DPInterface Nikon Coolpix S5 Review
Brad Soo - March 12th, 2006

Nikon's new ultra-compact camera for 2006 is the Coolpix S5, featuring 6 megapixels and 3x optical zoom from the S3 as well as a design facelift (for the better), a higher resolution 2.5 inch LCD, improved movie mode and playback and longer battery life. The Nikon Coolpix S3 was not up to my taste because it lacked many features found on an ultra-thin camera. With many improvements, will the new Nikon Coolpix S5 please me?

Size and Weight

Compared to other cameras, this is how small the S5 is:

(170.2)  86.0 x 53.5 x 21.7 mm (140 g) - Canon PowerShot SD600 Digital ELPH
(167.3)  90.3 x 56.8 x 20.2 mm (145 g) - Canon PowerShot SD630 Digital ELPH
(173.3)  90.4 x 56.5 x 26.4 mm (165 g) - Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH
(165.1) 90.0 x 59.0 x 16.1 mm (115 g) - Casio Exilim S600
(166.0)  88.5 x 57.0 x 20.5 mm (112 g) - Casio Exilim Z600
(163.6)  90.0 x 55.0 x 18.6 mm (130 g) - Fujifilm FinePix Z2
(177.0)  93.0 x 61.0 x 23.0 mm (130 g) - HP Photosmart R727
(171.2)  101.0 x 49.8 x 20.4 mm (125 g) - Kodak EasyShare V570
(163.6)  92.0 x 50.0 x 21.6 mm (120 g) - Kodak EasyShare V603
(167.1)  89.9 x 57.5 x 19.7 mm (118 g) - Nikon Coolpix S3
(172.0)  93.0 x 59.0 x 20.0 mm (135 g) - Nikon Coolpix S5
(178.5)  97.0 x 55.0 x 26.5 mm (128 g) - Olympus Stylus 600
(168.8)  94.1 x 50.5 x 24.2 mm (127 g) - Panasonic Lumix FX9
(170.2)  94.0 x 50.8 x 25.4 mm (132 g) - Panasonic Lumix FX01
(166.0)  88.5 x 54.5 x 23.0 mm (125 g) - Pentax Optio A10
(159.0)  86.0 x 54.0 x 19.0 mm (100 g) - Pentax Optio S6
(175.3)  96.5 x 61.0 x 17.8 mm (130 g) - Samsung Digimax i6
(165.2)  89.7 x 54.9 x 20.6 mm (134 g) - Sony Cyber-shot T9

As usual, I've included the "DPI measurement unit" (As opposed to volume) on the left for a more accurate impression of a camera's size.

The S5 is not the smallest or lightest camera in its class. In fact, it's bigger and heavier than its predecessor! Regardless, the Nikon Coolpix S5 is still quite compact.

Open up the Box

Open up that box and in it you'll find these:

  • Rechargeable EN-EL8 lithium-ion battery
  • AC adapter
  • Wrist strap
  • USB and A/V cables
  • Camera dock
  • CD-ROM
  • User's manual

Storage and Power

Nikon includes a petty 21 MB of internal memory in the Coolpix S5. So you'd probably want to start off with a 512 MB Secure Digital card. You probably won't need a high-speed card but you wouldn't want to use MMCs either! Just an average SD will do.

Battery life on the Nikon Coolpix S5 has improved slightly but still average compared to other cameras. That's 210 shots (CIPA standard) compared to 190 photos on the S3. It still takes about 2 hours to fully charge the EN-EL8 battery.

