Nikon Coolpix S610

Just got my 610c and it's good, not great.

Things I like:
- WiFi feature is pretty cool. Not exactly sure how much I'll use it but it's nice to be able to share pictures and have online backup on an extended trip, provided you can find a compatible hotspot.
- Picture quality is good. I've been a Canon user for years and I think the Canon Digic processor produces better pictures, but the Nikon is very good.
- Fast start up time
- Decent battery life, even with WiFi (plus some smart power features like wifi upload when you plug it in)
- Nice, large LCD viewfinder
- Good, intuitive UI
- Smile mode works well

Things I don't like:
- The shutterspeed seems slow, especially in red-eye mode. I find a lot of pics in redeye mode have the people with eyes closed. My Canons never did this.
- All the scene modes are a bit bewildering... I think it will take some time to figure out which modes work best in which situations.
- Proprietary connector for PC, looks like mini-USB, but isn't

I took about 150 shots with my new Coolpix S610, and then I learned how fragile the viewing screen is. My initial experience was great:
- Fast set-up right out of the box.
- Long-lasting battery
- Easy-to-follow screen settings and icons
- Large, bright screen
But then when I was stepping off an escalator, my camera brushed against the handrail and the screen was damaged. I didn't notice a problem at first, but the damage soon appeared: wavy lines on the screen, yellow color, and an ugly black spot the size of a coin. The camera still takes pictures but the viewing screen is messed up.

So learn from my mistake, and be very careful wth the screen on this camera. Don't let anything press against it or bump it!

Nikon Coolpix S610 10MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Zoom (Deep Red)

Just upgraded from the Coolpix 3100 3mp.
Took this on a recent trip and the camera worked wonderfully. I was nervous about a rechargeable battery, but that lasted a little longer than it states. The camera is very fast from picture to picture and goes quickly from playback to shooting with a touch of the button. 10mp takes a very nice picture. A very nice point and shoot.

The only unperfect thing is the night shooting mode. You have to hold the camera perfectly still or the shot is blurry.
A gorillapod takes care of that for those outside night-time shots. It's worth the extra 2 seconds.

I own a few nikon dslr's (d200/300/700) and went shopping for a p&S when my spouse's sony dscT1 went bad after 4 years or so.

I went to circuit city and compared all the cameras

My technique was to zoom into the fire alarms located at the I-beams within the building

I didnt use flash and compared the new 13/14mp canon down to a fuzi finepix 20

my price range was 200-400 dollars

my gut was leaning towards the fuji and olympus cameras but the bottom line was the image quality of my test shots. too bad I had to make these decisions using the lcd on the cameras themselves.

to wrap it up, along with the salesmans unwillingly nod of agreement...the nikon had the best image quality with least amount of noise when zoomed in on the final image.


other considerations:

simple...my wife wanted very few buttons and easy to use

didnt pay attention to the auto smile detector or other settings built in...just wanted to point and shoot with good quality.

this camera had like 4 buttons, menu, delete, zoom/wide, and the up/down arrows with center button. EZ

bottom line...simple to use and great image quality

I got this camera and I really wanted to like it. Despite the problems outlined below, I tried to use it for several weeks, taking it everwhere with me. I'm not a photo professional, but it appears to me that it does take nice pictures and produces reasonable quality video. Unfortunately, I ended up returning it for the following reasons:

* When you are in a menu, pressing the shutter release does not return the camera to picture taking mode. Instead, you have to navigate out of the menus! This is a very serious problem. Also, you have to remember whether you are in the "Mode" menu or the "Menu" menu. You cannot exit the Mode menu by pressing the "Menu" button, nor can you exit the "Menu" menu by pressing the "Mode" button. I missed several good shots because of this fiddling.

* The camera takes forever to get picture ready. It takes several seconds between pressing the power button to when you can take your first picture - but its also deceptive. When you turn it on, the LCD immediately begins to show what the camera sees, but you must wait for the rest of the display to load before you can take a shot/access menus/go into movie mode/whatever. I would turn it on and frantically try to take a picture to no avail. I missed several shots because of this. I would absolutely recommend against this camera if you are trying to take pictures of children. You WILL miss shots waiting for it to boot.

* The software on the camera crashes. Several times, my camera rebooted itself. It would become unresponsive, the screen would go dark, and it would shut itself off. It would come back to life after I pressed the power button a few times.

* There is no way battery status indicator! Keep you battery charged or cross your fingers.

If the camera only suffered from one or two of these problems, I could live with it. I hate the hassle of returning electronics. But when you combine all of these problems in one camera, its a disaster.