Nikon Coolpix S1 Review

The Coolpix S1 is equipped with a high quality 3x optical Zoom-Nikkor zoom lens with ED glass elements and offers a 35 - 105mm (in 35mm equivalent) focal length coverage. The maximum aperture is F3.0 to 5.4 with a 2-step aperture. The lens zooms internally within the body and when powered down, it's protected by a built-in shutter.

Auto focus is handled by a contrast detect TTL system and the focus range is 12 in. (30 cm) to infinity in normal wide angle mode and from 1.6 in. (4 cm) to infinity in the dedicated Macro mode. There is a focus-assist lamp for low light auto focusing.

There is no optical viewfinder - framing, review and menu operations are carried out on the large and bright 2.5-inch color LCD. It has 110,000 pixels of resolutions and offers 97% frame coverage, approx. 100% coverage for playback.

The built-in speedlight has a shooting range of approx. 0.3-2.5m/ 1-8.2 ft. (W), 0.3-1.4m/ 1-4.6 ft. (T); Flash modes: Auto, Red-eye Reduction Auto (In-Camera Red-Eye Fix), Anytime Flash, Flash Cancel and Slow sync.

On top is the speaker, power on/off switch and the shutter release.

Controls on the back: Upper right are the zoom lens buttons. The 4-way selector is for navigating menus and selecting pictures. The center OK button accepts menu selections, activates Auto Transfer and D-Lighting. In record mode pressing it "Up" selects the desired flash mode. Pressing it "Left" activates the 10-sec selftimer. Pressing it "Down" enables the macro focus mode. Below the 4-way selector is the "blue arrow" button which puts the camera in Play mode and the "trashcan" image delete button. The Mode switch has positions for Record, Scene and Movie.

The Coolpix S1 is equipped with 12MB of internal memory and a SD memory card slot, no card is supplied with the camera. Images, movies and sound recordings can be copied from internal memory to SD card or vice-versa. We recommend the purchase of at least a 256MB (or larger) SD card or your picture taking will be quite limited when using the 5-megapixel image modes.

The camera can only be powered by the supplied EN-EL8 rechargeable lithium battery, Nikon claims it will power the camera for up to 200 shots on a full charge. We highly recommend the purchase of a second battery, keep it charged and handy!

The supplied COOLSTATION MV-11 charges the battery whenever the camera is placed on the docking cradle. Images, movies and sound files are easily transferred to the host computer via USB interface.

The I/O connectors on the COOLSTATION are USB 2.0 (full speed, in other words USB 1.1), compatible for downloading images to Mac and Windows computers. The USB cable may also be plugged into any PictBridge compatible printer for Direct Printing. The Audio-Video Out cable is for viewing on a TV set. The video signal is selectable for NTSC or PAL.