Apr 7, 2009
Nikon Coolpix S620 Review
Here’s my review of the Nikon Coolpix S620, a stylish 12 megapixel compact with a 4X optical zoom lens, 2.7 inch LCD and an array of Nikon’s latest bells and whistles. Also, do visit the Nikon Coolpix S620 photo gallery for full-sized, unedited photos taken straight out of the camera. The full review of the Coolpix S620 awaits after the jump.
DPInterface Nikon Coolpix S620 Review
Brad Soo – April 7th, 2009
In more ways than one, the Nikon Coolpix S620 can be regarded as the “if you need wide-angle” version of its compact super-zoom big brother, the S630 I reviewed recently. The Coolpix S620 has a more humble 4X optical zoom lens (versus 7X zoom on the S630) but with 28 mm coverage on the wide end. In other respects, the S620 has a similar feature set – 12 megapixels, a 2.7 inch LCD and a detection system for almost everything (face, smile, blink and motion).
And yet again, it all boils down to one question: does the camera take good pictures? Let’s find out.
Size and Weight
(174.1) 97.9 x 54.1 x 22.1 mm (145 g) – Canon PowerShot SD960 IS Digital ELPH/Digital IXUS 110 IS
(177.5) 96.9 x 57.6 x 23.0 mm (131 g) – Casio Exilim Z400
(180.0) 97.7 x 58.9 x 23.4 mm (175 g) – Fujifilm FinePix F200 EXR
(166.0) 90.0 x 53.0 x 23.0 mm (120 g) – Nikon Coolpix S620
(177.6) 96.4 x 55.9 x 25.3 mm (132 g) – Olympus Stylus 7000
(169.7) 95.3 x 52.9 x 21.5 mm (128 g) – Panasonic Lumix FX48/FX40
(173.9) 94.9 x 57.1 x 21.9 mm (145 g) – Panasonic Lumix FX550/FX580
(167.7) 94.0 x 55.9 x 17.8 mm (121 g) – Samsung TL100
(177.6) 97.6 x 57.4 x 22.6 mm (135 g) – Sony Cyber-shot W290
All the weight figures above show when the camera is empty without a battery or memory card
The Nikon Coolpix S620 turns out to be average in terms of size and weight compared to other compact cameras in its class. It’ll fit into most pockets (except back pockets), handbags and normal bags; and is not a burden at all to bring around.
Box packaging
Inside the Nikon Coolpix S620’s box, you’ll find an average bundle:
- EN-EL12 Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
- Battery charger
- Neck strap
- USB cable
- A/V cables
- Camera software CD
- User’s manual
There’s 45 MB of memory built-in (which isn’t much for a 12 megapixel camera) and the Coolpix S620 supports SD/SDHC memory cards. For starters, I would recommend getting a 4 GB memory card to use with the camera.
200 shots – Canon PowerShot SD960 IS Digital ELPH/Digital IXUS 110 IS
550 shots – Casio Exilim Z400
230 shots – Fujifilm FinePix F200 EXR
250 shots – Nikon Coolpix S620
150 shots – Olympus Stylus 7000
350 shots – Panasonic Lumix FX48/FX40
350 shots – Panasonic Lumix FX550/FX580
200 shots – Samsung TL100
220 shots – Sony Cyber-shot W290
All the cameras above are rated with rechargeable batteries according to CIPA Standard
The Coolpix S620 comes with the EN-EL12 lithium-ion rechargeable battery and charger. With it, the camera is rated to last 250 shots before you have to recharge the battery, which is a wee bit above average for a compact camera.
Accessories
The only accessories available for the Nikon Coolpix S620 are an AC adapter and various camera cases.
Camera Tour
The Nikon Coolpix S620 is a nicely built camera, made mostly of metal. The Coolpix S620 is easy to hold in one or both hands like a typical compact camera, though ergonomics aren’t as mind-blowing as the S630 with its Sure Grip design. The Nikon Coolpix S620 comes in your choice of five colors: black, silver, blue, pearl or pink. Too bad Nikon didn’t send me one of the more interesting colors – this one here is the plain ol’ silver model.
