Picture-taking is where the Coolpix S1 truly shines. Following the Coolpix tradition, the photos are crisp and the colors, vivid. Pictures tend to get blurred very easily if the flash is out – there’s not much of a body in an ultra-compact digital camera to get a firm grip on. The flash has a working range of 0.3 - 2.5 m at wide-angle and 0.3 - 1.4 m at telephoto. As expected in a camera this size, no external flash can be attached to it. To avoid blurriness and over flashing we recommend using the Slow Synch Flash – it captures a good deal of background and doesn’t turn the people portrayed into ghosts of light. The camera is fully automated: the only manual control being for white balance.

The Coolpix S1 comes with a CD-ROM featuring Nikon PictureProject, a proprietary photo software interface that resembles Apple’s I-Photo. It allows red-eye correction and presents the exclusive D-Lighting feature which brightens up dark areas of the photos. The Nikon PictureProject also allows adjustments to brightness, color and sharpness and has the ability to print, e-mail and CD-burn the pictures.

Overall, the Nikon Coolpix S1 is a stylish metal camera ideal to whatever situation where camera bulkiness is an issue. If you are a sharpshooter and have no inclination to manual adjust your camera, that’s the ideal cam for you.

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Figure 5: Battery.