~~ I'M SO COOL WITH MY NIKON COOLPIX S630 DIGITAL CAMERA ~~

I had Christmas-in-April with my family up north, and I was head over heels in love with the gift my mom had bought me, even though I have a quite a few other cameras, the Nikon Coolpix S360.

This camera comes fully loaded and was easy to open and let loose! With a 2.7 inch LCD lens in high resolution, it looks just as good on the lens as it does on the computer after you upload, or print them out. My other cameras seem to have this annoying habit of taking a great picture, having it look great on the LCD lens, and then looking completely different in your Windows picture section, or when enlarged, especially for printing!

This camera has an amazing 12.0 megapixels that make the photos razor sharp and keen even when enlarging and printing it to the size of 16" X 20". My former photos used to have "flash-backs"...what I like to call the washing-out-of-faces due to the auto adjustment flash being too close to a background light, and therefore making everyone look like an alien or a pasty white ghost. This camera has none of that, even with the brightest of indoor or outdoor light, no matter how close you are to the zoom, even with my favorite, the "self-portraits".

The lens is not fuzzy at all, has a 7x Optical Zoom NIKKOR 37 mm wide angle lens and 260 mm telephoto advantage. Living in Florida, we have stunning landscapes, the Atlantic Ocean, and this camera zooms in and out and captures images at a near-professional level. Not quite, but close. I am taking photography classes in the fall, and I will have to update the differences after I have had some training! One particular that I am fond of, the movement is captured very clear, for example, when a wave hits my surfing son, or we throw a frisbee in the park, it is not blurry at all. I haven't had such luck in the past.

Technology has come a long way in the last 18 months, as it does every year, and the image processor that Nikon uses goes by the name of EXPEED. Expeed is custom tailored for the Coolpix and it internally produces and captures the most color and perfection out of every image, and adjusts accordingly. This makes the world of difference when you are dealing with lighting, shadows, panoramic views and the overall speed of lightning snap of the moment. It is best used when you choose the setting on your camera for Scene Auto Selector. It gives you much relief when you don't have to worry and you can just snap away!

My family and I do a lot of outdoor activities, such as nature walks, theme park outings, the beach, indoor museums, the zoo and aquariums, and science centers, and the lighting and adjusting can be a real pain when you don't have something as cool as the Coolpix. This is easy enough for a young teenager to use, and sophisticated enough for us parents!

 The amazing speed photography, thanks to the Sports Continuous Scene Mode, can shoot pics at up to 11 fps and then up to 20 frames at a 3MP or lower resolution setting, allowing the perfect sports picture. For us, it is the sporting action, but also pictures taken on a Universal Studios ride come out in perfect clarion! 

This probably has much to do with the 4 Way Optical VR Image Stabilization that manages the shutter speed and ISO settings. With a 6400 capability, when a killer whale at Sea World jumps, your camera decides how high!! It has a unique feature that is a rare find and is perfect for those of you out there who take 20 pictures just to get one good one (Again, I know this well from taking self portraits), the Best Shot Selector allows the camera to take 10 shots while the shutter is snapping and it automatically selects the sharpest one, keeps it, and discards the other without you having to go through and delete. Sometimes it is hard to detect with the untrained eye just looking at them before you upload them. This feature takes care of that for you!

This camera is fun as well as educating when it comes to the digital world. You become a better photographer from the tools and features it allows. I have yet to have to go to photoshop.com or fotoflex.com to fix any pictures that I have taken so far. And, I like the way this camera flatters most people, mainly myself, during the daylight hours, or out on the town at night. I am my own living paparazzi!!

I will now take the time to share with you the Coolpix's Smart Portrait System. It has an automatic face recognizer when you are taking pictures of yourself, your friends or your family. Now get this. If you are one of those clumsy photographers that take pictures of people when they are talking, chewing or frowning, with their eyes closed, you are in luck, and so are your subjects. This camera goes into Smile Mode, if you set it up, and it will automatically and magically (up to 12 faces) will wait and snap the picture when it detects smiles and open eyes, and saves the photo in case it took one when there wasn't smiling. It is so bizarre! I am not fast enough to have noticed it manually, and I haven't tested it, but my pictures are now much better. The new Blink Proof technology is your new best friend!

This camera has a CCD image sensor, with 12.7 million pixels! With the monitor resolution of 230,000 dots, a low ISO sensitivity of 64 and a high ISO sensitivity of 6400. The storage media is SDHC and SD with an internal memory of 44 MB and optical image stabilization. It has a movie mode with sound, at 640 X 480 and a high speed USB interface. 7X zoom glass lens with a 2 foot to infinity focus range and close up range of 0.8 inches to infinity. That is a summary of the technical details which can be found in the manual.

Now for the fun changes and options that you get to play with. The Scene Modes are: * Party * Portrait * Landscape * Fireworks Show* Sunset * Food * Night * Landscape * Close Up * Museum * Voice Recording * Dusk/Dawn * Panorama Assist * Beach/Snow * Back. I haven't used a few of these, but the night, sunset and close up work wonders and capture beautiful memories. The coolpix has a rechargeable battery, an EN-EL12 lithium ion, as well as an AC adapter and battery charger. It lasts for about 300 shots or more.

It is very light, slim and portable at 2.3 inches in height, 3.8 inches wide and 1.0 inch in depth. It weighs less than five ounces. Overall, I am very happy with the Nikon Coolpix, it is a great enhancer to your photos and memories, it outshines every camera I have had this far, and has many surprises that you will not find in any other model. I have only had this for a few months but I think that it is going to out last most of my other digital companions.