yusakugo's Full Review: Canon PowerShot A95 Digital Camera
Strangely enough... despite all the digital cameras I've bought through the years, I still have the CoolPix 995 in my collection. I still use it every now and then... ya, really. The 995 was a pretty sturdy camera as well. I feel a tinge of guilt when I think of getting rid of it. The 995 was truly in a class of it's own for its time. The few swivel camera after the 995 never did quite approach that same pinnacle for their time.
The only other Nikon swivel camera I remember were the 4500 and the S4. The 4500 was pretty good for its time but the S4 didn't leave that strong impression that its predecessors had.
Now we come to the S10. A camera like the S4 that falls into the compact camera and ultra zoom categories. Does the S10 leave as the earlier Coolpix 900 series and 4500 models or does it leave you a little flat like the S4?
Short Take
The S10 is a visually striking camera with an extremely useful swivel design. However, the camera is an average to above average performer and lacks any manual controls. It is truly a pure point-and-shoot camera where Nikon decided to add tons of defined options to enhance your photos. That isn't a bad thing but the lack of manual controls is a bit surprising.
For the most part, the S10 offers above average to excellent photo capture in bright and medium lighting conditions. It is a bit weak in low light and at the telephoto range of the zoom in performance as in being a bit slow. The camera takes good photos up to ISO 200 and above average at ISO 400. ISO 800 was very weak in performance as with many digital cameras out there.
The lack of manual controls with frustrate more experienced shutterbugs as a few manual controls would have made this a killer camera. It almost seems like a glaring omission to a camera with ultra zoom capabilities. On the other hand, the access to some of the S10 features are buried in submenus underneath submenus... making navigation too much of a chore.
Battery life is below average to average but considering this is an ultra zoom lens in a very compact body... the battery holds up pretty well.
All in all, the camera is an above average performer that should please many buyers. Retailing at a reasonable $399 and selling for as low as $299, the S10 will fit many budgets. Just don't expect to experiment with camera settings on the S10.
Specs
The S10 is surprising small for a digital camera with a 10x optical zoom. The dimensions are 4.4x2.9x1.6 inches with a weight of 220g or 7.7 oz. This is nearly half the size and weight of the Canon S3 ultra zoom camera! The S10 has a silver metallic finish and the casing is a mix of metal and plastic. The lens cap and the SD card/battery cover were the only weak parts of the camera.
If you have never used a camera with a swivel lens, you have no idea how much flexibility this design allows you in taking photos. It is not quite the same as having a LCD screen that can rotated in a variety of positions but offers a few of its own advantages and disadvantages. A rotatable LCD offers horizontal flexibility although I preferred the range of vertical flexibility that the swivel design allows. The swivel design usually allows a larger LCD screen than a rotating LCD screen will allow.
The S10 has a 2.5 inch high resolution screen on the back of the camera (230,000 pixels). The screen gets reasonably bright although my Canon's do quite a bit better in low light viewing (as far as brightness goes). The LCD screen takes up most of the back of the grip half of the camera... to the point that you don't have much of a grip on the S10. Your thumb is usually on some part of the screen. There are 4 buttons and a 5-way joystick over the LCD screen. The buttons and the joystick is quite small though and some may find them uncomfortable. The 4 buttons cover the delete photo, menu, mode, and record/playback functions. The joystick also allows you to set the flash setting, macro, and self-timer.
The top of the camera holds the mono speaker, the power button, the shutter, and the zoom lever. On the lens side you find two buttons. These buttons control the vibration reduction/image stabilizer and the one-touch portrait mode/D-lighting mode. I'll get into these modes later on.
The lens cap is attached to the camera by a hinge although the cap is removable. If your hinge is a bit loose, the cap can block parts of your photos. The right side of the camera holds the eyelet for the strap and the rubber cover to the shared A/V and USB 1.1 port. The bottom of the camera holds the SD card/battery cover and the plastic tripod mount. The tripod mount is centered to the camera itself and not the lens for obvious design reasons.
Zooming Along
It is still hard to believe that the S10 has a 10x optical zoom. The lens is a F3.5 with a focal range of 6.3 to 63mm (i.e. 38-380mm in 35mm equivalent ratings). The zoom has 12 elements in 9 groups. The zoom is decently speedy however. There seems to be a decent number of steps in the zoom.
Manual Controls?
Urmmmm... just a limited white balance. There is no other settings. You don't even get shutter of aperture priority.
Vibration Reduction
Nikon's image stabilizer doesn't seem to be as good as Canon's solution but still works overall well. Where Canon's IS system shifts the lens elements to achieve photo stability, Nikon's VR shifts the sensor to achieve similar results. Nikon claims the ability to shoot up to 2 stops slower with the VR on.
Note that the S10 only has two settings for the VR... on and off.
Nikon's VR does NOT work in movie record mode.