With the memory card and battery type being the same as before, S1/S2/S3 owners can upgrade with little hesitation. Here's the usual long list of recent cameras in the ultra-compact category:

160 shots - Canon PowerShot SD600 Digital ELPH
160 shots - Canon PowerShot SD630 Digital ELPH
240 shots - Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH
300 shots - Casio Exilim S600
500 shots - Casio Exilim Z600
170 shots - Fujifilm FinePix Z2
N/A - HP Photosmart R727
150 shots - Kodak EasyShare V570
150 shots - Kodak EasyShare V603
190 shots - Nikon Coolpix S3
210 shots - Nikon Coolpix S5
330 shots - Olympus Stylus 600
270 shots - Panasonic Lumix FX9
320 shots - Panasonic Lumix FX01
150 shots - Pentax Optio A10
130 shots - Pentax Optio S6
N/A - Samsung Digimax i6
240 shots - Sony Cyber-shot T9

There you have it - Battery life is just average.

 

Extras

There aren't many accessories for the Nikon Coolpix S5 except a battery charger and a field jacket AKA a waterproof case which can go 30 m underwater.

Camera Tour

The Nikon Coolpix S5 is available in dark blue or...

...silver/white.

The Nikon Coolpix S5 features the same 35 - 105, f3.0 - f5.4 optical zoom lens as the S3. That's 3x optical zoom.

The Coolpix S5 has been redesigned slightly and I must say that this looks better and more stylish than the S3. Nikon also cleverly made a "wave design" (as you'll see in a moment) to make the S5 additionally stylish as well as to accommodate the lens

The lens is the big round circle in between the flash and AF-assist beam. The flash has a range of 30 cm - 2.6 m at wide-angle and 30 cm - 1.4 m at telephoto which is fairly weak. The AF-assist beam emits a red beam of light to help the camera focus in dark conditions as well as become a countdown lamp in self-timer mode.

The Nikon Coolpix S5 features a large 2.5 inch LCD which has 230,000 pixels, about double the LCD resolution of the Coolpix S3. Visibility is quite a bit better than the S3 and the high resolution is noticeable. In low-light, the LCD brightens slightly and outdoors, it's still viewable but this LCD is still not as good as others. The LCD can be clearly viewed from multiple angles though I found it was a bit less than Nikon's quoted "170 degree viewing angle".

The back of the S5 has also been redesigned and the buttons have been moved around. From the top right, there's a slight dent inwards which is where your thumb is suppose to be. Next to that are two buttons.

One switches the camera between shooting and playback while the other allows you to change the sub-mode. Hit that button and a virtual mode dial on the LCD will appear. You can scroll through it like a real mode dial using the rotary multidirectional controller. In the scene mode area, you can choose one of 15 scene modes found on the Nikon S5.

The MENU button brings up the menu containing important settings that also can be scrolled through using the rotary dial. Those settings include:

  • Setup menu
  • Image size
  • White balance
  • Exposure compensation
  • Shooting drive
  • Best shot selector
  • ISO sensitivity
  • Color options
  • AF area

The button with a trash can icon on it deletes photos. Next is the 5-way rotary controller has these functions:

  • Up - Flash setting (Auto, auto with red-eye reduction, off, on, slow-sync)
  • Down - Macro
  • Left - Self-timer

The OK button acts as a confirm button and also a "start transfer" button.

By spinning the rotary dial, you can quickly change settings in the menu, shooting and playback sub-modes as well as rocketing through photos in playback. I found the rotary dial easy to spin, perhaps too easy. I ended up with a mode I didn't want to use on several occasions.

Here, you can see the Nikon Coolpix S5's "wave design". As you can see, the S5 becomes thicker towards the lens side. On the left, there's a button for quick activation of Face Priority AF (Nikon's technology to focus on people's faces, which works) and D-Lighting. Going towards the right is a speaker, microphone, power button and shutter button. At the very right is Nikon's new zoom controller for the S5. Pull the small lever to zoom in or out. Pulling it towards the "zoom in" direction in any menu brings up a help page. Though sometimes a little clumsy to operate, this new zoom controller is well implemented.

At the bottom of the S5 is a tripod mount and the battery/card slot. The door covering the battery/card slot locks firmly into place when closed.

