Customer Reviews

Nikon Coolpix S50 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Vibration Reduction Zoom (Black)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Nikon's two newest 3" LCD entries have a tough act to follow, the very popular S7c. The first of these two is the S50. Nice sized camera that easily fits a pocket or purse. But here's what really makes it stand out:

1) Good quality 3x optical periscoping lens with true VR. The periscoping feature means the lens zooms inside the camera body, not outside. This protects the lens from damage if dropped or accidently turned on while in a case (or restricted area like a purse or pocket). The VR is of the optical shift variety, which is far superior to the "anti-blur" modes that simply boost the ISO. But this camera can also go to ISO 1600, getting the best of both worlds;

2) Large 3 inch screen you can see reasonably well at poor angels (such as when holding the camera at low angles or above your head), and better than average outside (at least well enough to take your photographs);

3) Reasonably prices accessories. Nikon reasonable? Yes. Nikon is very reasonable on additional batteries and replacement items. Additionally, they use the SD memory cards, the easiest to find and the most price competitive out there;

4) Great in camera editing. No, it's not a PC-in-a-camera, but it does allow the best in camera editing of any point-and-shoot digital. The D-Lighting is particularly good as saving photos where the important areas are too dark without washing out the light areas.

I also prefer the black finish of the S50 to the silver finish of the S50c. The latter camera features a wireless capability that will not be useful to most, for about $50 more.

My reason for buying this particular camera was the "anti-shake" image stabilization. Too many of my picture are, eh, taken during an earthquake, as the old joke goes. Well, the very first time that I gave this camera a road test, I found myself at the coast, wanting to take pictures with full zoom, while strong sea winds almost blew me off my feet. "Captain, permission to engage image stabilization?" "Make it so, number one!".

And miraculously, none of my pictures were shaken or stirred. I love this thing.

Another big plus is the big LCD on the back. It's big, it's gorgeous, and it makes you excited about your pictures while you're taking them. There is something psychological going on there, but the fact is that the LCD makes you fall in love with the camera and your own picture taking capability, even before you have seen the result.

I'm giving this thing 4 stars instead of 5 because of two niggles. One: turning off the flash is confusing. Bizarrely, it seems you can not change flash settings when the anti-shake is engaged. Two: the lens is placed to the edge of the camera body, and I regularly find a finger of my left hand dangling in front of it. As a result I need to hold it in a somewhat unnaturally feeling way.

But on the whole I'm very happy with this camera. And small and black it looks very sexy.

I received my new S50 and left the next day on an extended trip. Having upgraded from a Coolpix 4300, I found the S50's picture quality stunning. The 3" viewing screen is easy to use for framing shots as well as viewing the results in all except the strongest direct sunlight on it. The menu options, while extensive, are easy to understand for various shooting options, although I use the manual to understand the less-often-used features. While I miss the ability to use a viewfinder as well as the view screen for composing pictures, the 3" display is so vivid and clear, and the camera such a convenient size, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. The interface cable allows you to plug into a USB port or the video/audio ports of a TV. It and the battery charger fit nicely into my travel backpack. I have ordered a spare battery as the 3" display uses some juice. I found I had to recharge the battery every night (I was shooting a lot of pictures and showing them off). I also recommend a slim case to prevent scratching the display screen. I put in a 2 Gb card and at fairly high resolution it looks like I can shoot 600 to 800 shots.
This is a great product, it takes great, crystal clear pictures which crop and blow up well.

I was generally happy with my Sony. So long as I was using it outside. I had issues using it in low light situations. I purchased this camera for my niece as a graduation gift. She let me play with it a little one evening. I took some pictures of my spastic boy in a low light setting. WOW! The pictures were as clear as they would have been had I taken them during the day with sunlight coming in the windows. And even though he was in constant motion, there was no motion blur. I did however have to press the button a little ahead of his actions, the red-eye flash caused the reaction to be a bit delayed, but my son is a ham and was always posing.

THE GOOD
* Small - I really like the idea of having a small pocket sized camera. I know that there are cameras that can take better quality pictures, but if it is a pain to carry around what good is quality when I miss a great shot all together? The cases sold for digital cameras are all too large, and don't pocket well. I suggest trying other options, I've used a memory card case for my Sony and for my niece I went to the office supply store and found it fit perfectly in a business card holder. This way the unit was protected and still fit in her pocket. The screen protector I applied seems to stay on pretty well.
* Fantastic Low Light Pictures - I am still playing with the settings to see if I can get a faster reaction when I shoot.
* My niece loves the black - And the finish does not attract fingerprints. I also found it in brown through ritz camera and red at circuit city.

THE SO-SO
* The red-eye is still there. I have never had much luck with the red-eye reducing flash on any camera, there is always red-eye when using it anyways. On this Nikon, however, I am finding it difficult to turn the red-eye flash off. The in-camera red-eye fix is not explained very well in the manual. I think it only works if it is in Portrait mode. The camera is supposed to automatically detect the red-eye and fix it. The manual does not explain if I need to tell the camera to look for the red-eye in a photo or if the camera just does it, in which case I wouldn't have known if red-eye was an issue in the photo or not. Personally, I would have like to see a before and after with the automatic red-eye detection.
* Changing the settings is quite confusing and hard to remember how to do again. For some settings you have to go through a few menus. For other settings, such as the sports or fireworks programs, you need to make certain the camera is set in the scene mode first.

THE BAD
* I haven't found anything too terrible. I am pretty proficient with my editing software and so long as the picture is clear, I can fix most anything. The red-eye fix in my software works better than any point, click and auto-fix in most software.