Modes
The S10 excels in granting tons of options to fix your photos in camera while taking the shot or offering some fun modifications while taking your photo. It doesn't replace manual controls but does make the camera fun to use. Accessing some of these modes is a bit frustrating as some of them are buried in a few submenus but this is coming from a person who is usually using a Canon digital camera.
Some interesting modes include the red eye reduction and D-lighting. The red eye reduction uses a two step process where the S10 fires several preflashes then uses in-camera software to remove any remaining redeye. The results are a bit strange... you go from red-eye to white-eye. Because of the position of the flash to the lens, you will have some red-eye or white-eye in all your night photos.
The D-lighting enhances the lighting of the dark areas of your photos. The slight trade off is a slight increase in noise levels. The trade off is worth it. The effect on appropriate photos (subjects with a strong backlight behind them) is very noticable and quite pleasant.
Other modes include portrait assist, landscape assist, sports assist, night portrait assist, party/indoor, beach/snow, sunset, dusk/dawn, night landscape, close-up
museum, fireworks show, copy, backlight, and panorama assist.
Nikon also includes a mode called Best Shot Selector which takes up to 10 shots and the camera selects the sharpest image from the bunch.
The face detection mode seems to work well. Portrait and group photos usually came out very well on the S10.
Note that on many of the modes, the S10 will display hints on the LCD to help frame the best photos under that particular mode. It's very nice.
Day to Day Photos
Overall, the S10 does extremely well in bright light but trails off as the sun goes down. In moderate to bright lighting, the S10 is responsive and quick. Picture quality is certainly up there and compares very favorably to my Canon S3. Pictures were sharp and had excellent contrast. It's a quality sensor and lens in this camera for the most part. Chromatic aberration/purple fringing is notable if you make larger prints from shots especially at the telephoto end of the zoom. The purple fringing is a bit worse than the S3 under similar shooting conditions.
There is a noticable bit of distortion in the corners at the telephoto end of the zoom. Also notable is some corner softness as well throughout the zoom range.
ISO 200 and lower produced excellent shots suitable for enlargements even beyond 8x10 prints. ISO 400 shows reasonable noise but should make high quality prints up to 8x10. ISO 800 shows notable noise in the photos. Like the S3, the ISO 800 should be used for small prints only or after noise reduction software in the post-processing.
Camera performance does slow down as you take shots deeper into the telephoto range and as lighting conditions dim. Although to a lesser degree the Canon S3 does have a similar problem, the S10 low/dim light and night performance is more pronounced than I've seen in other medium to high end ultra zoom cameras. The S10 is definitely not a sports/action camera as lighting conditions worsen.
Night shots using the flash are good as this is a pretty powerful flash on the unit. A range of 15 feet... maybe a bit more. However, the lack of manual controls doesn't allow you to fine tune the image. You have to select of the modes to get a better night shot. I much preferred going back to my S3 for night photo taking. As noted above, "red-eye" is a problem since the flash is right next to the lens.
Movie Move
I haven't played too much with this on the S10 but available to you are 640 x 480 resolutions at 30 fps, 320 x 240 at 15 fps, and 160 x 120 at 15 fps, all with sound. The time-lapse option at 15 fps is available without sound. However, the movie mode seems less refined than what I'm used to in a digital camera. The VR function doesn't seem to work as well as it does for static shots. The optical zoom is disabled. Sound recording is also very inconsistent and sometimes choppy. Maybe this is something that can be fixed with a firmware update. With a high speed SD card, you can record video till you run out of space... about 14-15 minutes of video at 640x480 at 30fps.
Battery Life
Overall decent... Nikon rates it as 300 shots under CIPA standards. I got around 240 shots on a full charge including playback and playing with various modes on the S10.
The Nikon uses a proprietary Li-Ion battery... the EN-EL5. It runs about $30 to purchase an extra.
Image sizes and quality choices
The S10 allows resolution selection of 2,816 x 2,112 with low compression (High quality), 2,816 x 2,112, 2,048 x 1,536, 1,024 x 768, and 640 x 480 all with normal compression. The High quality photo takes up about 3MB per shot.
Nikon gives you a 16MB SD card in the box so you better buy a bigger card... pronto!
In the Box
You get the EN-EL5 rechargeable lithium-ion battery, battery charger, lens cap, wrist strap, USB cable, A/V cable, CD-ROM featuring Nikon PictureProject, and a fold-out Quick Start guide + 92 page printed camera manual.
You should buy a high speed SD card of at least 1GB in storage.
Competition
Pretty much any ultra zoom camera. I've been comparing the S10 versus the Canon S3 and I lean a little bit more towards the S3 from Canon for the manual controls and better overall movie mode. The S10 is still a very good camera but the lack of manual controls hurts it in my eyes.
I'll add to this section a bit later.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 299 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
Nikon s easy-to-use Coolpix S10 combines 6.0 effective megapixels with an amazing 10x optical Zoom-Nikkor glass lens to get you close to the action.Vi...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
6.0-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 14 x 19-inch prints 10x image-stabilized optical zoom; 2.5-inch LCD with 170-degree viewing...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.