Digital Camera Review: Nikon Coolpix P100

The Nikon Coolpix P100 is a prosumer grade camera that has some solid features to make it a noteworthy choice for advanced amateurs.

WHEN I first read the press release for the Nikon Coolpix P100, I was immediately attracted to it. Like a nail to a magnet, I was drawn to the idea of having its DSLR-like manual modes to play around with, the lengthy 26x optical zoom and full HD video recording.

Thankfully I managed to get hold of the P100 before my recent trip to Hainan Island and I was truly impressed at the capabilities of the camera.

First of all, it fit snugly and comfortably in my hands. With the right amount of grip and at the right places, you will not mind holding the camera.

It is not particularly heavy and although it is heavier than the Nikon Coolpix L110, it gives the camera a solid feeling.

I had a chance to hold the new Nikon Coolpix L110 as well but somehow the dimensions of the P100 felt more at home in my small hands.

There were a slew of other cameras on this trip — a simple point-and-shoot Canon Ixus camera, a Nikon D90, an Olympus E-620 and a Canon 30D. The P100 fared pretty well with its competition.

Friendly features

It takes the P100 about three seconds to warm up and get that shot which is speedy enough to catch that smile or that moment.

The 26x optical zoom served its purpose with aplomb as I was able to get the most close-up picture even though I was lazy. For example, when I visited the Nanshan Cultural Tourism Zone in Sanya, there was a 108m statue of Guan Yin and I was able to get a really close up shot of her face with the P100’s optical zoom fully extended. It was amazing. I was so proud of the P100 that it could get the shot and not only that, the photo was evenly exposed and clear.

The 26x optical zoom coupled with 10.3-megapixels really gives a good chance for your pictures to be usable.

Picture quality may suffer quite a bit and seem a lot softer than DSLRs but really you cannot complain with the P100’s ease-of-use, price and capabilities.

Other bright spots

The swivel LCD screen is also very appealing and helpful when there are the hard to reach shots. I was stuck in a sea of people in a family village and due to my height, I had to hold up the camera above my head and tilt the LCD screen to take the shot of the homecoming parade. It was very handy indeed.

HANDY: The swivel LCD screen is also very appealing
and helpful when there are hard to reach shots.

On top of that, the LCD works well in sunlight.

The electronic viewfinder is a good addition and is conveniently accessed via the EVF button but the only gripe I have is the resolution. It makes the viewfinder quite unpleasant to use.

There is a dedicated button for the full HD video recording function, which allows you to start recording almost immediately.

There are two modes — the HD for high definition and the HS mode is for slow / fast motion playback.

It also records in stereo. The quality of the video is generally smooth and it takes the camera approximately three seconds to start filming.

Conclusion

The one thing that would have made the P100 the perfect travel camera would be if it had a better way to protect the lens.

The lens cap is annoying and bulky. Had it been automated it would have really been a good a plus point.

The battery life of the camera is also good. I could use it constantly over two days with a single charge.

Overall, I really enjoyed using the Nikon Coolpix P100 and I was really happy to have this snappy camera as a travelling companion. Even in low light, it was able to capture photos admirably.

Pros: Long optical zoom; HD recording; swivel LCD screen; good image quality.

Cons: Electronic Viewfinder could be better; cumbersome lens cap.

Nikon Coolpix P100
Prosumer compact camera
SENSOR: 10.3-megapixels
VIEWFINDER: 3in vari-angle TFT LCD
LENS: 4.6-120mm, f/2.8- f/5.0 (35mm equivalent); 26x zoom
ISO RANGE:160 - 3200
EXPOSURE MODES: Program, Auto, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, Scene modes
VIDEO MODES: 1080p HD at 30fps
STORAGE: SD Card (SDHC-compatible); 43MB internal
INTERFACE: High-speed USB
OTHER FEATURES: Vibration reduction
BATTERY: Rechargeable EN-EL5
DIMENSIONS (W x D x H): 114.4 × 82.7 × 98.6mm (excluding projections)
WEIGHT: 481g (without batteries of memory card)

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Digital Camera Review: Samsung ST550

Shooting self-portraits can be challenging but not if you have a Samsung ST550.

A compact camera’s resolution can only do so much to attract buyers. Users are looking for more than insanely high megapixels and want more features such as wireless connectivity or built-in projector.

The Samsung ST550’s main attraction is its dual screens — a smaller second one located in front allows users to frame themselves better when taking self-portrait shots.

