Nikon Coolpix S570 Review

Author's Rating:

Pros: price, good image quality, 5x zoom lens

Cons: not many major ones

The Bottom Line: 
Decent point and shoot camera - for the price I'm more then impressed.

Author's Review
I had some water damage in my condo from the unit above me and needed to take some pictures of the damage. Since I let my Mom borrow my old Fujifilm camera and she is on vacation halfway around the world, I decided to pick up a cheap point and shoot camera. Although the water damage sucks, I'm glad I ended up with this Nikon S570 Camera.


The Nikon Coolpix S570 and all the other comparable cameras I looked at and researched, such as the Nikon Coolpix S4000, Olympus Stylus 7030 and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W350 were all pretty impressive. All these cameras had more megapixels then I could ever want, huge LCD screens, lots of features all packed into a tiny package compared to what was on the market a few years ago.


One thing I like about the S570 is the 5x zoom lens, with a range from 28mm to 140mm. I like to snap quick scenic/landscape shots, and the lens zoomed out allows for decent wide angle shots. On the other hand I like the 5x zoom for when I want to take some shots of cars at the racetrack, the camera allows for closer shots then many comparably price cameras with only a 4x lens. This is one reason I opted for the s570 rather then the newer S3000/S4000 with only a 4x lens.


However for things such as shooting cars at the track, it would be nice to have some more manual controls, most importantly a manually adjustable shutter speed.  Although there are many "modes" to choose from such as "sport", they don't seem to make a huge different compared to auto mode. In terms of manual settings, the S570 only allows adjusting ISO sensitivity, in addition to a few white balance and exposure compensation settings. Shutter lag may also become an issue for some action shots, although it doesn't seem any better or worse then other point and shooters I've used.


So far I've only snapped about 100 photos but I've taken some indoor shots, outdoor action shots, outdoor landscape shots and macro shots, and image quality looks very good in all cases. In all shots colors look natural and accurate. Images shot with the flash or in bright light look very crisp and not grainy at all when inspected at full resolution; there is a lot less noise then my past digital cameras. I particularly like the macro shots in this camera. The s570 can focus perfectly on a object around 1 inch from the lens, much better then my past point and shoots, and the shots turn out very clear and crisp.

The video mode on the S570 is decent.  It cannot record high definition (max is 480p) but video quality looks better then, say, my ipod video recordings at the same definition.  The sound recording is very good.

One downside I could see with the S570 is in low light shots without the flash, it can be difficult to get an in focus shot. It is certainly more difficult then with my Fujifilm camera. I think this may be due to the shutter speed which gets as slow as 1 second and as mentioned above, there is no way to manually set it faster. It may also be that perhaps the image stabilization on the S570 is not as good as some other cameras, although I don't really have enough experience with comparable cameras to know. On the plus side, I like how the screen shows the shutter speed and aperture after the auto focus is complete, which helps you know how long you'll have to hold your hands still!


The camera is ergonomically comfortable to use. The buttons are all easy to easy to press and I particularly like the zoom controls integrated around the shutter button on the nikon cameras better then the setup on other brands such as Sony and FujiFilm. One thing I do like about some other brands such as Sony is that they have a dial to quickly change modes, while on the Nikon cameras you have to press a menu button and then navigate through the modes with the arrow buttons. However, the menus and settings are all decently intuitive to navigate. One thing I don't like about the design is that the huge LCD screen is not recessed into the body like many other point and shoots. I feel this will allow the screen to become scratched more easily, although it does appear pretty durable and has not scratched yet despite spending most of its time in my bookbag and car center console with a bunch of other hard objects.


Although I read the battery life of this camera is not that great, I've found it to be more then acceptable even if it is not as good as some other cameras. Nothing too notable about the flash - comparable power compared to similar point and shoots.


Although I was a little concerned that the s570 along with most of its competitors no longer have a viewfinder, it hasn't been an issue yet. With my old point and shoot, the 1.8 inch LCD would get washed out outdoors in direct sunshine. It is also nice to have a bigger LCD screen for previewing images.


Overall, the Nikon Coolpix S570 is a nice point and shoot camera. Considering the low end price, I'm more then happy with it.