Not impressed
Pros:
Sleek design, large LCD, tiny size, setting options
Cons:
Short battery life, splotchy grainy pictures, difficult menu
The Bottom Line:
If you want something small, this fits. If you want descent images, don't touch it.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Ritz Camera loves to push this camera, so I fell for it. I wanted a small camera to throw in my purse, and I didn't want to spend over $250. The Nikon S50 fits both those criteria. I can put this one in my purse, but I never bother because I don't want the pictures it produces. They are terrible. I have never had a camera take such awful pictures. They are all splotchy and grainy. There are white spots very often. Red-eye is horrible, but that is usual for a small camera.
I have seen much better pictures from cameras costing half the price and sporting half the megapixels. I would choose one of those in the future. One reason I opted against them was because they require AA batteries. I thought the special rechargeable battery in this camera would be better. That is not the case. If I leave the camera stored for more than a week or so, the battery has to be charged again. Also, the number of pictures to be shot on one charge is very limited. 50 images is an overestimate. My daughter purchased rechargeable Eneloop AA batteries for her camera, and they far outshine the Nikon battery in lifetime and performance.
I'm not the most adept at menu use, but this menu is extremely hard to use and doesn't seem to make much sense.
To reassure you, I should inform you that photography is a hobby and side job for me. The problem is not my photography skills. The problem seems to be the camera.
Even though it is so small, this camera does have many features for those who want to do more than point and shoot. You can change ISO. There is image stabilization. Flash can be turned on or off. Various focal points help with better focused pictures.
But in the end, no matter how many settings you play with, the images are not good. So I would not touch this camera if I were doing it again.