High) is the best image quality, but it still uses a compression in the range of 8:1. And, while at this level the compression process does not create colour artifacts, details are slightly diffused, as can be seen on a monitor when the image is inspected at 100%. This is unlike the Normal image quality setting, which applies a compression in the range of 15:1, thereby impacting the overall image sharpness.

The built-in flash of the Coolpix L5 lights the subject evenly at all focal lengths. However the camera tends to increase sensitivity — generally in the range of 200 ISO — to increase the flash reach, which tends to make for noisy images. Moreover, the flash recharging time is relatively long, running at around 4 seconds with Ni-MH (EN-MH1) batteries, and has an impact on the speed at which flash photos can be captured.

The Coolpix L5 is a camera that demands little from the photographer, and yet delivers a good image quality at the highest resolution and least compression. Most notably, exposures are usually flawless and the colour rendition is excellent, making it possible to print pictures out to the 10 x 7.5 inch size (25 x 18.75 cm) at 300 dpi. As with many compacts, the Nikon Coolpix L5 yields its best images when used in sunny weather, and priced as it is, it is clearly worthy of attention.