A Great Camera For Casual and Exacting Photographers

There tend to be two kinds of people who use compact, single-lens digital cameras--those who want ease of use, point-and-shoot pictures, and those who don't want to mess with extra lenses and shutter speeds, but nonetheless want a little bit of variability and option in using their camera. The Nikon Coolpix S200 successfully bridges the gap itas a great camera for both casual users and those who want more control over the pictures they take.

Technical Specs from Nikon
Effective pixels: 7.1 million
Image sensor: 1/2.5-inch type (Approx. 7.41 million total pixels)
Lens: 3x Zoom-Nikkor; 6.3-18.9mm (35mm [135] format picture angle: 38-114mm); f/3.1-5.9; 6 elements in 5 groups; Digital zoom: up to 4x (35mm [135] format picture angle: 456mm)
Focus range (from lens): 60cm (2 ft.) to infinity (∞), Macro close-up mode: 10cm (3.9 in.) to infinity (∞)
Monitor: 2.5-in., 153,000-dot, TFT LCD with anti-reflection coating
Storage media: Internal memory (approx. 20 MB), SD memory cards
Movie: 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 (640), Electronic VR (Vibration Reduction) available except with Time-lapse movie
Image size (pixels): 3072 x 2304 (High: 3072*/Normal: 3072), 2592 x 1944 (Normal: 2592), 2048 x 1536 (Normal: 2048), 1024 x 768 (PC: 1024), 640 x 480 (TV: 640), 3072 x 1728 (16:9)
Vibration Reduction (VR): Electronic VR
ISO sensitivity: ISO 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000, Auto (auto gain ISO 50-800)
Built-in flash: Range: (W) 0.3 to 4.6m (11.9 in. to 15 ft. 1.1 in.), (T) 0.3 to 2.5m (11.9 in. to 8 ft. 2.4 in.)
Interface: USB
Supported languages: Czech, Danish, German, English, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Thai
Power sources: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL10 (supplied), AC Adapter EH-62D (optional)
Battery life: Approx. 230 shots with EN-EL10 battery (based on CIPA standard)
Dimensions (W x H x D): Approx. 91.5 x 56.5 x 18.5 mm (3.6 x 2.2 x 0.7 in.) excluding projections
Weight: Approx. 125 g (4.4 oz.) without battery and SD memory card

Highlights for the Technically Inept
Also from Nikon, some of the camera's main features for those who are baffled by shutter speed and focus range.

* Precision 38 to 114mm (35mm equivalent) 3x optical Zoom-Nikkor lens
* Large, bright 2.5-inch LCD monitor with wide viewing angle
* Electronic VR image stabilization for clearer, sharper results
* Ultra-slim aluminum body
* ISO 1000 capability enables faster shutter speeds and better exposure in lower light
* Face-priority AF can detect a human face to provide sharp focus automatically
* In-Camera Red-Eye Fix detects, then corrects for the red-eye effect sometimes caused by flash
* D-Lighting corrects images compromised by insufficient flash or excessive back light

Scene Modes
Aside from the usual flash options (auto, fill, red-eye reduction, etc.) and playback features found on most cameras, this camera there are a few unique attributes I really like and find useful. First, the camera's Scene Mode, which offers a series of pre-formatted camera settings ideal for certain light and landscape settings. The scene modes include:

Portrait: Focuses on the person (or people) in the center of the frame, smoothing skin tone.
Landscape: Avoids a central focus in order to capture a wide cityscape or natural landscape.
Sports: Allows user to either take one single-shot focused action picture or a rapid series of action shots to capture motion.
Night portrait: Similar to regular portrait, except balances lighting between your desired subjects and the background (so no washed-out faces.)
Party/Indoor: One of my favorite settings and an idea a long time coming. This maximizes focus under low lighting effects, so you can capture candlelight and other atmospheric lighting conditions with a minimum of blurriness, even without a flash. A good alternative to this is to shoot in High Sensitivity mode, which raises ISO to compensate for blurriness or camera shake.
Beach/Snow: Captures brightness of long natural expanses like beaches or snowfields.
Sunset: Focuses on the center of the picture to capture the deep colors of sunset and sunrise.
Dusk/Dawn: Brings out the colors of these weirdly lit early morning/early evening times while reducing the blurriness of low natural light.
Night Landscape: Uses slow shutter speeds to capture clear pictures of cityscapes or landscapes at night.
Close-Up: Pretty self-explanatory! Increases crispness and definition on close pictures. The camera can photograph something as close as 10 cm away.
Museum: Can be used anywhere indoors where flash is a no-no--focuses on the central subject, adjusting to low and indoor lighting.
Fireworks: The camera focuses at infinity with sl-l-looow shutter speeds, so it can capture the bursts of light in a fireworks show. For interesting camera effects, give this a try on anything with lights--I took some pretty cool pictures of Christmas lights using this setting.
Copy: Focuses on text in a book or on a whiteboard.
Backlight: Compensates for backlighting by "filling" in with flash.
Panorama Assist: Shows you an overlap of each picture so you can take pieces of a panorama, which you can then join together later.

I've had the opportunity to try most of the scene modes; they all work more or less as advertised, though some of the night options take a little bit of work getting used to given the difficulty of lighting situations. Don't expect absolutely rapid changes of camera output, either--what these settings seem to do is subtly maximize the clarity and color of a particular given situation.