Plus, this model ships with other attractive features such as 720p HD video recording, haptic feedback for the touchscreen, smart gesture capability and a 12.2-megapixel sensor.

These features should make the ST550 an appealing buy for most users.

INTUITIVE: All you need is to touch the screen
to access some of the camera’s features.

The design

The sturdy ST550 has a black glossy finish with purple trimmings. The pocketable camera has only four physical buttons — power, shutter, tiny zoom lever and playback switch — as most of its functions are only accessible via the 3.5in touchscreen.

The Smart Gesture function allows users to swipe or draw patterns on the screen to access most of its other features.

Also, there is a built-in accelerometer so users can simply tilt the camera to execute the selected function.

Plus, the display’s haptic feedback provides physical confirmation when users tap on the screen.

All images are saved in either the camera’s built-in 55MB memory or on a microSD card. If you tend to keep a lot of photos on the storage card, it can be a problem to look for a particular image.

Thankfully, the camera’s Smart Album function categorises photos by favourites, face, timeline, week, colour and content. This makes it easier to locate a particular shot.

Easy self-portraits

A simple tap is all it takes to switch on the secondary front screen. The screen can be unresponsive at times and takes more than one tap to turn it on.

Even thought the display appears a little washed out but it performs its function well for taking self- portraits.

SIMPLE: The camera only has four buttons:
power, shutter, zoom, and playback.

You can also enable the smile detection feature so that the camera will take a shot as soon as you smile.

Holding the ST550 at arm’s length is enough to squeeze up to four people within the screen’s frame.

The front LCD also supports other features including Children mode, Shutter Info, Function Info and self-timer.

In Children mode, it plays a fun clown animation to capture a child’s attention so that the child would look directly at the camera.

Shutter Info displays a “smiley face” on the screen to signal to the subjects that you’re ready to take their photo.

Function Info provides a visual read out of key camera settings such as the flash and macro modes that are being used.

Finally, when taking a group photo using the self-timer, it will show a preview of the shot as well as a visual countdown timer so that everyone knows exactly when the photo will be snapped.

Overall, most of the features worked really great for taking self-portraits.

Like any other compact camera this model also has a lot of features to help you get a better shot when you are behind the camera.

It comes with built-in Advanced Dual Image Stabilisation technology which combines both the optical and digital image stabilisers.

Based on our experience, this feature really make a difference as it helps capture much sharper images.

Speedy shooter

The ST550 offers a fast startup time of less than two seconds so you can start snapping pictures really fast.

You don’t even have to tweak the settings as the camera’s Auto mode was pretty good, and you can spice up your photos with Scene modes too.

The still photos turned out sharp with good colour saturation and minimal chromatic aberration.

The camera has an ISO range of 80 to 3,200 but we recommend ISO 400 or lower because the image becomes progressively noisy at higher levels.

At ISO 400 the noise is hardly noticeable but once you hit ISO 1,600 or 3,200 the images become very grainy.

Also, the camera has a normal macro (less than 80cm) and Super Macro (between 3 and 8cm) mode.

Again, the macro shots turned out pretty good as long as the ISO was set at 100 or 80.

The ST550 shoots HD movies in 720p using the H.264 (MPEG4.AVC) format. If you storage is an issue, you could lower the resolution to 640 × 480-pixels or 320 × 240-pixels.

The camera doesn’t disappoint when shooting HD videos. The recordings turned out clear and crisp.

Plus, you can pause the video recording at any time. Also, if zooming is used the camera stops recording sound temporarily.

The camera can be easily be hooked up to a HDTV so that you enjoy your HD recordings. In terms of battery life, the camera fared well.

Even when shooting at the max resolution and with the flash turned on, we were able to shoot more than 300 images before the power ran out.

Switching on the secondary screen simultaneously will reduce the battery life further.

Conclusion

If you are the type that takes a lot of self-portraits then the you’ll love the secondary screen on the Samsung ST550. Plus, the ST550 has a lot of handy features which make it easy and fun to take pictures.

We are also happy with the camera’s picture and video quality.

The Samsung ST550’s asking price of RM1,299 is reasonable considering that it’s feature packed.

Overall, this camera is a recommended buy especially if you are looking to take a lot of self-portrait shots.

Pros: Two screens; friendly interface; good image and video quality; supports HD

Cons: Only minor issues.

