According to Nikon Corporation, the Coolpix S600 is the World’s most compact body featuring 4x wide-angle zoom lens. This research was based on other compact digital cameras with the same size zoom lens (28mm) and optical vibration reduction.
So, does the compactness of this digital camera compromise the features? Let’s have a look...
The Coolpix S600 takes crisp and clear photos. The image and colour quality is great. For its class, the wide-angled lens does a good job at not distorting photos. The optical Vibration Reduction (VR) works well and the ISO performance is impressive; together, these two qualities help produce photos that have very little noise.
As mentioned above, the Coolpix S600 is compact, making it a great camera to pack along. It will fit into your purse or pocket and you’ll hardly know it’s there.
New Kids on the Block
The Coolpix S600 has a new addition to their scene modes: Active Child mode. How does it assist in producing better photos? Compose your photo and select your subject (presumably an active child), the camera will then take the reigns and automatically track the subject and keep it in focus, so when you’re ready to take the shot, the subject will already be in focus no matter where (s)he is within the frame. This mode also works great when taking photos of animals.
Also new, Coolpix S600 has a Pastel mode. Now, not only can you shoot in standard (default setting), vivid, black-and-white, sepia and cyanotype, you can also take photos in pastel! Personally, I prefer to take photos in standard, so all these additional options seem a waste to me. Why? Shooting in standard gives you more control over the final photo. With so many photo editing programs out there (and many are free), it’s easy to manipulate your photo later. However, if you shoot in black-and-white, sepia or pastel it’s going to be much more difficult, if not impossible to change the photo to anything besides what the original photo is taken in. Just my opinion!
Sprint vs. Endurance
Besides being the world’s most compact point-and-shoot, Nikon boasts that the Coolpix S600 features the world’s fastest start-up time. Fair enough, the Coolpix S600 does have an impressive 0.7 second start-up, but it doesn’t perform so well in the shutter lag department. Placing the Coolpix S600 beside the competitors, it has a lot slower response time when taking one photo right after another.
That’s about the only complaint I have for the Coolpix S600. Depending on what you’re shooting, this might not even be an issue for you. However, it could mean frustration and opportunities missed if you’re taking a lot of quick-action shots or even wildlife photos.
