DPInterface Nikon Coolpix S6 Review
Brad Soo - May 15th, 2006

Nikon's other ultra-thin camera, the Nikon Coolpix S6, sports the same features as the S5 but adds a larger 3 inch LCD and built-in WiFi capabilities. For about $40 more for just 2 extra features, is the S6 a good buy? Find out now.

Size and Weight

Compared to other cameras, this is how big... I mean... small the S6 is:

(167.3)  90.3 x 56.8 x 20.2 mm (145 g) - Canon PowerShot SD630 Digital ELPH (3 inch LCD)
(173.3)  90.4 x 56.5 x 26.4 mm (165 g) - Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH
(166.0)  88.5 x 57.0 x 20.5 mm (112 g) - Casio Exilim Z600
(196.1)  104.7 x 60.6 x 30.8 mm (170 g) - Fujifilm FinePix F650 (3 inch LCD)
(169.8)  83.0 x 63.5 x 23.3 mm (155 g) - Fujifilm FinePix V10 (3 inch LCD)
(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
(183.6)  96.0 x 62.0 x 25.6 mm (170 g) - HP Photosmart R927 (3 inch LCD)
(171.2)  101.0 x 49.8 x 20.4 mm (125 g) - Kodak EasyShare V570
(189.7)  111.0 x 55.5 x 23.2 mm (160 g) - Kodak EasyShare V610
(181.5)  100.5 x 60.0 x 21.0 mm (140 g) - Nikon Coolpix S6 (3 inch LCD)
(178.5)  97.5 x 56.5 x 24.5 mm (140 g) - Olympus SP700 (3 inch LCD)
(171.1)  94.8 x 55.9 x 20.4 mm (103 g) - Olympus Stylus 710
(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
(174.0)  95.0 x 59.0 x 20.0 mm (135 g) - Pentax Optio T10 (3 inch LCD)
(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
(174.8)  95.0 x 56.5 x 23.3 mm (139 g) - Sony Cyber-shot T30 (3 inch LCD)

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 S6 is not the smallest or lightest camera in its class. In fact, it's one of the largest! It's still quite light, thin and small though.

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 20 MB of internal memory in the Coolpix S6 which can be used as your photo album. 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.

160 shots - Canon PowerShot SD630 Digital ELPH (3 inch LCD)
240 shots - Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH
500 shots - Casio Exilim Z600
150 shots - Fujifilm FinePix F650 (3 inch LCD)
170 shots - Fujifilm FinePix V10 (3 inch LCD)
170 shots - Fujifilm FinePix Z2
N/A - HP Photosmart R727
200 shots - HP Photosmart R927 (3 inch LCD)
150 shots - Kodak EasyShare V570
135 shots - Kodak EasyShare V610
200 shots - Nikon Coolpix S6 (3 inch LCD)
N/A shots - Olympus SP700 (3 inch LCD)
180 shots - Olympus Stylus 710
320 shots - Panasonic Lumix FX01
N/A - Pentax Optio T10 (3 inch LCD)
150 shots - Pentax Optio A10
N/A - Samsung Digimax i6
240 shots - Sony Cyber-shot T9
420 shots - Sony Cyber-shot T30 (3 inch LCD)

Over here, you're getting below average battery life with the Nikon Coolpix S6. And considering that WiFi is a battery guzzler for most cameras, expect less than the quoted 200 shots (CIPA Standard) if you use WiFi often. 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.

 

Extras

There aren't any (not many) accessories for the Nikon Coolpix S6 except a wireless print adapter.

Camera Tour

The Nikon Coolpix S6 is available in silver or...

...professional black.

The Nikon Coolpix S6 features the same 35 - 105, f3.0 - f5.4 optical zoom lens as the S5. That's 3x optical zoom. The Coolpix S6 also features the new "wave design" to make it 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 S6 features a large 3 inch LCD which has 230,000 pixels, larger than the S5's but with the same resolution. 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 - Nikon's quoted a "170 degree viewing angle" and I think that's correct.

The back of the S6 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.

 
Shooting menu on the left; virtual mode dial on the right

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 on the S6 not as easy to spin (stiffer) and didn't accidentally "overscroll" like I did on the S5.

Here, you can see the Nikon Coolpix S6's "wave design". As you can see, the S6 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 S6. 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.

By the way, the Nikon Coolpix S6 is WiFi enabled so you can transfer photos without wires. The LED lights up when you turn on WiFi.

On the underside of the S6 is a battery/memory card slot with a hinged door. While it looks stylish, the door isn't very sturdy. Elsewhere, there's a port and tripod mount.

Shooting

You can select one of the Nikon Coolpix S6'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 S6 features an average 4 cm macro mode. Most ultra-thin cameras can do better with a closer focus distance, like 1 cm on the Sony T30. So Nikon, if you want a good ultra-thin camera, you'd better brush up its macro mode

Also, the Coolpix S5 features several continuous shooting modes. The first one took 10 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. Face Priority AutoFocus intelligently detects people's faces when you turn it on.

