Nikon Coolpix S500

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The Nikon COOLPIX S500 is a well built sturdy little machine (88 x 51 x 22 mm / 3.5 x 2.0 x 0.9 in) yet it weighs only around 130g (4.6 oz) with the batteries in. It has stainless steel body and comes in silver or black like mine, personally I think the black looks more stylish.

It has 7.1 mega pixels of resolution and a 3x zoom which has a range of 35-105 mm which isn’t massive but it’s adequate and the camera ...
...do things with it etc Nikon kindly always put their manuals online as PDF’s.
The 500s manual lives here : http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/noprint/S500_en_noprint.pdf
The brochure lives here : http://www.nikonusa.com/fileuploads/pdfs/S200S500_brochure.pdf

Technical specifications :

Sensor
• 1/2.5 " Type CCD
• 7.38 million pixels total
• 7.1 million effective pixels
... more

I’ve had this camera for a nearly a month now which is long enough to have got to grips with it particularly thinking back on how many snaps I’ve taken with it. Our current camera ,although it's exellent, it is too heavy for me and I find it hard to keep its still enough

The Nikon COOLPIX S500 is a well built sturdy little machine (88 x 51 x 22 mm / 3.5 x 2.0 x 0.9 in) yet it weighs only around 130g (4.6 oz) with the batteries in. It has stainless steel body and comes in silver or black like mine, personally I think the black looks more stylish.

It has 7.1 mega pixels of resolution and a 3x zoom which has a range of 35-105 mm which isn’t massive but it’s adequate and the camera isn’t unbalanced when the zoom is fully out so it’s still easy to balance. The image sizes range from 640 x 480 to 3072 x 2304. The larger sizes give you plenty of room to crop but still preserve the image clarity.

It has a vibration function which is unbelievable for some one like me; no more blurry images due to camera shake. It really does enable you to have clearer pictures particularly when the lights low and the aperture is open longer.

Light sensitivity can be manually set as high as ISO 2000, this lets the camera to select faster shutter speeds and helps prevent blurred results when shooting in lower lighting conditions or when shooting fast-moving subjects. In high sensitivity mode, the ISO setting is automatically adjusted from ISO 50 to as high as ISO 1600 to give you the best exposure in poor lights .

The anti-shake button gives you clearer results in low light or when using the zoom lens. A high ISO automatically sets the optimal ISO and works the vibration reduction) so you get steady results. It also has a best shot selector which selects and saves the sharpest image from up to ten sequential shots. It also comes with a funky little tripod which is particularly useful if your taking photos with the timer

It also has an image stabilisation function which is on all the time and even affects the images in the LCD screen which makes it easy to identify just the right moment to snap. The LCD screen is an ample size and it has an anti-reflective coating which keeps it easy to see in all conditions.

It has a useful help button to display simple explanations for functions of the camera so if you don’t have the manual handy it can remind you what to do. This is particularly helpful in the first few weeks while you are trying it out and getting used to it, or I’d imagine if you don’t use it for long periods

The camera is incredibly fast to turn on , the manual tells you is powers up in 0.8 seconds but it feel like an instant response, The zoom is fast too and the shutter release time is less than 0.005 seconds. As the shutter is so quick to respond you find hardly need any pressure to operate it so you are less likely to move the camera an iota

The one-touch portrait button gives you direct access to three functions which will improve the quality of images from the camera;
Face-priority automatically finds, then focuses on people’s faces to give crisp and clear results :

•Face-priority automatically finds, then focuses on people’s faces to give crisp and clear results
•In-Camera Red-Eye Fix automatically compensates to help remove the annoying red-eye effect which can be encountered during flash photography.
•D-Lighting, which can be applied to improve underexposed images or shots taken with too much backlight. This automatically creates a copy of the image with detail added where necessary, but with well-exposed areas left completely untouched.

