Customer Reviews

Nikon Coolpix S7c 7MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This camera is stylish, thin enough to be comfortable to carry in a pocket for entire day, has a large screen, but the performance is overall disappointing.

Battery life was hardly 100 pictures.
Focusing and taking a picture is very slow...usually more than 4 seconds when it has to use the focus assist light indoors. Everyone comments on that when I'm taking their picture. In addition, unlike most cameras that have multiple focus points (7,9,11,etc), this camera only focuses on the middle point of the picture by default. There is a nice feature that lets you manually move the focus point around to anywhere in the scene, but it takes a lot clicks and time so I don't bother using it.
The lens is not wide enough for daily use and most pictures come out very soft in the center with bad chromatic aberration and a lot of distortion at wide angle.
WIFI is slow and useless in all but the most rarest of situations. They should have just used Bluetooth so that anyone could use their phone to email the picture or at least be able to email/ftp directly to any email/ftp you want.
The screen smudges very quickly, but it's easy to clean and can't see the dirt when the back light is on.
The camera decides when the electronic VR (image stabilization) gets used and most of the time doesn't activate it. And even when it does activate it, it just increases the noise and the picture still comes out soft. There is an option to clean up the image after it's been taken, but the camera tells you that it's not able to do it for many images.
The camera corrupted my Sandisk ultra II sdcard, something that my former compact digicam didn't do in two years.

The movie mode, on the other hand is very good. The movie files do get fairly large...about 1mb per second, but very smooth, very stable and have good color. There is a constant buzzing noise in movies though.

The scroll wheel is fantastic and should have been incorporated into many other cameras. It makes browsing pictures and menus extremely fast and easy. It really saves thumb fatique. The camera is quite fast at switching between pictures, modes, etc. So that...(plus the movie and style factor) are the ONLY redeeming features.

It's also very hard to get used to not having an actual switch to switch between movie and picture mode. Having to go trough though the menu can sometimes make you miss a photo opportunity because the camera is set in video mode and switching to photo is not a one button operation.

Overall, I don't think it's worth the price. What am I getting to replace this one?.....the Canon SD800.

Pros:
-Small size and weight; Can fit into pocket or purse without feeling you are carrying a brick. Sleek design and large 3" LCD has 230,000 resolution, which means when you take a picture you can actually see how clear the picture is and you don't have to zoom in to see what it looks like. Not the case with SD 600/630. The new canon model coming out soon has highter resolution.

- Takes great snapshots with flash or without flash with plenty of light. Not for those that love to play with tons of settings and I would agree with previous reviewer that ISO settings worsen the quality of the picture. Adjusting the exposure isn't difficult and you would need to click through the menu to adjust it, but that's something that all digital cameras require.

-The color of the picture is more true to color than what I've experienced with Canon powershot A70, SD 600/630 and the flash isn't so powerful that it creates an unrealistic brightness or whiteness to people's faces. The flash creates an even brightness throughout the entire picture as opposed to just adding light to your face and leaving the background pretty dark

-Very easy to use; Very easy menus

Cons:
-The picture isn't as sharp as the Canon SD600/630 when you take a picture inside without the flash and don't have adequate lighting, but it is perfect with the flash on.
-You have to hold camera steady and any slight movement might blur the shot, which is true of other digital cameras, but the Nikon s7c is a little more sensitive to that. Same thing with moving objects.
-Smaller buttons, but the camera is small and thin to begin with, thus, you can't expect to have a tiny little thing with large buttons.
-No viewfinder, which didn't bother me, because I don't use it to take a picture, but some people prefer to have it.
-Lithium ion battery doesn't last very long (other digital cameras use a lithium ion battery as well, but there are some that use double AA size batteries so when the recharecheable batteries die, you have an alternative. Those would be larger cameras, of course.)

Overall, this is a camera that takes great snap shots. If you are in low light, use a flash, don't bother with iso settings. It's just not meant for those things and when I go to any event, I really don't have the time to play around with settings and just want a good quality picture without pushing too many buttons. I was looking for a camera that takes true to color photos with a flash that adds flattering light as opposed to overexposed faces that make people look frighteningly pale.
I love it, but no camera is perfect with every feature.

Try it out and compare it to others and look for the features that matter to you!

I don't get all of the negative reviews about the S7c. I got one for Xmas and find it great. I had a Pentax Optio S (circa 2002) and the Nikon is a major step up in quality and features. I'm no photo geek, so I have pretty realistic expectations what a point-and-shoot digital camera is for and what it's limitations are.

I did tons of research and narrowed my choice down to the Nikon and the Canon SD630 (both have 3" screens). Among professional reviewers, the Canon did come out a bit ahead (e.g., cnet), but all of the professional reviews of the Nikon were very positive (and I don't have nearly as a discerning eye as the pros). I went with the Nikon because it has 7 megapixels (the Canon has only 6), I liked having fewer mechanical parts (no mechnical retractable lens), and the wifi seemed like the next big advancement in photo sharing.

Pros:

1. Great photos in most conditions.
2. Large screen size.
3. Simple and intuitive menus.
4. Small # and good placement of essential buttons on camera.
5. Wifi is the best. It took some effort to get it set up (Nikon tech support was great), but once I got it going, downloading to my PC is fast and easy. I've also used the Coolpix Connect to send email to family and friends, and it worked seamlessly. Every camera should have wifi!
6. Pictmotion is a great and fun feature.