Samsung ST550

Compact camera

Sensor: 12.2-megapixels

Lens: Schneider Kreuznach lens with f/4.9 - 22.5mm (35mm film equivalent: 27 - 124.2mm)

ISO range: 80 – 3,200

Displays: 3.5in touchscreen, 1.5in secondary screen

Internal storage: 55MB

External storage: MicroSDHC up to 8GB

Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI out (via shared proprietary port)

Other features: Multi autofocus mode, face detection, smart touch, smart face recognition

Dimensions (w x h x d): 99.8 x 59.8 x 18.6mm

Weight: 166g

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Digital Camera Review: Canon PowerShot G11

The PowerShot G11 is an impressive prosumer camera that leaves other compacts in the dust.

WITH the growing popularity of entry-level DSLR cameras, prosumer cameras are becoming less attractive.

However, there are still some prosumer grade cameras that get photo enthusiasts excited. The Canon Powershot G series is one of the few cameras series that is known to deliver images that are a class above the rest.

The latest Powershot G11 carries on that legacy in delivering great quality pictures from a compact camera.

But don’t let its looks fool you. The G11 is built like a tank — it is a tough little camera that marries sophisticated features with full manual controls of a DSLR camera.

The camera has an unmistakeably retro charm as it looks like a classic rangefinder camera.

The G11 is a little on the bulky side. It was way too fat to fit in my pockets easily, so I still needed to carry a bag around to stow the camera.

Size issues aside, it still is a reasonably portable camera considering that you don’t need to carry a bag full of lenses as with a DSLR.

There are a few big changes to the G11 from its predecessor, the G10. Firstly, it has a 10-megapixel sensor which produces images at up to 3,648 x 2,736-pixels.

The notable drop in megapixel may be a cause of concern for some, but honestly 10-megapixels is more than sufficient for capturing detail and good enough for large prints.

The second big change is the return of the rotating LCD screen, a feature sorely missed since the G7.

The rotating screen is definitely a big plus as it lets you get creative with your shots. You can take shots from all kinds of different angles be they high or low.

TAKE A PICTURE: The G11's rotating LCD screen gives you
great flexibility in your shots, especially for low angle shots.

If you’re feeling particularly narcissistic or just want a plain old self portrait, the LCD screen also swivels around to the front to help you frame your shots.

Admittedly, the 2.8in LCD screen is smaller than the G10’s but it still has the same 461,000-pixel resolution, so it still displays very sharp images of photos you’ve just taken.

Located just above the LCD screen is a small optical viewfinder that you can use to frame your shots.

The viewfinder is far too small for practical use — given a choice I would stick to using the LCD screen for composing shots.

Features

The G11 has a 28-140mm lens, a pretty useful range especially if you are travelling and need both wide-angle and ability to zoom.

The camera also has optical image stabilisation, so that should help reduce blurry photos and videos from unsteady hands.

Interestingly, the G11 supports all sorts of accessories and conversion lenses that can be attached to expand its telephoto and wide-angle photo taking abilities.

You can also attach an external flash to the G11 if you fancy using bounce flash though this makes it bulky and slightly off balance.

The G11 has a new HDMI output port for hooking it up to a HDTV for displaying photos and videos. Other input/output ports along the side of the camera include the regular A/V output and a USB port.

The G11 interface is designed with the enthusiast in mind. While it may look slightly complicated with its many dials and buttons, they are all thoughtfully laid out and are within easy reach.

A dedicated mode dial gives you easy access to the camera’s different modes such as Advanced Program, Aperture and Shutter Priority as well as full Manual control.

There are even dedicated dials for ISO and exposure compensation located at the top of the camera.

There’s also a Smart Auto mode designed for those not familiar with cameras which handles most other settings.

NEAT: The G11 has lots of nifty dials and controls
 to give you full control when taking the shot.

Additionally, there’s a miniature control wheel on the back that is handy for making adjustments to the aperture and shutter speed as well as for browsing through the in-camera menu.

Aside from the regular scene modes found on most compact cameras there are two new modes introduced on the G11.

The first is a high sensitive low-light mode that is basically for shooting pictures in dimly lit areas.

Like most high sensitivity modes there is a trade off — the camera lowers the resolution all the way to 2.5-megapixel and boosts ISO up to insane levels of 12,800!

While it sounds impressive, I was less than impressed with the pictures — the low resolution photos looked smudgy due to the massive amount of noise reduction.

Quick Shot mode makes the G11 handle like an average DSLR and makes it shoot faster using continuous autofocus.

This mode turns the LCD to a big info screen where you can view essential details and make changes to settings.

