Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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226 of 228 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One week in- A cool little camera, June 30, 2008
As a fairly cheap point-and-shoot camera, the Nikon Coolpix S550 is a pretty neat piece of hardware. It's certainly not a high-end DSLR, but it's good at what it does, and it offers some nice pluses over other cameras in its price range.
The good:
-5x optical zoom is very good for a little camera like this, and is tops in this camera's class. I would like to remind readers that "digital zoom" really just crops out part of a picture to make it look bigger in the viewfinder while destroying actual shot quality, so please disregard the "digital zoom" on this or any camera.
-10megapixel resolution is pretty phenominal, especially in this camera's price range, especially coupled with the 5x zoom. Dollar-for-dollar, you're getting a lot.
-Shutter and record speeds seem great. Note that with megapixels this high, you're going to need a high-speed SDHC memory card if you don't want to see too much of the hourglass.
-The high resolution and zoom really combine for wow power when you take movies with the camera. Although the mic is terrible and you'll probably just want to mute it, you can take movies of a pet where you can see every individual hair from a respectable distance if you so choose. On a one-gig card, I can shoot a half-hour of movies at this quality.
-The camera's overall size is very comfortable. Not much taller and wider than a credit card, not much thicker than a thin paperback, and compeletely flat when it's powered down. Yet it's still roomy- I'm a 6'+ guy with stubby fingers, and I've never fumbled a button yet.
-Tons of modes. The camera can take widescreen pictures or regular format, PAL or NTSC, and resolutions from standard tv (640x480) through the roof (over 3,000 vertical pixels). It has smile recognition, stabilization, various compensation filters including red-eye. It has Portrait, Outdoor, Indoor, and even Copy for taking pictures of documents just in case you're a secret agent on a budget. The basic Shoot and Smile modes seem wholly satisfactory, but this camera offers plenty of room to grow. Yesterday I took some very clear photos of moths in flight, with no adjustments other than setting the camera to high ISO.
The not-so-good:
-No optical viewfinder, only the digital screen. It's a very good and very big screen though, so this is mostly just for nostalgia's sake.
-The camera doesn't have a dial for the various settings. Instead of just clicking over to Portrait or Outdoor, you have to hit a menu button and look around. This is a pretty small complaint overall, but I would have still preferred a wheel.
-I've noticed that with a lot of low-end digital cameras like this, you can see that as the camera auto-adjusts it will show a perfectly sharp picture in the viewfinder, but keep adjusting until the picture becomes a bit blurry. Maybe this is just something about the way I take pictures, but I know this camera is capable of clearer shots. This is especially evident in extreme close-ups, such as under a foot away. The camera will adjust right up to a perfectly crisp photo for a moment, then keep going to a blurry mess before it snaps the shot. If I could just cut out the last few moments of zooming, I'd have gotten a perfect photo. I saw this same thing with a number of comparable cameras while doing in-store tests, and I'm puzzled as to what causes it (maybe I need to turn off the assist beam sometimes, I don't know). I'll have to check the camera's official site and such to see if I can find tips.
-5x zoom, while really wonderful for the price range, still seems a bit stifling. Maybe I'm just at the point in my life where I need to own up to the truth and save up for a high-end SLR. 5x optical is certainly much better than the 3x zoom that comes with most comparable cameras.
Overall, I really got this camera because it was time to upgrade from my old Canon A60. The A60 took really great photos in the right conditions, but it couldn't adapt to conditions well, and it had a very big delay between pressing the button and getting a shot. The Coolpix has already paid for itself with smile recognition- I'm a "psychic blinker" who manages to always shut his eyes the moment a photo is taken, and I haven't gotten a single photo of myself with my eyes closed, even doing close-ups with flash.
If you're just starting out in the digital world, this camera has all the best features with a clear interface and instant point-and-shoot modes that require no calibration. If you're like me and you just need to find a smarter digital camera, you could do a lot worse than this one for the same money. If this camera suits your price range, you simply must put it at the top of your list. The only reason I'd suggest passing on this camera is if you've got significantly more money to spend on a higher class of camera.
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156 of 156 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Little Camera.....but........, July 31, 2008
I did quite a bit of research before deciding on this camera. The majority of the reviews were excellent. There were a few that were scary. Now i realize why. This camera is a great camera if you are willing to put the time in to learn all it has to offer and how to use it. It comes in cool, fresh colors which may be one of the reasons that people felt mislead. Although cool looking this camera is a sophisticated piece of equiptment capable of producing some great pictures for the average person, but it does require you to read certain portions of the manual or you will not be satisfied with the results.
One criticism i read related to the fact that it did not take great low light pictures. Well if you don't adjust the camera to suit those lighting conditions then you won't be happy. However push two buttons and get into the right mode and you will find that you can take some of the best low light pictures around. You can't just drag the camera from the beach, to the museum and then to a house party and expect that the one setting is going to give great all around pictures. Although it's cool looking it is not an instamatic!!
This is a great camera if you are willing to learn, otherwise you won't be happy.
I am not a professional photographer and I found it very easy to go through the manual and learn what I needed to get great pictures all the time.
This is a great camera, just not for everyone.
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125 of 133 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
small camera with big zoom, March 25, 2008
I like the camera and the photos. The zoom is good and unheard of for a camera this size. easy to use even without reading the manual. One problem, it comes with a rechargeable battery# Li-ion EN-EL11 but...I can't find anyone who sells it yet (I like a backup battery). The screen is large but I do miss the option of using a view finder, which helps in bright light. Photo colors look real.
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