Nikon Coolpix S620 First Thoughts

[Howard Creech]

Nikon's newest pocket picture rocket is the Nikon Coolpix S620. The S620 is the S630's little brother, but the differences between the two are minimal. The S620 is an auto exposure only point-and-shoot digicam with a 2.7 inch High Resolution/Wide-Viewing angle LCD, a very good 4x NIKKOR wide-angle (28mm equivalent) zoom.

The camera design mavens at Nikon clearly don't believe the megapixel wars are over – the S620 generates gargantuan 12 megapixel images, but it's small enough (2.1x3.5x0.9 inches) to drop in a shirt pocket. The S620 has all the bells and whistles users have come to expect from today's popular point-and-shoot digicams – like VR (Vibration Reduction) Image Stabilization, face priority AF, smile and blink detection, motion detection, subject tracking, D-Lighting, and Scene Auto Selector (the camera determines what type of picture is being taken and automatically selects the appropriate scene mode). The S620 also provides a high sensitivity setting of ISO 6400.

In the early days of the digital imaging revolution Nikon's digicams often looked like something out of a Star Trek movie, but stylistically the S620 looks like just about every other ultra-compact digicam out there right now. The S620 is available in a plethora of hip colors including silver, black, purple and pink (my test unit was pink). The camera is very nicely constructed, comfortable to hold (although it lacks any sort of handgrip) and very easy to use.

The menu system is user friendly and easily navigated. All controls are clearly marked and reasonably placed (for right-handed shooters). Focusing speed and response times are impressively quick and shutter lag is noticeably shorter than average. Images are sharp and well exposed and colors are bright and vibrant without being garish, but noise levels (especially above ISO 400) and chromatic aberration (color fringing) are higher than average.

The S620 has a couple of shortcomings and it's probably not a good choice for those who like to shoot in low/dim light – this camera (like most of its contemporaries) seems to do better in bright outdoor lighting. The S620 provides about the same balance of dependably good pictures with little user input and dead simple ease of use as many of today's popular auto-exposure only digicams, but it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper than many of them and sports a true wide-angle zoom. The S620 should appeal to casual photographers looking for a stylish ultracompact digicam and hikers/bikers/backpackers/travelers who want lots of photographic power in a small lightweight package.

We'll have our full review of the Nikon Coolpix S620 up very soon.

Sample Images

Related Articles:

• Users Speak Out: Nikon Coolpix P80
• Nikon Coolpix S230 First Thoughts
• Nikon Coolpix S230 Review

[KCook]

Sweet product shots Howard. Though I liked the styling of last year's S610 better than this Casio-like S620. Whut is the S620's issue in low light? High ISO sample shots for the S610 weren't too bad. But those ISO test series are often in strong light. Don't think I've seen a S610/620 sample that is with a seriously low light level. Any zoom with video for the S620? I know the S630 has digital zoom for that.

Kelly Cook

[Howard Creech]

Hi Kelly,

I agree, the S620 product shots are sweet. DCR reviewers used to have take their own product shots - DCR staff (Allison or David) shot those – and they look better than any I ever shot.

“Whut is the S620's issue in low light?” Your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t have a lot of difficulty doing natural light shots, but I didn’t get into any really dim/low lighting - night situations. Like most P&S digicams you can’t use the optical zoom while shooting video. Aside from the lens the S620 and S630 are almost identical.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Howard

[KCook]

Thanks Howard