It has a macro facility which the manual says enables shooting from as close as 15 cm (5.9 in.) but I find this is too close and the result are not particularly good but as I generally don’t take these kind of photos it doesn’t much matter to me

It takes a variety of movies:
•TV size (640x 480) and will give you 3 minutes 40 seconds on a 256 MB card at 30 frames per sec
•Small(320) gives you 7 minutes s 20 seconds at 30 frames per sec
•Small (default size 320) 14 minutes 30 seconds at 15 frames per sec
•Smallest (160) 48 minutes at 15 frames per sec
•It also does time lapse movies up to 1.800 frames
•and stop motion movie pictures can be made by joining images to make a silent movie image size (640 x 480 at either 10 or 15 frames per second)

It will connect direct to your PC , your TV or your printer whichever you like, connections are easy ,just a matter of plugging in the supplied leads. Before you transfer images to your PC you need to install the Picture Project software which is easy. There are quick instructions on quick start guide but if you aren’t very technical there are more detailed instructions further on in the manual. Personally I found the quick start guide more than adequate (by the way it does work with Vista as well as XP, 2000 and MAC)

The Picture Project software is quite good and the camera turns out JPGs so they are easy to import into any image programmes such as Adobe or Paint shop pro. the photos look great even after they have been enlarged

As you can tell I am really pleased with this camera ,it takes very clear, detailed pictures with true to life colors .Its not heavy on batteries particularly when you see how bright and clear its LCD screen is .and has a lot of nice features.

The Red Eye reduction is particularly good as is the detail and clarity of faces on photos .The speed of the camera turning on is unbelievably fast so it does mean you can catch those instant ‘photos’ that in general you miss

There isn’t much negative about it but some of the buttons those on top in particular are very small. I have slender fingers so its all right but people with sausage fingers like some men I know might find them tricky

If you want to know more about this cameras specifications or more about how to do things with it etc Nikon kindly always put their manuals online as PDF’s.
The 500s manual lives here : http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/noprint/S500_en_noprint.pdf
The brochure lives here : http://www.nikonusa.com/fileuploads/pdfs/S200S500_brochure.pdf

Technical specifications :

Sensor
• 1/2.5 " Type CCD
• 7.38 million pixels total
• 7.1 million effective pixels

Image sizes
• 3072 x 2304
• 2592 x 1944
• 2048 x 1536
• 1024 x 768
• 640 x 480
• 3072 x 1728 (16:9)

Movie clips
•• With sound
• TV movie (640) at 30fps
• Small size (320) at 30fps/15fps
• Smaller size (160) at 15fps
• • Without sound:
• Time-lapse movie at 30fps,
• Stop-motion movie

File formats
•JPEG

Lens
•3x Zoom-Nikkor (35-105mm equiv.)
• f/2.8-4.7
• 5 elements in 5 groups

Image stabilization
• Lens-shift VR

Conversion lenses
• No

Digital zoom
• Up to 4x

Focus
• Auto

AF area modes
• Face Priority mode

AF assist lamp
•Yes

Focus distance
• 50cm (1 ft. 8 in.) to infinity (∞)
Macro close-up mode: 15cm (5.9 in.) to infinity (∞)

Metering
•n/a

ISO sensitivity
• ISO 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 2000,
• Auto (ISO 50-1000)

Exposure compensation
•n/a

Exposure bracketing
• n/a

Shuttter speed
•n/a

Aperture
•n/a

Modes
•Auto / Scene

Scene modes •15 Scene modes
White balance
•Auto with TTL control,
•7-mode manual
• • Direct sunlight,
• • Incandescent,
• • Fluorescent,
• • Cloudy,
• • Shade,
• • Flash
• • White Bal. Preset

White balance fine tune
•n/a

Self timer
• Yes

Continuous shooting
• n/a

Image parameters
• Color Options

Flash
• Built-in
• Range: (W) 0.5 to 7.5m (1 ft. 8 in. to 24 ft. 7 in.), (T) 0.5 to 4.0m (1 ft. 8 in. to 13 ft. 1 in.)

Viewfinder
• No

LCD monitor
• 2.5-in TFT LCD with anti-reflection coating
• 230,000-dot,

Connectivity
• USB & AV out

Print compliance
• PictBridge

Storage
• SD / SDHC card (optional)
• Approx 26MB internal memory

Power
• Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL10 (supplied),
• AC Adapter EH-62D (optional)

Other features
• Time zone function
• BSS (Best Shot Selector)
• D-Lighting
• In-camera Red-Eye Fix

If you decide to buy the Nikon Coolpix S500 I'd advise you to shop around as the price can vary widely ,as much as £80 difference. Mine cost £140 

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