ISO comparison

These are 100 percent crops from our test scene. The Nikon S8200's photo quality is generally very good, though it's not the good low-light performer I expected. It does very well with plenty of light, as do most cameras in this category. Once you get above ISO 200, though, colors start to desaturate, there's a noticeable increase in noise and artifacts, and subjects look soft and lack fine detail. Much of this is only visible if you view the shots at 100 percent, so those looking to make large prints or do a lot of enlarging and heavy cropping--especially of low-light shots or of things taken with the lens fully extended--will probably want to pass on this camera. The 16-megapixel resolution is really a waste in this case. But if your needs are more for prints up to 8x10 and online use, well then, you might really like the S8200.