Nikon Coolpix S9100 Review

Nikon Coolpix Cameras Review » Review Nikon Coolpix S9100 » Nikon Coolpix S9100 Review

May 25th, 2011 | Add a Comment

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Grap Your Passport, Grap Your Camera and GO!”

Bring your own passion for gorgeous images anywhere you go! The brand new Nikon COOLPIX S9100 camera is really as sophisticated and powerful as it is trendy little.

Overview Coolpix S9100 Specification:
Model: Nikon COOLPIX S9100
Mega-pixel: 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera
Zoom: 18x NIKKOR ED Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens
Video: Full HD 1080p Video

Key Features:
Advanced, Powerful, yet can go anywhere:
The newest Nikon COOLPIX S9100 is packed with impressive Nikon technologies, for instance a 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensing unit which guarantees exceptional picture quality in low-light situations. Improved with Nikon’s exclusive EXPEED C2 processing power engine, you will take real looking photos with outstanding details. You will enjoy composing pictures over the big 3 inches Crystal clear Colour Screen. It bright 921,000-dot, ultra-high resolution screen which enables viewing pictures and HD videos immediately gratifying.

Create a scene and get the most out of every shot:
Using Night Landscape mode, take high-quality photos during the night. It shoots several consecutive photos and composes them all in to a single, remarkable picture. Night Portrait function will take outdoor portraits towards bright backgrounds and mixes several photos to take the quality of night scenes. , The COOLPIX S9100’s Backlighting HDR Mode automatically offers optimum exposures while you’re shooting backlit things.

Sample Pictures:
S9100_sample_image1 S9100_sample_image2 S9100_sample_image3 S9100_sample_image4 S9100_sample_image5

Read Full User Review

User Review:
Possitive
Now I’m no professional photographer, but I am picky about how my pictures look. I have a good eye, and can be very anal about details in my photos. I’ve seen this camera get some bad reviews lately, and I am really perplexed by this. I looked at lots of other cameras. some costing more and some less. This was by far the best point and shoot pocket-able mega zoom out there, I thought. I read some negative reviews about sluggish focus and blurred images from here and from Best Buy’s web site. I don’t know if a bad batch of cameras went out? I did have some focus issues right out of the box when I started using the camera; but after inspecting the camera I noticed a nice big greasy finger print right on the lens. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t from me, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it though. After cleaning the lens, I have had no focus issues. The only thing I can say about the focus is that when indoors, sometimes you need to take a step back and use more zoom to get focus lock, and sometimes you might need to take a step forward and use less zoom to achieve focus lock. This happens rarely though. Most of the time my S9100 focuses fast and true. Low light shots are great indoors and out. Auto mode works pretty good for about 90% of my shots, and the rest I use the various setting or scene modes to capture the shot I want. Now I’m not saying every shot I take is perfect and clear. As with any camera digital or film. You have to expect a few bad shots. That’s why I always try to take more that one shot when possible. the lcd is gorgeous. I find that if the pictures look good on the camera, they will look good on my computer. Of course different computers will yield different results. On my laptop the pictures look a bit drab or dull, but on my desk top with a high res monitor the pictures are real vivid and pleasing to the eye. I’ve had the camera now for almost two weeks and I love it. The long zoom is great, but even with image stabilizing enabled you will need a steady hand for clear shots at higher zoom levels. The video from the camera plays nice and smooth on my computer when I use windows media player; but when I tried quick time the video was choppy. In video mode you can take pics while recording, which is nice. There is no shutter sound when you take the picture, therefore no shutter sound in the video. You will however hear the zoom lens in your videos under quiet situations. It’s not very loud, but it is noticeable. The camera starts up quick with little delay from shot to shot. I do recommend a class 6 or higher memory card. It made a big difference for me in burst mode. The camera can fire off 5 shots at a rate of 9.5 fps, but write times with a class 4 were painfully slow. I had to wait a good 9 to 10 seconds before my next shot. I am now using a class 10 and that time has been cut down to about 3 to 4 seconds. A bit of advice on memory cards. Make sure you look at the minimum and maximum write times. Not all class tens or sixes are equal. I saw a lot of class 10 cards with the same write speeds as higher end class 6 cards. I did upload a bunch of pictures so everyone can judge for themselves on quality. I guess the best advice I can give is try some test shots using various scene modes for other than there intended purpose. That’s what I try to do when possible. I’ll take a few pictures of the same shot using different settings. Then I view them on the computer later to see what looks best. Some other things I would like to touch on. A complaint I heard a lot about on the S8100 is the battery level wasn’t displayed until the camera needed charging. It is now displayed always on the S9100. Another complaint was about flash placement on the S8100. It’s in the same place for this one, but for me there is still enough room behind the flash for my finger. The flash no longer pops up automatically. It now pops up by activating a little switch on the side of the camera. This I actually like. I never cared for auto pop up flashes. Some people have complained about placement of the shutter button. That of course is an individual preference and shouldn’t effect a rating. I like where it is on this camera, no problems at all. The other buttons and dials all seem to be good places and easy to activate or use. The camera itself is pretty easy to use. The interface is simple and clean. Settings are easy to get to and not buried under five or six sub menus. All in all, this is a great little camera.

Negative
I have returned this camera. They should not have changed the image stabilization. It would not take clear photos. And when I used the zoom, it didn’t focus. I had intended to buy the Nikon Coolpix s8100, but when I saw that this new model was out, I bought it instead. BIG MISTAKE! I have now purchased the s8100 and am very happy with it. I don’t understand why Nikon has put out something so disappointing.