You will, however, have be forced to use the tiny optical viewfinder. The mode wasn’t particularly useful especially since it wasn’t any faster at shooting pictures.

Performance

The G11 is quick to start up and can begin taking pictures in less than two seconds upon hitting the power switch. The camera’s autofocus is decently fast, snapping to focus as soon as you press the shutter button.

It still isn’t as fast as a DSLR so there is a chance you’ll still miss a shot if a subject moves too fast.

The only time the autofocus truly suffers is when shooting in telephoto range.

The G11’s face tracking feature is useful especially when shooting photos of people as it focuses very quickly on multiple faces and selects the correct exposure for them.

There’s still the issue of shutter lag between shots and it comes off as a bit sluggish when shooting continuously. Naturally, this means it can’t keep up with scenes where there’s a lot going on at once.

We tested the camera out in a variety of situations and were quite impressed by the rich detail it manages to capture especially in macro mode.

It is worth noting that the camera has a very close minimum focusing distance of 1cm which is great for macro photography.

Picture quality is generally good and the camera handles chromatic aberrations extremely well when shooting outdoors on sunny days. Also, the colours turned out pleasing as they were deep and vibrant.

Make no mistake though, the G11 is a great camera for the outdoors but it certainly isn’t going to replace a DSLR when it comes to noise performance.

Images taken at ISO 80-200 were similar in quality and exhibited very little to no noise.

Noise starts to show up at ISO 400 though it doesn’t get really bad until ISO 800 where there’s significant loss in detail as the picture starts to look grainy and muddy.

Not surprising, anything captured above ISO 800 is not usable.

It is increasingly difficult to ignore HD video recording as it’s starting to be a common feature in most consumer cameras.

Disappointingly, the G11 lacks that feature and only records videos in 640 x 480-pixel resolution at 30fps (frames per second).

The recording quality while not too bad, it still isn’t anything to write home about. There’s also no option to zoom while video recording.

Conclusion

The Canon Powershot G11 is a dependable secondary camera to have especially for travelling when a DSLR is to bulky to lug around.

It will not replace a DSLR entirely, but the G11 has a bevy of features that will give photographers a nice alternative to the average compact camera.

The G11 is, however, quite pricey even for a prosumer camera as it’s almost in the price range of entry-level DSLRs.

For instance, for an extra RM300 you can get a Canon EOS 1000D. So it’s a matter of choosing portability and flexibility over the better image performance of a DSLR.

The camera’s performance is good as it has a speedy autofocus and it’s quick to start up.

It has modes that are accessible to beginners as well as manual modes and dials that advanced users will prefer.

Image quality is the camera’s main strong point though the ISO performance isn’t very good especially when shooting above ISO 400.

Another disappointment is the lack of HD video recording which will hopefully be rectified in the next model.

For all its ups and downs, give the PowerShot G11 a shot if you want a flexible compact prosumer camera and aren’t prepared to get a DSLR yet.

Pros: Solid build quality; good image quality, makes good use of external controls.

Cons: ISO performance isn’t great; no HD video recording; pricey.

Canon PowerShot G11

Prosumer compact camera 

Sensor: 10-megapixels, 1/1.7in type CCD (3,648 x 2,736-pixels) 

Lens: 5x optical zoom (28-140mm 35mm film equivalent) 

ISO range: 80-3,200 

Exposure modes: Auto, Scene, Program, Shutter priority, Aperture priority, Manual, Low Light, Quick Shot, Movie, 2 custom modes 

Video capture: 640 x 480-pixels at 30fps, 320 x 240-pixels at 30fps, MOV format 

Viewfinder: 2.8in LCD 

Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery NB-7L 

Storage: SD, SDHC 

Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI mini connector, AV out (PAL/NTSC switchable) 

Other features: Face Detection, AiAF, Optical image stabilization 

Dimensions (W x D x H): 112 x 76 x 48mm 

Weight: 355g

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Digital Camera:Samsung ST1000 Review

Forget cables. The feature-packed Samsung ST1000 has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity for transferring images wirelessly.

Retrieving images from a camera can be troublesome if you don’t have a data cable, card reader or laptop handy.

With the Samsung ST1000 that’s no longer an issue as it also has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

You can easily transfer photos from the ST1000 to an online image repository or another Bluetooth device. The 12.2-megapixel camera also has a GPS chip for geotagging photos.

Plus, It has a 3.5in WVGA touchscreen which supports smart gesture, Pictbridge port, supports ISO of up to 4800, and a microSDHC slot.