The first thing you’ll see on the front of the Nikon Coolpix S620 is its 4X optical zoom lens. The lens is equivalent to 28 – 112 mm, with an aperture range of f2.7 – f5.8 (slow on the telephoto end). There’s optical image stabilization, what Nikon calls lens-shift Vibration Reduction, which helps reduce blur caused by camera shake.
Directly above the Coolpix S620’s lens is the flash unit. Nikon doesn’t say anything about flash power here but based on my testing, flash output range was about average. Nearby is the camera’s autofocus assist/self-timer lamp which helps the camera to focus in low-light. To the bottom left of the lens is the microphone for recording sound.
The Nikon Coolpix S620 features a sharp and bright 2.7 inch LCD with 230,000 pixels. Visibility was good in low-light as well as bright light. To the upper right corner of the screen, you’ll see the camera’s tiny indicator light.
The first two buttons are used for shooting mode selection and entering playback respectively. Pressing the first “MODE” button will bring up a screen which allows you to select a shooting mode:
- Program mode
- Scene modes – Auto scene selection, portrait, landscape, sports, night portrait, party/indoor, beach/snow, dusk/dawn, sunset, night landscape, close-up, food, museum, fireworks, copy, backlight, panorama assist, voice recording
- Subject tracking mode
- Smile detection mode
- Movie mode – more on this later
The Coolpix S620 features a “Scene auto selector” mode where the camera detects the scene you’re shooting and automatically picks an appropriate scene mode. Subject Tracking allows you to select a subject that the camera will follow and focus on-screen until you take a picture or the subject moves out of the frame.
Below the mode buttons is a rotary wheel + navigation pad combo. You can operate it in the usual four directions as well as rotate the entire wheel to scroll through menus, photos and change settings. One thing I like about Nikon’s implementation of the rotary wheel is there are subtle “clicks” when you rotate the wheel and how things are very responsive (unlike some other cameras where you just turn the dial until something happens). Let’s have a look at the directional functions:
- Up – Flash setting (Auto, auto with red-eye reduction, off, on, slow sync)
- Down – Focus mode (Normal, macro, infinity)
- Left – Self timer (Off, 2 seconds, 10 seconds)
- Right – Exposure compensation (+/-2 EV in 1/3 steps)
- Center – OK/Set
The last two controls on the back of the Coolpix S620 are the MENU and delete photo buttons.
At the top of the Coolpix S620 is the power button and shutter button with a zoom controller wrapped around it. There’s also a speaker towards the left side.
Nothing to see here except a better view of the speaker located at the top of the Coolpix S620. On the other side, you’ll find two ports: for DC-IN and combined USB + A/V out respectively. The camera supports USB 2.0 High-speed connectivity.
Over here, the Nikon Coolpix S620 sports a battery/memory card compartment, with a sturdy door over it, and a metal tripod mount.
Taking pictures (Shooting mode)
The Nikon Coolpix S620 doesn’t display much on its shooting screen. There are a few things such as flash mode, image stabilization, shooting mode and number of images remaining here, and exposure info when you half-press the shutter button and a zoom indicator when you use operate the zoom lens. However, there are no other shooting details or live histogram
The Nikon Coolpix S620 features an array of selectable image resolution choices; including 12 MP, 8 MP, 5 MP, 3 MP, 2 MP, 1 MP, VGA and widescreen. You can only select image quality (compression) between High and Normal if you’re using the 12 MP setting – at lower resolutions, image quality is fixed at “Normal”.
The Coolpix S620 features Nikon’s 2009 Coolpix menu system. In the main Shooting area of the menu, you can change settings related to taking pictures such as ISO and drive mode:
- Picture size/quality
- White balance (Auto, daylight, incandescent, fluorescent, cloudy, flash, custom)
- Metering mode (Matrix multiple, center weighted)
- Continuous mode (Single shot, continuous shooting, Best Shot Selector, Multi-shot 16, interval shooting)
- ISO sensitivity (Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 2000, 3200, 6400)
- Color options
- Focus area (Face detection, auto, center point)
- AF mode (Single/continuous)
There’s also the setup part of the menu which allows you to change other, less-frequently accessed settings such as date and time. Agreeably, some settings such as Motion Detection and Optical Vibration Reduction should be put under the Shooting section – but then again, I’m a picky person.