Shooting

You can select one of the Nikon Coolpix S5's many image sizes in addition to its 6 effective megapixels. Being a point-and-shoot camera, there's not much for you to change:

  • White balance (with custom option)
  • ISO (50, 100, 200, 400)
  • Focus area

The Nikon Coolpix S5 features an average 4 cm macro mode. Most ultra-thin cameras can do better with a closer focus distance, some can even do 1 cm.

Also, the Coolpix S5 features several continuous shooting modes. The first one took 13 photos at around 2 FPS. "Ultra High Speed" mode takes up to 100 VGA-size photos at 30 FPS while "Multi-shot 16" takes 16 small photos which join up to make one full resolution photo (Ala collage).

D-Lighting is a digital flash picture which digitally brightens you photos at the expense of some noise.

Recording

The Nikon Coolpix S5 can take VGA movies with sound at 30 FPS till the memory card fills up. Much smoother compared to the S3 which could take VGA movies but at only 15 FPS. If you wish, you can select movie size (VGA, QVGA, QQVGA) and frame rates (30 FPS, 15 FPS).

Using the time-lapse movie feature, you can take up to 1800 frames (between 30 seconds to 30 minutes) and make a silent 30 FPS movie. You can also record sound with photos you've taken.

Pictmotion movie recording records a QVGA movie at 15 FPS for the Pictmotion function I'm going to tell you about in a minute.

In addition, you can choose the autofocus mode used when recording movies: single (fixed) and continuous (always focusing). I would recommend using single autofocus as the microphone records autofocus sound. If you wish, there's also electronic image stabilization and digital zoom available when recording.

For some strange reason, movie quality was not that good and noisy like most of the Nikons I've tested recently.

Performance

The Nikon Coolpix S5 starts up in under 2 seconds (startup screen off) by just flipping down the built-in lens barrier. Focusing speed can vary from under a second till 2 seconds. Shot-to-shot speed was okay, taking about 2 seconds between shots (slightly longer if the flash is used). Flash recharge time was average also, 7 seconds.

The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the buffer clearing - The camera displays the buffer clearing process (with an hourglass icon) after every shot and things get stuck for a while. When I attempt to enter playback, I get a "please wait for processing to finish" notice. The lens takes a fairly fast 1.3 seconds to reach telephoto. With no lens to retract, the S5 powers down instantly.

Image Quality

Since I'm feeling nice, I have not one but two sets of test photos ;).

Here goes the first set:


ISO 50 (f4.0, 1.3 sec)


ISO 100 (f4.0, 1/2 sec)


ISO 200 (f4.0, 1/3 sec)


ISO 400 (f4.0, 1/8 sec)

The ISO 50 crop has not much visible noise but is quite soft. ISO 100 is much sharper with fairly little noise, same with ISO 200. There's chromatic aberration (color fringing) in both of those crops but it's gone in the ISO 400 crop. At ISO 400, noise is significantly higher but it's not that sharp either. Because these crops are from the side of the main photo, thus the corner softness display which is an issue on most ultra-thin cameras.

Let's take a look at these now:


ISO 50 (f3.7, 1/2 sec)


ISO 100 (f3.7, 1/3 sec)


ISO 200 (f3.7, 1/6 sec)


ISO 400 (f3.7, 1/12 sec)

At ISO 50, noise here is not visible and the photo is sharp and in focus (finally!). Auto white balance here is much better. In normal shooting conditions, I did find the S5 to have some white balance problems at times. The ISO 100 and ISO 200 photos look more or less the same while the ISO 400 one displays much more noise. Barrel distortion is not much.

In real world photos, the Nikon Coolpix S5 took excellent photos though most of the sharpness is concentrated on the center frame. Noise shouldn't be an issue till ISO 200 which is quite an improvement. Knowing red-eye would be an issue (which it is) on ultra-thin cameras, Nikon has included their In-camera Red-eye Fix which reduces/removes red-eye without computer post-processing. Overall image quality is better than most ultra-thin cameras

Playback

 

The Nikon Coolpix S5 has an improved playback mode compared to the S3. You can flip through photos using the left and right buttons or spinning the rotary dial. Like other cameras of its class, the S5 can do slideshows, delete photos, protect, DPOF print set, record audio and crop photos. It can, of course, playback still photos and movies with sound (Thanks to the built-in speaker). The "small pic" function creates a VGA-sized (or smaller) copy of a photo which is great for e-mailing or posting on the web while the "copy" function transfers photos between the memory card and internal memory. This makes the internal memory useful as a photo album.

