Nikon L11

Digital camera technology is ever increasing in sophistication but there remains a high demand for simple cameras that perform a basic set of functions – and perform them well.

It’s here, at the entry-level end of the camera market, that Nikon’s latest compact fits in. The COOPIX L11 – together with its five-megapxixel brother, the L10 – is a budget model boasting a user-friendly interface that newcomers to digital photography will find very easy to get to grips with. Not sure what a particular function does? Just hit the Help button on the back of the camera for an explanation. This is a camera designed to make taking great pictures a painless process, and novices will find it reassuringly straightforward to use and navigate.

Weighing in at just 125g, the L11 is extremely lightweight, and its compact dimensions mean it will fit comfortably into a pocket or handbag. Clad in silver plastic, the L11 loses out to some of its sleeker competitors in terms of aesthetics, but its design is functional and well thought out. One of the camera’s key selling points, the large 2.4-inch TFT LCD screen, dominates the back, but alongside it sits a good-sized d-pad and a handful of useful shortcut buttons.

The zoom is located at the top tight on the back and the L11 foregoes the more traditional Mode dial in favour of a slider at the bottom right of the camera, which allows the user to navigate quickly between automatic and scene modes and the L11’s movie modes. In operation, this positioning isn’t quite as comfortable to use as a Mode dial located on the top of a camera, and we’d also prefer to see commonly used pre-programmed options, such as Portrait and Landscape modes, accessible directly rather than via the menu screen.

In total, the L11 offers the photographer 16 pre-programmed scene options in addition to Automatic mode, and in our tests, those on offer produced mixed results. The Face Priority mode functions well when shooting people pictures, with Nikon’s focusing technology producing pleasing portraits with features in clear definition, and the Sports mode did a great job of capturing fast-moving objects. However, the Party/Indoors mode produced disappointing results, with the increased ISO (Nikon has equipped the L11 with a maximum sensitivity of 800) resulting in shots with substantial evidence of noise. Elsewhere, Sports, Night Portrait, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close Up, Museum, Copy, Fireworks and a very useful Backlight mode complete the scenes catered for, with an effective option for shooting panoramas also included.

All scene modes are accessed by hitting the menu, with the bottom slider set to Scene, but an unfortunate by-product of this setup is that the camera’s additional menu features, such as white-balance options (seven in total), image size and colour options, are unavailable. To select them, the user must instead move the slider back to the Automatic mode, then enter the menu and adjust settings, before moving the slider back to Scene mode to shoot.

Given the camera’s budget price tag, it can be forgiven for some slow functioning, but the speed is poor, even for a camera in this class. Shot-to-shot processing is slow – in our tests, the camera regularly took over five seconds to process shots at maximum image quality, freezing up while the processor recorded the image – and playback, too, can suffer from delays, with the camera taking time to display each shot in turn.

On the subject of the Playback mode, the L11 does offer a nice feature that beginners will find useful – Nikon’s innovative D-Lighting, which adjusts problem shots in-camera, adding light and detail to improve them with some surprisingly good results. The camera saves the altered shot as a copy, too, so if on closer inspection the original shot is still the favourite, the adjusted image can simply be deleted.

In terms of image quality, the L11 delivers impressive results, with a good level of detail. Although the camera’s autofocus struggles in some situations, when it functions it does so very effectively, with the L11’s 3x optical zoom lens capturing crisp images.

At such a low price point, the L11 will attract attention, and newcomers will find it user-friendly and instantly accessible. The camera’s slow processing speed is a disappointment, however, and in a highly competitive market, this entry-level camera needs to perform in order to compete.