I wanna talk about several of the Coolpix S620’s features before we move along. Best Shot Selector takes up to 10 pictures in a row before the camera selects the best/sharpest one from the bunch while Multi-shot 16 takes 16 smaller pictures in a row and combines them into a single collage. There’s also Motion Detection, which is activated via the setup menu, where the camera will automatically set ISO based on the amount of action going on (a still scene prompts the camera to choose a low ISO value, while ISO will be increased when there’s a lot of movement in the frame).
There’s also Nikon’s Smart Portrait system here on the Coolpix S620, which combines a whole bunch of ‘detection’ features and more. Smart Portrait comprises of face detection of up to 12 faces, software-based redeye removal, D-Lighting (brighten dark areas of photos), Smile Mode (the camera takes a picture automatically when a smile is detected), Blink Warning and Blink Proof.
Blink Proof is a feature new to Nikon cameras. It’s different from your average “warning appears that one of your subjects blinked”, as it combines smile detection with blink detection. Blink mode will take two pictures when a smile is detected and save the photo where your subject(s) had their eyes open.
There’s a nice macro mode on the Coolpix S620 which allows you to get as close as 2 cm to a subject at wide-angle (or even using a bit of zoom). And finally, the camera also has an interval timer shooting mode where the camera will automatically take pictures at a set interval – an AC adapter is recommended for such usage.
Video Recording
The Nikon Coolpix S620 has a fairly decent VGA (640 x 480) movie mode which records at 30 FPS with sound. Each movie clip is limited to 2 GB (around 30 minutes at the highest settings) and recorded in AVI Motion JPEG format. You can activate optical image stabilization but cannot use zoom (optical nor digital) while recording movies.
Video quality here was good with average sound quality but the Coolpix S620 isn’t one of those cameras for screen-filling HD video and its audio was also out of sync at times.
Performance
All performance testing of the Nikon Coolpix S620 was performed using a high-speed 4 GB SanDisk Ultra II SDHC (90X) card.
The Nikon Coolpix S620 boots up quickly in a little one second (not as fast as Nikon’s claimed 0.7 seconds but still very good for a compact camera). Auto focus speed of the Coolpix S620 was pretty good. At wide-angle, it takes 0.2 to 0.5 seconds to focus while that stretches to a slightly longer 0.7 seconds at telephoto. In low-light, the camera took some time to focus (over one second) but eventually managed to lock focus.
- Shot-to-shot speed – 1 shot every 1.7 seconds, fast and above average
- Flash recharge time using a fully charged battery – 5 seconds
The Nikon Coolpix S620 has a single full-resolution continuous shooting mode which is able to shoot at around one frame per second. That’s about average for a 12 megapixel compact camera (Though I still remember when things were a lot faster at the time 8 megapixels was the norm).
The Nikon Coolpix S620 moves its lens from wide-angle to telephoto in 1.4 seconds and shuts down in 2.2 seconds with its lens at telephoto. Overall I was very pleased with the Nikon Coolpix S620’s performance which produced average to above average numbers, depending on area.
Image Quality
Let’s check out the camera’s picture quality now:
The Nikon Coolpix S620 starts out clean at ISO 100 (unlike its compact super-zoom sibling, the S630). Good news at ISO 200, things are still pretty clean and picture quality is a tad sharper to my eyes here! Picture quality gets noisier at ISO 400, but you could still make a good sized print or two here.
ISO 800 isn’t as noisy as you’d expect but that’s because noise reduction comes into play here, giving a soft, watery look to pictures here. Also notice the black borders which separate the individual colors get blurred out compared to previous ISOs. Want more evidence? Visit the gallery, click on the ISO 800 shot and notice how color fringing towards the edges are almost non-existent compared to lower ISOs (wiped out, along with details, by the camera’s noise reduction). I still managed to make some small prints using this setting though.
Although I’d recommend ISO 800 for emergencies only, I wouldn’t advise using anything higher than that. At ISO 1600, there’s more noise and noise reduction, eating up even more details. Color saturation starts to drop at ISO 3200 and image quality is even worse at this point. Photos become severely unsaturated at ISO 6400, along with a lot of noise and detail loss and some color bleeding towards the reds.
