Nikon Coolpix S550 10 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom (Graphite Black) by Nikon
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Digital camera reviews of Nikon Coolpix S550 10 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom (Graphite Black)
Digital camera Review: Distortioned pictures when I use the Zoom
Summary: 1 Stars
I went to an event, where I was not to far from the stage, but when I tried the zoom in this camera to take the pictures, all of them were of a very distortioned quality image... For this to be a 10 MP camera... you would expect excellent quality image... by the way, I had it in 10 MP. When I saw the pictures in my computer I was really disappointed, because they are not worth printing. I used to have a Nikon 8MP P1, which a thief stole from my brother and so I bought this one to replace it, but there is definitely no comparison. I do not recommend this camera.Digital camera Review: Does its job pretty well
Summary: 4 Stars
This tiny camera does exactly what I want it to do: take decent pictures and take up less space than my Nikon D40, which is just too bulky to carry around all the time.
After taking about 100 photos with the S550 under a variety of lighting conditions, here are my impressions:
The plusses:
- Auto white balance is smart, even under incandescent lights, so you get pretty accurate colors. You don't get the ugly orange hue that many cameras (including the D40) produce when used in this lighting in the AutoWB setting.
- I like that it shows the shutter speed by default after focusing, without showing any other distracting icons or information. You don't get surprised by blurry shots, and the camera does seem to try to avoid excessively slow shutter speeds.
- Pictures do look quite good at reasonable image sizes (6x8, or 8x10).
- Panorama mode is a cool idea, but I haven't tried out the image splicing software yet.
Minuses:
- Noise (graininess) is visible at most ISO values. Despite the 10MP rating you can not make 20 inch prints from this camera that look good up close. Big prints will only look good for photos taken in bright outdoor light --- even using the flash indoors probably won't be enough. Personally, I don't care, I even dial down to 3MP or 5MP to reduce the noise a little. (Note that this is not a Nikon S550 problem, it is a small CCD sensor problem, so it will be the same on any other camera with an equally small sensor)
- This camera seems to inherit its older brother (D40)'s tendency to over-expose. Not a big deal, since the exposure compensation is easy to dial-in.
- No info screen on playback: as far as I can tell you can't view most of the shooting settings on pictures you have taken (it saves them in the EXIF data, so you can view them in your computer, just not in the camera). I was annoyed by this at first, but I guess it doesn't really matter since there aren't any manual controls for you to play with to optimize things.
- eVR is not real VR. I am skeptical about how well this will work, but actually I haven't had any blurry photos with this camera yet to try eVR out on. This is how it should be, though. The short focal lengths of these cameras should make it really hard to have much blur unless you want it, so I wonder whether VR is really necessary on cameras like this.
Overall, I am quite happy with this camera. If this were my only camera, I would probably rather have a bigger CCD sensor to try to cut down on that noise and take better low-light photos. But bigger sensors need bigger lenses, which only fit in bigger cameras: you can't have everything. If you want a good tiny camera, given the constraints imposed by being tiny, this is a great choice.
Digital camera Review: Don't Drop It!
Summary: 1 Stars
I dropped this camera only once, and it fell only about three feet (it was in my hand and my arm was down). Even though it was only two months old at the time, that fall was enough to dent the lens. I brought it in to an authorized Nikon repair center to be repaired and the estimate was $209.00, more than what it would cost to buy a brand new one! Needless to say, I didn't pay for the repair, and I won't be buying a replacement. This whole experiences has left me extremely disappointed with the quality of Nikon cameras. I know it was my fault that I dropped it, but I would expect that a camera such as this could at least withstand one small fall without requiring repairs this expensive! One three foot fall = $209.00!
Digital camera Review: Excelente pero con un par de detalles.
Summary: 4 Stars
La calidad de las fotos es muy pero muy buena. Esperaba que el sistema antivibracion (VR) fuera un poco mas efectivo pero funciona bien, quizás lo único que no me convence es que es un poco lenta para procesar la fotografía tomada y eso que uso una tarjeta SD-HCDigital camera Review: Excelente!
Summary: 5 Stars
Muy buena cámara!. Mi entusiasmo quizás sea porque es justo lo que estaba buscando. Cómoda, alta definición, buen zoom, perfecta para lo que la quiero.