In terms of design, the camera looks rather sleek in its compact black frame.

ALL IN A ROW: The GPS transmitter is located on top 
together with the power, shutter and zoom buttons.

Easy access

The camera has only a few buttons as most of its settings are only accessible via the finger-friendly 3.5in touchscreen.

A cool feature of the camera is that the screen uses haptic technology which makes it vibrate slightly and beep when a function is accessed.

And as it has a built-in accelerometer you can just tilt the camera to select a menu setting or scroll through images.

The ST1000 uses a proprietary port for charging the camera and also for data transfer which means you have to always have the cable around with you.

I learned the hard way as I misplaced the cable and couldn’t use the camera once it ran out of battery. As the cable uses standard USB, it can also be hooked up to a PC to be charged or a wall socket with the included adaptor.

Going wireless

There are six options listed for the wireless networking — Internet, e-mail, camera-to-camera, shared, camera to DLNA-compliant devices and Bluetooth.

DLNA (digital living network alliance) is a technology for transferring content wirelessly to other electronics devices. I couldn’t test this feature as I didn’t have any compatible device handy.

The other options allow you to send the photo via e-mail or upload directly to Picasa, Facebook, YouTube and Samsung’s depository site called Imaging.

Uploading images to the sites was easy as long as I found a decent WiFi connection. To reduce the uploading time, the camera will automatically resize large photos to 2-megapixel images.

In our tests, trasferring images via Bluetooth was much faster because the photo size is further reduced to best fit the resolution of the device’s screen.

Meanwhile, the built-in GPS can be used to tag photos with latitude and longitude info which will be stored in the EXIF file.

This is really helpful if you plan to upload your photos as most sites can use the info to categorise images by location.

The camera also has a list of popular cities and you can search your photos by region.

Looking good

The camera uses a 35mm Schneider Kreuznach lens which has a 5x optical zoom.

It records 720p HD video at 30fps (frames per second) in H.264 format which is a more efficient method of storing videos than the MPEG4 and MJPEG format.

You could easily view the images and videos on a bigger screen as the camera can be hooked up to a HDTV via HDMI.

To help users take better pictures, the ST1000 offers a number of modes such as the motion timer — the camera will shoot a photo as soon as it detects movements like when a person waves his hands.

There are also other useful modes such as face detection and blink detection, smile shot and more.

There are also plenty of special effects to choose from — Snow, Sunset, Fireworks, and Frame Guide to transform your simple images into works of art.

The camera’s Dual IS, which combines optical and digital image stabilisation, comes in handy for compensating unsteady hands when shooting without a tripod.

To help users search and organise photos better, the Smart Album feature groups images by categories such as location, face, timeline, week, and colour.

Photo and video quality were good and on par with other cameras I tested recently.

The images looked crisp and colours came out quite well, especially when the photos were shot outdoors on a sunny day.

As expected when there is not enough light the images turned out a bit grainy. The built-in flash helps but not by much.

Interestingly, there is also a built-in feature called Beauty Shot that you can use to remove imperfections on a subject’s face such as wrinkles, blemishes and moles. There are two options to even out skin tone and complexion.

In terms of battery life, the camera lasted about two days before needing a recharge.

Conclusion

It’s handy to have WiFi or Bluetooth to transfer images but I still prefer to use a card reader or connect the camera to a PC to retrieve the images.

This is mainly because a wired connection still gives you the best speed for transferring images. Plus, the image isn’t downsized to speed up the transfer.

What I found really useful is the geotagging feature which helped us categorise photos easily.

Overall, the Samsung ST1000 is a decent camera with a lot of really cool features.

It’s a little pricey compared to other cameras but if you are looking for wireless connectivity then you should check out this model.

Pros: Good picture quality; WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity; built-in GPS,

Cons: Pricey; uses proprietary port.

Compact digital camera
Manufacturer: Samsung

Sensor: 12.2-megapixels (4,000 x 3,000-pixels)

Lens: 35mm Schneider Kreuznach with 5x optical zoom, 5-80cm f/3.0-f/4.8

Shutter: 30sec – 1/4,000sec

ISO range: Auto, 80 – 4800

Viewfinder: 3.5in touchscreen LCD

Storage: MicroSD

Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI (via shared proprietary port)

Other features: DI stabilisation, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, Face Detection, Smile Detection, red-eye reduction, motion timer

Dimensions: (w x h x d): 100 x 61 x 19mm

Weight: 176g






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