In terms of colors, the Coolpix S620 takes bright photos with good color accuracy. A common characteristic that the S620 shares with other compact cameras is the purple hues turn out dark bluish in pictures. The Nikon Coolpix S620 produced moderate lens distortion and visible color fringing (chromatic aberration) in photos. With the exception of the upper right corner, there was some edge softness in photos as well.
Redeye is not a problem as the camera removes any automatically via software. The Nikon Coolpix S620 produced good quality images, usable up to ISO 400, and ISO 800 for cases where you’re desperate. The main flaw here is color fringing, noticeable from ISO 100 to ISO 400 (ISO 800’s noise reduction practically smudges it away). Color fringing shouldn’t be noticeable unless you’re making huge prints, and if you don’t like it, you can always remove it in your favorite photo editor.
Photo gallery
Have a look at all the full-sized photos taken using the camera in the Nikon Coolpix S620 photo gallery.
Playback
The Nikon Coolpix S620 has a good playback mode. You can playback pictures individually, in sets of thumbnails or by date, and movies with sound. The basics like print marking, image protection, rotation, simple slideshow and voice clip attachment are all here. You can magnify photos by 10X to inspect details.
Images can be copied between the internal memory and memory card, and you can even make a small copy of a photo for easy posting onto the web/email via the Small Picture function. There are two main editing features here: D-Lighting, which brightens dark areas of your photos, and Quick Retouch which increases image contrast, saturation and sharpness so “images appear sharp and vibrant”; it won’t rescue blurry photos though!
The Nikon Coolpix S620 really skimps on information display just like the other Coolpix models on my table now (sadly). The camera shows you… wait for it… NOTHING about your photos. No shooting details, exposure info, not even a histogram – what you see in the screen above (image number and resolution setting) is what you will get.
Conclusion
12 megapixels, a 4X optical zoom lens, a large bright 2.7 inch LCD and a nice set of point-and-shoot features – that’s the Nikon Coolpix S620. The camera’s LCD is viewable in low and bright light and the camera has good build quality and ergonomics. A rotary wheel on the rear of the Coolpix S620 assists in navigating menus, changing settings and scrolling through other options.
The Coolpix S620 has an array of features which try to ensure your people photos turn out as good as possible. It has features like face, smile, blink and motion detection plus software based redeye removal. There’s also a good choice of scene modes available plus a mode which picks a scene mode automatically based on shooting conditions.
To top things off, the Coolpix S620 features built-in help tooltips for shooting modes and items as well as Nikon’s improved 2009 Coolpix menu system. What does the camera lack here? Manual controls! The Coolpix S620 has none, with the exception of custom white balance.
On the performance side, the camera has good operation and shooting speed along with good image quality output. With low noise till ISO 400 and still usable images at ISO 800, the only things you’ll have to watch out for on the Coolpix S620 are color fringing and edge softness.
The Nikon Coolpix S620 is a nice, stylish digital camera that (just) gets my recommendation. It’s straightforward to use and has overall good image quality. The Coolpix S620 is perfectly capable of producing big, good quality prints, if you’re willing to remove color fringing and perhaps some additional post processing on the computer. It’s just that the camera skimps on information display, manual controls and is lacking in the movie department.
What’s hot:
- Good quality and sharp pictures till ISO 400; ISO 800 usable if you’re desperate
- Solid build quality with metal tripod mount and rotary wheel
- Sharp and visible LCD display
- Easier to use 2009 Nikon menu system and interval timer shooting
- Smart Portrait, motion detection and auto scene selection features
- Good camera speed and performance
- Nice playback mode – Quick Retouch and D-Lighting tools included
What’s not:
- Edge softness and color fringing in photos
- No manual controls
- Camera skimps on info display in both shooting and playback modes
- So-so average movie mode; no HD capability, no zoom allowed and audio sync problems
Recommended Accessories:
- 2 GB or 4 GB high-speed SD/SDHC memory card
Related articles:
- Nikon Coolpix S60 Review
- Nikon Coolpix S630 Review
- Nikon Coolpix S230 Review
- Nikon Coolpix S220 Review
- Nikon Coolpix L20 Review