Now on to the new stuff - Nikon's new Pictmotion feature performs fancy playback and slideshow functions with soundtracks and music. You can choose to record your own music, up to 3 files and each being up to 3 minutes long.

Conclusion

The Nikon Coolpix S5 is the greatly improved predecessor of the S3. It has 6 megapixels, a large and high-resolution 2.5 inch LCD plus some improved functions.

I quite like the new styling and "wave design" of the S5, admittedly much better than the S3's design. The LCD is large, very sharp and the viewing angle is fairly good but visibility was not the best. The mode button plus the rotary dial is much better than that clumsy old mode switch. At times, the rotary dial was too easy to turn.

The Coolpix S5 can take significantly smoother VGA movies at 30 FPS with sound. Though I like the less choppy and better movie mode, quality is still below average. The enhanced playback features grabbed my attention too. With many attractive functions in playback plus an LCD with a wide viewing angle, this is one good camera to show off your photos. And speaking of photos, image quality here is fairly good for an ultra-thin camera, with the exception of corner softness and red-eye of course.

So what does it lack? Well, the flash is quite weak, battery life could be improved and buffer clearing was also a little slow. As expected, no manual controls. ISO 400 shooting quickly went down the drain and that means the S5 is not that great for low-light shooting: weak flash, noise at ISO 400 and no image stabilization. Still, it compensates for that (sort of) with the D-Lighting feature.

My opinion? If you take a lot of photos outdoors and group snaps, like to show you photos to family and friends and need to do all of this with a stylish little camera, go for it. If you like a lot of high ISO and low-light shooting, then you may want to reconsider.

What's hot:

  • Stylish
  • Affordable
  • Large high-resolution 2.5 inch LCD
  • Not many but still useful scene modes
  • Rotary dial for quick change of settings
  • Great ISO performance till ISO 200
  • VGA 30 FPS movie mode
  • Enhanced playback functions
  • Good image quality (for an ultra-thin camera)

What's not:

  • LCD visibility not excellent
  • Weak flash
  • So-so battery life
  • No manual controls
  • Buffer clearing not fast
  • Some soft photos and redeye
  • Video quality is not good
  • Bad low light performance (High ISO 400 noise, no image stabilization)

Recommended Accessories

~Extra EN-EL8 lithium-ion battery pack
~512 MB Secure Digital card

Other Cameras

Here are some other cameras you might want to consider:

Canon PowerShot SD600 Digital ELPH - Worse battery life and 25% lower LCD resolution but much faster (larger buffer), better low-light performance (Low noise ISO 800), a more powerful flash and much better movie quality.

Casio Exilim Z600 - The best battery life in its class, a ton of scene modes and excelent movie mode but still not good when it comes to low light shooting and fairly slow.

Fujifilm FinePix Z2 - An excellent camera for low-light shooting (Low noise ISO 1600) along with a viewable LCD in low-light. The only issues here are no continuous shooting and weak flash.

Kodak EasyShare V570 - A unique camera with two lenses which can take very wide-angled shots (great for indoor use) and excellent movie mode but terrible battery life and fairly slow. It has a ISO 800 option but I think it's unacceptable.

Panasonic Lumix FX01 - The same size as your average ultra-compact but has a 28 mm wide-angle lens (not as wide as the Kodak though). Comes with optical image stabilization which is very handy, one of the best movie modes, good image quality and battery life. The downside is some soft photos and no high ISO options.

Sony Cyber-shot T9 - An ultra-thin camera with an internal lens and optical image stabilization. Low-light performance is not that great and burst mode is limited and slow.

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