Recording

The Nikon Coolpix S6 can take VGA movies with sound at 30 FPS till the memory card fills up. You can select other movie size (VGA, QVGA, QQVGA) and frame rates (30 FPS, 15 FPS) as well.

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, movies look interpolated.

Performance

The Nikon Coolpix S6 starts up quickly in under a second. Focusing speed takes under a second. Shot-to-shot speed was okay, about 1 shot per 2 seconds. Flash recharge time was good, and took 5 seconds. In continuous mode, the S6 took 10 shots at 2 FPS.

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 2 seconds to reach telephoto. With no lens to retract, the S6 powers down instantly.

Image Quality

Here's the usual bunch of test photos:


ISO 50 (f4.0, 0.7 sec)


ISO 100 (f4.0, 1/3 sec)


ISO 200 (f4.0, 1/6 sec)


ISO 400 (f4.0, 1/12 sec)

The ISO 50 crop has not much visible noise but is quite soft. ISO 100 is much sharper with a bit more noise. ISO 200 looks worse and ISO 400 looks no better. There's chromatic aberration (color fringing) in all of those crops.

In real world photos, the Nikon Coolpix S6 took excellent photos though most of the sharpness is concentrated on the center frame - means there's corner softness. Nikon has included their In-camera Red-eye Fix which reduces/removes red-eye without computer post-processing. Overall image quality here is just okay.

Photo gallery

There's more photos here in the Nikon Coolpix S6 gallery.

Playback

 

The Nikon Coolpix S6 has the improved playback mode that I first spotted on the S5. You can flip through photos using the left and right buttons or spinning the rotary dial. Like other cameras of its class, the S6 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 S6 takes all of the features found on the Coolpix S5 (which I've also reviewed) and adds a 3 inch LCD and WiFi. This two-similar-camera release pattern, one with a 3 inch LCD and a smaller LCD variation, seems to be a trend among camera manufacturers.

The design here, as on the S5, rocks - I like the wave design and I'm sure you will too. 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. And this rotary dial is stiffer and not so easy to turn by accident.

Then there's the enhanced playback features. 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 now, you can even transfer them wirelessly to your computer with the built-in WiFi feature. Speaking of photos, image quality here is good except for corner softness and red-eye.

The Nikon Coolpix S6 lacks good battery life, a strong flash and fast performance. The camera locks up for a few seconds after you take a lot of shots consecutively. The S6 also has no manual controls, not even aperture priority and it lacks optical image stabilization.

This camera is a great one for point-and-shoot group snaps but not at night or for sports. I would recommend the Nikon Coolpix S6 for the above use but I think the Sony T30 is a better deal. Well, in case you need built-in WiFi or like its design or whatever your reason to get the S6, but you're stuck between the Nikon Coolpix S5 and S6 - I think the Nikon Coolpix S6 is a better deal: for an additional $40, you're getting a larger LCD, WiFi and slightly better image quality at high ISOs.

What's hot:

  • Seriously stylish
  • Built-in WiFi
  • Large high-resolution 3 inch LCD
  • Rotary dial for quick change of settings; implemented well
  • Great ISO performance even at ISO 400
  • VGA 30 FPS movie mode
  • Enhanced playback functions
  • Good image quality
  • Larger LCD + WiFi for just an extra $40 - sounds reasonable to me

What's not:

  • LCD visibility just average
  • Weak flash
  • Below average battery life
  • No manual controls
  • No image stabilization
  • Buffer clearing not fast, overall performance just okay
  • Some soft photos, redeye and corner softness
  • Below average video quality

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 SD630 Digital ELPH - Essentially the SD600 with a larger 3 inch LCD but no optical viewfinder. It also features a "touch control dial".

Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH - Larger than the SD600 but better battery life optical image stabilization, 4x optical zoom, slightly faster and more stylish.

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 F650 - A large 3 inch LCD, 5x optical zoom and some manual controls but no high ISO shooting, worse battery life and not quite compact.

Fujifilm FinePix V10 - ISO till 1600, 3 inch LCD and compact but bad ergonomics, no manual controls and can be slow.

Fujifilm FinePix F30 - An excellent camera for low-light shooting (Low noise ISO 3200) along with a viewable LCD in low-light. Also has better battery life, full manual controls. The only issues here are slow continuous shooting and performance.

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. Image quality also leaves much to be desired.

Kodak EasyShare V610 - Another camera with two lenses which specializes in 10x zoom shots and excellent movie mode but no image stabilization, terrible battery life and fairly slow. Image quality also leaves much to be desired.

Panasonic Lumix FX01 - Has a 28 mm wide-angle lens (not as wide as the Kodak though), comes with optical image stabilization, one of the best movie modes, good image quality and battery life. The downside is some soft photos and doesn't do that well at high ISO options.

Sony Cyber-shot T30 - 7 megapixels, a 3 inch LCD, optical image stabilization and excellent high ISO performance. The only thing is the burst mode is slow and limited.

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