Other Pre-Set Modes
The scene modes cover the gamut of situations the average point-and-shooter would need in their camera, but there's a few other nice features Nikon throws in to up user control. As I said, the High Sensitivity mode can help with low-light situations. I tend to find that this mode gives a sharper but a bit of a grainier picture than the Party/Indoor mode, so I tend to prefer Party/Indoor, but if you value clarity over smoothness you might shoot in High Sensitivity more often.

There's an Anti-Shake mode, which can help compensate for rapid subject (or camera photographer!) movement. I found that this mode is better for moderate movement (like walking or gesturing)--anything faster is more suited to the sports setting in the scene modes, in my experience.

A One-Touch Portrait mode (which automatically locates faces for focus with red-eye reduction as well as all the features of regular Portrait mode) is great for snapping quick pictures of faces, but it makes the Portrait mode in the scene mode selection sort of obsolete--why apply that mode and then red-eye reduction and then auto-focus on faces when I could do all three with the touch of a button?

The camera also includes .3/-.3 exposure compensation to make pictures brighter or darker, which I haven't used too much but might use on an overly bright day outdoors. Making scenes more exposed on this camera tends to wash them out, I've found.

Like most cameras, this includes a 3s or 10s self-timer, which is intuitive enough to use, though since the camera is so light I'd caution you to be careful where you park it before you run in front of it, lest it tip and fall.

One of the more useful modes is a macro close-up mode, which can be combined with the Close-Up mode in the scene menu to take pictures of something as close as 10 cm away. This is perhaps the most effective "special" mode on the camera--I've found a drastic difference in the clarity of close up shots I've taken using the special settings on this camera and the close-up shots on my old EasyShare. While, once again, it's not professional work, lines, shadows and details are much clearer.

Oh, you of course have the color shooting options--vivid color for a sort of subtly luminous effect (I've actually been shooting everything in this vivid color setting), cyanographic for a blue tint, and black and white and sepia for those times when you just have to pretend it's 1886.

Most of the camera's features are accessed through a main menu--there's a consistent method to changing features or modes, which is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Flash options and other oft-used features like macro close-up are available right next to the LCD screen, which is huge, sharp, and true to color.

Output and Form
And, of course, the pictures. Well, as an amateur, I have absolutely no complaints. With the little patience it takes to learn the ins and outs of all the camera's features, it's easy to take clear, crisp pictures in just about any setting. I will say that the pictures taken in low light situations, while much less blurry than on other cameras I've tried, can sometimes take on a sort of grainy quality due to the change in shutter speeds. However, I think this is probably going to happen with any entry-level digital camera, and I'd certainly prefer a little bit of graininess to a blur. I'm not going to fool anyone into thinking I'm a professional, of course, but I might fool them into thinking my camera cost a lot more than it did!

As for the form, after three years using one of the bulkier first-issue Kodak EasyShares, the slim, sleek design of this camera is absolutely a breath of fresh air. The camera is slightly larger than a deck of cards, small and unobtrusive enough to slip in a jacket or even a pants pocket, which means I can take this everywhere--from parties to the outdoors--without being one of those obnoxious photographic hounds lugging a giant antique everywhere.

I also appreciate how quickly the camera springs to life. There's no splash or brand screen, either, it just goes straight to the LCD camera screen, which means I can be taking a picture literally about a second and a half after pressing the power button. The camera also comes with A/V cords to connect straight to a TV and play your pictures like a slideshow--I haven't had the opportunity to try this feature but 's a nice touch.

I can use the camera for about two to three weeks of moderately steady use (Nikon says about 230 pictures, but that also depends on how much you use flash, zoom, etc) without needing to recharge the battery. When I do recharge the battery, it takes about an hour to fully charge. The battery will deplete a bit if the camera sits unused for a while, as well. The battery and any SD memory cards fit in a slot on the bottom of the camera.

Software
Since I addressed most of the camera's picture-taking capabilities in the last section, I'll address getting them from the camera to the computer in this one. I'm no great fan of the picture software bundled with most new camera purchases--I find it mostly bulky and inefficient. I have a Mac desktop (where I store most of my photos) and a PC laptop, and until Google comes out with Picasa in a Mac version, I'll reluctantly use iPhoto. And as for transferring pictures to the computer, the camera connects with a USB cord and it's easy enough to snag pictures from an SD card off an external or internal SD card reader, anyway. However, out of curiosity I threw the included Nikon software on my laptop just to give it a once-over.

Nikon's picture transfer and editing software, PicturePerfect, is not as bad as some but is fairly unattractive and unintuitive. There are better, smaller photo storage programs out there--as I said, I much prefer Google's free software, Picasa, for storage and editing purposes. That being said, I'm a bit anal-retentive about what goes on my computer, and I didn't look very in-depth at PicturePerfect beyond its most basic functions, so you might want to give it a try yourself. For instance, my mom, who has the same camera, loves the software for its ease of picture transfer. Just a matter of personal preference.

Even if you don't install anything else, there's one thing you might want to install off the included Nikon software CD--the camera allows you to shoot a series of overlapping photos as pieces of a panorama, which the ArcSoft Panorama Maker then makes it easy to sew together as one wide picture. Though I uninstalled PicturePerfect, I left this installed to help with any wide panoramas I might take, since the camera makes it so easy in the first place.

Availability
My camera was purchased in a package deal at Costco that came with the camera (and accessories like cords, battery charging dock, etc), a camera case, and a 1 GB SD memory card for $179. The camera is also available at a variety of online retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, etc for around the same or less.

In my estimation, this is a great price for a feature-rich camera for amateur and intermediate digital photographers alike.