We were pleased, for the most part, with the S10's performance in our lab tests. It took 1.7 seconds to start up and capture its first image, then took 1.9 seconds between subsequent images without flash, and 2.2 seconds with the flash turned on. In bright lighting conditions, its shutter lag measured a speedy 0.6 second, but slowed considerably in dim light to 2.5 seconds. In its standard continuous-shooting mode, we were able to capture 54 VGA-size JPEGs in 33.1 seconds for an average rate of 1.63fps. When we stepped up to 6-megapixel JPEGs, we captured 39 shots in 31.4 seconds for an average of 1.24fps.
Images from the Nikon Coolpix S10 were very nice with lots of fine detail at its lower ISOs, well-saturated colors, and very little in the way of JPEG artifacts or colored fringing. The camera's automatic white balance served up nearly neutral colors with our lab's tungsten lights; there was an extremely mild warm cast, though some users may even like the effect. The tungsten white-balance setting yielded a slightly greenish cast with our tungsten lights, while the Preset (a.k.a. manual) white balance provided the most neutral results.
We saw almost no noise at the camera's lowest sensitivity setting of ISO 50. A very slight, very fine layer of noise crept in at ISO 100, though it was visible only on our monitor and wouldn't show up in prints. It increased slightly again at ISO 200, though again was minimized by printing and wasn't very distracting on our monitors. We did notice that there was some loss of finer detail, though we could still distinguish the individual hash marks on our test scene's measuring tape. At ISO 400, noise was noticeable on our monitor, and the hash marks on the measuring tape now blurred together completely, though prints were still usable, especially at smaller sizes. By ISO 800, noise was rampant, lots of detail was lost, and images weren't really usable for prints beyond 4x6 inches, though we'd shy away from boosting the sensitivity this high if at all possible.
Nikon does some things right with the Coolpix S10, most notably the lens and the versatile twist design, but its noise performance could definitely improve and we'd like to see them include some more advanced controls. With significant improvements in these two areas alone, Nikon's swivel-cams might be able to reclaim the status they once had as some of the most innovative and desirable compact cameras around. As they are now, you may as well spend a little extra cash and look to Canon's S3 IS. With its swiveling LCD, it'll give you all of the Nikon Coolpix S10's versatility along with more powerful controls and better noise performance.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
 |
Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
What You'll Pay
- Set Price Alert
