Nikon COOLPIX S80 review

Touch-screen, stylish and feature packed: the Nikon S80

The Nikon COOLPIX S80 is the latest compact to feature touch-screen technology. Aimed firmly at a generation of photographers who are at home with no physical buttons (bar the shutter release), the S80 is a sleek and stylish affair that is available in either bright red or black. The good-looking outer case has a two-tone finish with a polished metal slider that also acts as an On/Off button. At just 16mm deep, the camera will easily slip into a pocket on a night out, and the robust build means you wouldn’t be too worried about knocks.

Round the back, the Nikon’s 3.5” Organic LED multi-touch screen dominates the rear panel. On powering up the screen comes to life almost immediately, with small T/W tabs to the right of it. These are used to zoom to the telephoto or wide end of the lens, with a slide appearing next to them to indicate where on the focal scale you currently are.

Elsewhere on the screen is a Shooting Mode button where you can switch between Easy Auto, Auto, scene, Smart Portrait and Movie mode. There are also two collapsible menus where you can quickly change ISO, white balance, flash settings and more. In this menu you can also find the touch shooting options that include touch shutter, subject tracking and touch AF/AE. In the first you can simply tap the scene to take the shot, although we did find this caused some camera movement and preferred to use the shutter release on top. The subject tracking feature locked on and followed all but the trickiest of subjects and the touch AF worked particularly well, allowing you to change focus and create some good depth effects on the right subjects. Having all of the features available direct from the touch- screen menus means that you are diving into the menu systems quite often, however they’re simple and straightforward.

In order to get the best from low-light situations, Nikon has packed not one but five anti-blur technologies inside the camera. From simply boosting the ISO to motion detection and lens shift and electronic vibration reduction, party shots should be a breeze.

The lens has a 5x optical zoom, pretty impressive considering the lens is entirely internal and does not protrude out of the camera, even at full telephoto. Its placement is a bit awkward though, and we found our digits covering the lens on more than one occasion. The actual lens has a 35-175mm focal reach (35mm equiv), which is less wide than we have come to expect. Most rivals offer a wide angle of around 28mm as standard.

Playback, which can only be achieved when the lens cover is slid to the on position, is accessed via a dedicated button on the screen. In this mode you can slide through your images with an iPhone-esque finger swish and the camera will even rotate your images to the appropriate view. There are plenty of in-camera edits to keep the kids entertained here – you can add frames or decorations, or you can retouch the images as you might on a computer. Retouch options include Nikon’s D-lighting solution, Perspective control, colour options, Glamour Retouching for portraits and resizing. These options are ideal for those who simply want to shoot, edit and share.

In terms of image quality, the Nikon S80 does a good job with standard scenes. Its metering system does seem to struggle with tricky contrast situations, blowing some highlights or losing detail in shadows. We’d have liked to have seen a few more manual controls for photographers to grow into though, especially at this price point.

Overall the Nikon S80 impressed us as a camera aimed at gadget-loving photographers. The lack of creative manual features, a disappointing wide-angle and the loss of things like in-camera histograms is sure to annoy more advanced shooters, but the cutting-edge features may help to even out the balance.