I bought the black color camera. The pictures are excellent, the LCD screen gives you a fantastic view of watch you plan to capture.

The only minuses I find is the charger should have the plug built right into it like the Kodak Easyshare camera does, and the book takes a LOT of reading if you want to really get deep with using the camera. You can smudge the LCD screen alot and you have to watch out where you put your left fingers or esle they'll appear in your photos like a UFO.

But otherwise, it really is about the size of a pack of playing cards.

Great camera - the pics are clean, simple interface, emailing pics wirelessly was a little tricky setting up, but it works well. A large screen is a must, but it's very easy to get scratched up. Tried using those aftermarking films, but finally tossed them because they kept pealing off of it when I put it back in the case.

Macro is a great feature, although it would be nice to be able to zoom further for kids events. The battery charger needs a timer to keep you from overcharging the battery. Am not sure why this is not a built-in feature (a shutoff timer for the battery). I did burn out the first one the first week on a business trip, but Nikon is great. They swapped out my battery immediately with a new one, no questions asked.

Excellent customer service, even at 3am EST.

For the price, this is great camera. If you just need quick, clean shots without the fuss, and you can email them wirelessly to anyone, most anywhere. Good job, Nikon.

This is my second Nikon camera, and it is absolutely amazing. The pictures are of great quality and the shutter speed is fast, so you don't miss a second. This camera has amazing features such as creating a slideshow with your own music uploaded from your computer as well as great video quality in its compact size. I love the 3 inch lcd screen which displays everything brightly. I strongly recommend this camera.

I have owned about a dozen digital cameras, and thought that when I bought a Nikon D70 with a good lens, I would never need another one. However, I decided that sometimes it would be nice to have a small, good quality, pocket size camera as a companion for the D70, especially in places where I did not really want to lug around a big camera like the D70; like boating and motorcycling and bad weather.

So I bought a S50, and I am very happy with it, realizing it has some limitations. I read the manual, and like most cameras, about 90% of the feature set is not important to me. I just get it out, adjust the zoom, and use it. Picture quality is very good, ease of use is great.

Three drawbacks, none of which is a showstopper:

1. Battery life is very short. You need some extra batteries. Sorry, Amazon, but you can find some no name batteries on eBay for about $5 each, and they seem to work as well as the Nikon branded ones. I recommend carrying two extras if you are planning a lot of photos especially if the flash is going to be used.

2. This camera does not have a docking unit like other small Nikons. It has a large awkward cable for plugging into the USB port, a cable which is heavy and puts stress on the small proprietary plug on the bottom of the camera. Also, you have to take the battery out to charge it, so you are removing and replacing the battery frequently.

3. Like most small digital cameras, taking outside flash pictures at night is a total waste of time.

But I like this camera, and if I lost it, I would be tempted to buy another one just like it, even though there is some room for improvement. Serves its function well as a backup, not serious camera.

The functionality on this camera is phenomenal, but I was disappointed in the quality of the images. They all seemed to be grainy to me.

I used the camera for 1 - 2 weeks, then returned it and purchased a Canon SD800IS, which I'm very happy with.

I already have an extended zoom Kodak Z612 so I was looking for a small pocket friendly camera for casual occasions. Did a lot of research and based on good experience with an S1 when I bought it for a friend over a year ago I decided to go with this stylish new S50, afterall the feature set is great!

Nikon's legendary lens in a compact stylish all metal body and a birght beautiful 3" LCD to boot, not to mention Optical/Electronic VR! I thought I'd finally found my match, so I thought.

I had this camera for about a week and managed to shoot 280 pictures in three graduation ceremonies in varying light conditions.

The camera really shined during daylight and dusk pictures! The "Dusk" scene mode beautifully captures the purple/red hues in the horizon. The "Night Portrait" outperformed my Kodak and captured beautiful skin tones. Overall pictures are softer than those of say, Canon PowerShot SD series but about the same detail level as Kodak Z612. Also, I found the Face Detection feature to work fine but sometimes it would hesitate as much as 2-3 seconds before detecting a face even when subject was looking straight in the lens.

Shooting performance is a bit on the slow side but should satisfy most casual shooters. Auto Focus does hunt from time to time specially in low light which is common in compact cameras.

What really put me off though was the 3rd. set of pictures I shot at a ceremony. They were full of varying levels of white spots all over them! I had once before experienced something like this with a Canon S400 a couple of years ago but that was nothing close to the problem on this camera. Mind you, it only happens when using flash and under specific circumstances which I have been unable to figure out.

Contacted Nikon who were not really helpful and couldn't really explain it to me. So I did my own reasearch on the net and it appears its might be some light from the flash bouncing off the lens internally.

Either way the slower than average performance had me on the fence already and ruining one of my most important set of pictures ever left me with a single choice, to take it back to BestBuy...

I replaced it with the Sony DSC-T100, my first Sony digital camera in nearly 6 years which I have to say I'm delighted with. It has much faster performance, has a 5X zoom lens, has a more advanced Face Detection (Varies the AF, AE and the Flash intensity which S50 doesn't) and is a bit smaller than the Nikon. In defense of Nikon S50, it uses SD cards and has more scene modes.

So if you are considering this camera, do buy it and try it! It might have been that my model was defective and the white spots issue isn't wide spread but if you are on the fence between this camera and the sony DSC-T100 don't even think about it twice, get the Sony.

But overall I'd still recommend the S50 for specific reasons I already explained above and hopefully your model won't be defective like mine.