Customer Reviews

Nikon Coolpix S60 10MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Zoom (Espresso Black)

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

 

 

So I was really excited to get my new S60 and I've been playing with it all day. This is my first Nikon and I've owned 2 Casio's and 2 Cannon's previously so I did a lot of research prior to making this purchase. The thing I really liked about this unit was the 5X zoom in an enclosed casing. I seem to always get dirt inside my lens.

The touch screen interface is awful. You have to have tiny fingers to operate the interface with any efficacy. You pretty much have to use two hands to take photos. I found the low lux image quality to be pretty bad. On the positive side the speed of photos seems to be better than past Coolpix Nikon's.

The touch screen and the software interface is ultimately this unit's downfall. To change any of the photo settings outside of flash (which is locked out on many scenes) you have to return to main menu which takes awhile to load. Bottom line with this unit is you will spend more time trying to operate the camera than taking quality pictures. Nikon produced a pure disappointment with the S60.

This is my first digital camera from Nikon and unfortunately Nikon has left me somewhat dissapointed. Perhaps, I was expecting too much.

I was surprised to see that this camera was made in Vietnam. I guess I am not used to it. Unfortunately, with this product, Nikon has made me fear buying anything else that is made in Vietnam. But who knows, I may not have a choice in the future. Perhaps, that is too harsh to assume that a country's man power is at fault. So then the blame would have to lie with Nikon itself.

The idea of a touchscreen intrigued me as both this camera and the Sony DSC-T700 have that feature this Fall but I went with the Nikon because of its optics reputation, its supposed expeed engine and the fact that I did not want a propietary memory card like Sony's.

I have been testing the camera in all sorts of environments or scenes as Nikon calls them. I believe 18 in all. The shots for the most part are good quality. I am impressed with the nighttime shots in low light. I also like the sports scene where seven pictures are taken in succession. The manaul says 14 but that is an error.

The touchscreen is cool but it lags a lot. Sometimes when you slide your finger across when you are viewing your work, the pictures gets stuck mid way and you have to drag your finger across again. Perhaps this could be because of the dirty screen. After all, with all the adjusting and configuring, no doubt the screen will have residue from your finger tip. If this is the case, then Nikon should have thought this out.

The icons on the screen are not that big so sometimes my fat fingers "touches" the wrong one or rather the camera senses the wrong icon. And sure, Nikon provides a stylus which would be more exact in touching but the only place to attach it is on the provided camera strap which could easily get lost.

When you take pictures lengthwise you can turn the camera around and the accelerometer will adjust the image to the correct position. Unfortunately, it lags as well when it does this. Sometimes it does not do it at all.

I have also been having issues with recording images on my memory card. It seems that the expeed engine gets overwhelmed easy because sometimes I get a "File contains no image data" when I am trying to take pictures in quick succession. It seems you have to give the camera some breathing room before it can begin processing the next request. So again, you wait.
Sometimes I get a red stripe through the image and sometimes the whole screen freezes and the only way I have been able to reset it is by removing the battery and reinserting it. Of course, none of these are addressed in the trouble shooting section of the manual.

Battery life is shorter than what Nikon claims. I am only getting about 75 shots. With a 3.5 lcd screen and with the flash and the viewing, I am sure the battery is taxed but you can always carry another battery I guess. Still, its a nuisance.

I realize that this is a camera for early adopters and of course there are kinks so my only wish is that Nikon would upgrade the hardware/software to make it faster and more responsive and less buggy-and then send me one. I am hoping I did not get a lemon.

If you have patience and want to play with a new interface in taking good quality pictures, then I say purchase this but remember you have to be patient. If you want something less troublesome, I would say stay away or wait for the next generation as Nikon has a lot of work to do with this type of camera.

I bought this camara for three reasons: the touch screen technology, the sleek design, and it wasn't as pricey is the comparative Sony. I love the sleek design of the Nikon and in my opinion, its one of the better looking slim camaras on the market. But the people at Nikon could have paid a little more attention to detail like the folks at Sony. For example, the power button is exposed, as opposed to the Sony's which has a gaurd so that you don't accidently turn it on/off. This isn't such a big deal, but when you go to places like a theme park, you don't want to worry about your camara accidently turning on inside the case, and running out of batteries (which happened a couple of times for ). It's someting you have to watch out for constantly, which is a bit annoying. Plus, instead of one single flash, the Nikon's is a series of flashes that always manage to blind people.

As for the touch screen, its pretty cool, but like the on/off switch, you have to be really careful not to hit the wrong buttons, and its not like I have big oafy finers either.