Cons:

1. In some indoor light, the flash goes off when it doesn't need to, causing overexposure.
2. Nothing else to speak of at this point.

Overall:

I'm really pleased with the purchase.

I have been searching reviews of the Nikon coolpix s7c to make sure that it wasnt just me - and I am finding that indeed countless other reviewers are having the same problem, and many have taken it up with Nikon only to be told 'sorry'.

In a nutshell, I am a professional photographer and have owned about a dozen digital cameras ranging from the early elph to nice new SLR models. I purchased the Nikon coolpix s7c for my wife, and it is by far the worst one I have owned for many reasons, but the chief problem is they have simply screwed up the way this camera does things automatically and the result is HORRIBLE PICTURES.

The 'electronic VR' is simply digital image sharpening, the ISO adjustments in low light are terrible, and what I simply cannot believe is how terrible the autofocus is. Couple that with the design of this camera that makes it difficult to shoot steadily, and you literally end up getting more than 50% blurry pictures.

Is somtimes difficult to understand some of the reviews for that camera. One review for instance says that the quality of the pictures is fantastic and the next one says that it's terrible. This camera is (like most cameras of this kind of any brand) basically a point and shoot camera and it will of course never have the performance of a Nikon D 200 or even of a D50. It is not the same range and not the same price. But for what is is, it's an excellent camera that takes great pictures. I bought one to update my "old" S1 and to take everyday pictures, I am quite satisfied with it. It takes great pictures , great videos, is fast enough for a "normal" use, the display frame is one of the best and wifi works well.

I bought this camera with high hopes and it is by far the WORST digital camera I have ever owned. It looks great but the picture quality is terrible--grainy, spots and ghosts. I cannot tell you how bad the picture truly are. I had a Kodak and I am going back... and I am tech savvy and take pictures for publications.

I put this camera through its paces today and I don't feel cool at all. I'm steaming mad at this camera.

Before I rant, I will say the big screen is nice and the menus are nice and big and readible, and I mastered almost all the controls without referring to the manual. Nikon did do some things right.

But what they did wrong was really wrong. The vibration reduction is really just a sharpen filter, like in Photoshop, applied to the blurry image you just took with your camera that has no real vibration reduction cabability. What's worse, once this "electronic" vibration reduction is applied, the picture on the camera's screen looks way better than it really is. You only find out that the camera doctored a blurry picture when you move the image to your computer and look at it on your big computer monitor.

Also, it seems that many of the pictures I took were fuzzier than I expected, or the color was just washed out. I never really got a "Wow, that's amazing" picture out of the dozens I took.

The macro mode is terrible. Even in macro mode you can't get more than about four inches from the subject. Did you know that other cameras let you get 4 cm from the subject? This camera is worse for macros than my Minolta that I bought two years ago!

Finally, the "quick start guide" that comes in the box tells you to take the camera out of the box, attach the wrist strap, put in the battery, charge the camera, etc. However, it never tells you to put in a memory card! DOH!

So, if you want a point and shoot camera with a big readible screen, and you don't care so much for picture quality, buy this. If you want great pictures, better check out some other cameras.

This is a wonderful camera. I had the Nikon Coolpix S1. It was also excellant until I dropped it. I replaced it with this S7c. The view screen is bigger, 3". The camera itaelf is slighter bigger than the S1 but still very compact and easily fits in a pocket. The play back of photo feature is easier to use than the original. Picture quality is superb. As with the S1, the S7c is slow to take pictures in flash mode. This can cause you to miss some candid shots. Camera is certainly worth the cost.

The camera feels slick. The software that comes with it gets a 4 star for efficiency, though the intuitiveness is not its strength. While the large LCD display is terrific (the main reason I got it), It is worthless in a high glare situation. You can't see what you are shooting. It's worthless! And since Nikon did not give you a viewing lense for such situations, there are times whey you have no idea what you are shooting.
While the viewing wheel, to rapidly cycle through the shots you've taken, is quite handy, the rest of the navigation is less than intuitive, and often takes so long to figure out that you give up. Pictures are generally good, though the conditions have to be perfect, or you get grain or blur.

There is one lovely feature, but it is only useful on a tri-pod. It is a function which allows you to take a flash photo and have the aperture remain open for a little while after to fill in the background. It creates flash shots without the black void background typical of such pix. I use that feature a lot, but its worthless without "legs" for the camera.

I bought this on a whim, counting on the Nikon reputation. Had I known, I would have stuck with the Canon.

I bought this camera for travel, so I had 4 simple criteria: (1) Small size and fairly light weight (fit in pockets), (2) decent optical zoom and MPixel, and (3) small/simple docking station/charger (for those extended trips, (4) large LCD screen, so what you see is what you get.

I found the camera to exceed those criteria. I took it to skiing, put in my ski-jacket pocket. Despite a few tumbles in snow (not direct major impacts), the camera survives and work well. I actually dropped it on the floor (in door) once or twice, and not a scratch. The colors are vivid, the red-eye reduction works well, and vibration stabilizer works well. Took pictures in a moving car of the landscape, and they came out well. It has many other special features (which I am exploring right now - like panaramic overlay), and they seem to work well.

I got a Kingston 1 GB Elite Pro Secure Digital Memory Card to use with this camera, it worked well. Even took several movies with this camera durng my trip, and they came out great. For the value, functionality and quality of pictures, it does what a travel camera should do, take good travel pictures to showcase one's adventures.