Nikon COOLPIX S6150 review

Nikon brings us a touch-screen compact with a low price and high image quality

The latest in Nikon’s Coolpix series offers a fantastic feature set, including 16 megapixels, 7x optical zoom, 720p video recording and more, all for £159. It’s an impressive bang for your small bucks, but the price comes in some functions being less than perfect.

The build feels solid and comfortable in the hands. You only have three buttons to operate: Movie mode, Scene Selector and Playback, with everything else controlled via touch screen. There are tabs that bring up the options but they are awkward to activate, resulting in occasions where you may have to press the screen several times. The touch controls aren’t very responsive, but there are some nice elements such as touch shooting, exposure and focusing.

The camera comes with 19 scene modes, but it may bother some that these are not labelled. However, most of the icons are self-explanatory and clicking the question mark icon will give you access to a description.

In Auto, the S6150 achieved some nice results, but it’s a shame you can’t control the flash in this mode, and the ISO will only go to 1600. There are settings that can help you out however, such as subject tracking, continuous shooting, vibration reduction and a blink warning. But the standout feature is Smart Portrait mode, which gives you face detection and a smile timer, so it will automatically release the shutter when a smile is detected.

Surprisingly, considering its price, there are some more advanced options such as exposure compensation and the ability to set the white balance and ISO. There are in-camera editing options, too, such as selective colouring, fisheye, miniature, rotation and more.

The S6150 is flawed in a few areas but you get a lot for the price and the images are clear, sharp and well exposed. A great addition to Nikon’s Coolpix series that could help beginners achieve some fantastic results.