Now, for the most important aspect of any camara. Picture quality. When I first used it, the picture quality was so-so compared to my friends' Sonys and Canons. But after twinkling around with it (and actually reading the manual) I found out there were many different options to make the picture quality improve. After I discovered those options, the picture quality was just as good as any of the aforementioned brands. However, the Nikon seems to be overly complicated for no reason. For example, why not automatically take out red-eyes, or automatically adjust to the environment's lighting? You actually have to manually adjust those things yourself.

For everday camara use, I think the Nikon is just a tad bit too complicated and comes with too many little annoyances, like the on/off button. The Sony may be pricier, and the Canon may not be as cool looking, but they both seem to be much more user friendly.

The S60 is a smooth operator. The 3 1/2" touch screen works extremely well. Providing quick movement between multiple pictures displays. Its simple to change image or shooting modes and functions. This camera automatically adjust LCD for horizontal or verticle viewing and corrects pix for upright position. Now everyone can get the picture they usually miss. I recommend the S60 to anyone who wants fast sharp clear pictures anytime everytime.

This product is not all as it seems. Quality is very poor for a 10MP camera especially in the night, even while using the night scenes. The touch screen is not all that good as well.

If you haven't been using one of these ultra-compact internal sliding prism digital cameras, then you are missing out. I have over 5000 pictures and 500 videos of experience with cameras like this. I started with the Sony DSC-T1, then the DSC-T9, and most recently the DSC-T300.

They enable you to have a camera/camcorder on your person 24/7. They are not the best at either role, but I have found that one good camera/camcorder in your pocket is way more useful than carrying two bigger devices (a great camera and a great camcorder) - especially when you have left them in your in your car or at home.

Perhaps most surprising is that even the video and sound quality on these little cameras was quite good all the way back to the DSC-T1, so I pretty much stopped using a camcorder at that point.

I'm sure that others will post more thorough reviews soon, but I wanted to get this info out as soon as possible to help others. For example, it is already enough for me to make my purchase decision, and it answers a key question that I have not been able to find the answer to after weeks of research, which is "Can it zoom while recording video?"

Based on reviews of previous models of this camera, I had high expectations. I expected high image quality and good low light performance. I was planning to buy it after I verified that it could zoom while recording video.

After getting my hands on one and playing with it for about 10 minutes, I did verify that it can zoom while recording video, and although I have not yet been able to test its image quality, I will not be buying one of these.

I frequenty switch between video and still photos, and I use zoom extensively. This kind of usage would be very annoying with this camera because both of these features are controlled through the touch screen, which is sluggish, unresponsive, klunky, etc., and thus I would miss many shots. I would not want to have to look forward to this kind of annoyance for the next two years.

If the DSC-T500 has good enough image quality, I will buy that instead. It has mechanical controls for video/photo and zoom, and it has trail-blazing 720p HD video with stereo sound. It also records video in Mpeg4, which should be viewable on my iPod Touch. Its predecessor, the DSC-T300, felt like it was built with much higher quality than the S60, and it had very responsive zoom, unfortunately it had poor image quality.

We gave this to our son and daughter-in-law for Christmas, and they love it. It's compact, easy to use, and takes great pictures.

I have owned this camera for over 2years and I would say it deserves a 3 star not more, not less. I bought it when it was way overpriced and I was expecting more out of the camera but did not get it. I still get red eye occasionally in the images, despite the red eye reduction being on. It is extremely sensitive to movement by the operator making the images less clear. At night or in low lights, it is only good for close ups. The touch screen works as it is supposed to but some people find it difficult to use. Using if for video capture is not recommended. Always comes out darker than the environment except in direct sunlight. The battery power is very good. I had only ran out of battery power once before in the middle of using the camera only because I started out very low to begin with. With a full charge, one can get at least a day's use. This of course, depends on reasonable usage behavior. The camera is compact and care should be taken not to lose it.

This camera is WONDERFUL. it is amazing what you can do with this small package. Was delivered promptly and made me the hero of christmas with the wife.

The touch screen is cool and the color of the body itself is aesthetically pleasing, but the menu only shows a picture icon instead of a feature label, so unless you memorize them all it'll be a guessing game. I don't know a lot about photography, so I don't know if these icons are familiar amongst the photography world... maybe they are and it's no problem for people who are proficient with digital cameras. Also, the digital screen is very grainy, but the photos were better once they were uploaded. I didn't think it was very user-friendly and ended up selling it to a co-worker who could enjoy it.