Nikon Coolpix S6000 – Very Good For Its Price
Thumbs Up:
The Nikon Coolpix S6000 offers pleasant feature set, brisk shooting performance and has excellent design for the money.
Thumbs Down:
The Nikon Coolpix S6000 delivers perceptibly soft photos and delivers plenty of purple fringing.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Manufacturer: Nikon
Part Number: 26215
Price: $209.00 – $510.09
Product Type: Compact Digital camera
Weight: 5.5 oz
Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 3.8 x 1 x 2.2 inches
Optical Sensor Type: CCD
White balance: Presets and Automatic
White Balance Presets: Cloudy, Automatic, Fluorescent, Incandescent and Flash
Software: Drivers and Utilities
Cables Included: 1, A/V cable and 1 x USB cable
Connector Type: 1 x Composite audio/video output and 1 x USB
Additional Features: Color control , USB charging , Brightness control , Audio recording , D-Lighting technology , Saturation control , Best Shot Selector (BSS) , In-camera red-eye fix , Blink Detection technology , Face-priority AF function , Smile Detection technology , Intelligent Scene Selector and Motion Detection Technology
Peripheral Devices: USB port and CD-ROM drive
Shooting Programs: Smile shutter, Soft skin, Blink proof and Blink warning
Focus Adjustment: Automatic
Flash Modes: Fill-in mode, Auto mode, Flash OFF mode, and slow synchro and Red-eye reduction
Included Accessories: Carrying strap
Camera Flash: Pop-up flash
Special Effects: Vivid, Sepia, Cyanotype, Normal and Black & White
Supported Battery: Nikon EN-EL12
Battery Type: 1 x Li-ion rechargeable battery
Razzle Dazzle:
The Nikon S6000 basically is a comparatively smaller edition of its linemate, the Nikon 10x S8000. The camera has the same all metal body which is somewhat squarish and comes with a well flared lens enclosing. The S6000 also suffers from the poorly positioned flash, just like the 10x S8000 camera that we’ve seen earlier. The flash for the camera here is located on the top left corner of the camera and could easily be blocked by operator’s fingers if you are careless about placing your fingers. The menu and control system of the camera are rather straightforward and hence even the out-of-the-box users doing the shooting wont find the operation hard here. The menu system of the camera is divided into three tabs: Movie, Setup and Shooting. The menu layout of the camera prevents the users from doing anything serious with the settings.
Inside Dope:
If a 5x zoom camera isn’t enough for your photography requirements and you think that getting a 10x zoom will be too much (either in terms of price or size), then what you should be getting is a 7x zoom camera like the Nikon Coolpix S6000. The 7x zoom of the camera blended with its 28mm equivalent wide-angle starting point, gives you an additional extra bit of flexibility in a respectable pocket-friendly body, which definitely makes a difference here, especially when there simply is no other physical way to get closer. Put comparatively brisk performance in this camera and what you’ve got us a well-mannered well-priced compact camera facilitating shooting from sidelines. Though, the camera still is a compact point-and-shoot camera, so despite the high resolution of the camera and the Nikkor ED glass lens, the photos shot from the camera can only be enjoyed best at smaller prints and sizes, or the best is for online sharing, with very less to absolute no enlarging or cropping.
The control panel for the camera is rather simple and comprises of a record button foe movie recording squeezed in between the screen and the huge thumb rest. Positioned under that is a shooting mode tagged “Scene” along with a playback button positioned on the right hand side; a four-way wheel/control pad having an OK button positioned on its center (Nikon has named it Rotary Multi Selector); and then Delete and Menu, placed at the very bottom of the camera. The control pad of the camera is used for image and menu navigation in addition to adjusting exposure and flash compensation, setting the self-timer and for turning on macro focus. If you want fast navigation of menus then you can use the wheel rather than going for the single presses on the fundamental control pad? The wheel moves smoothly and you actually can feel every stop. All things considered, this camera is a traditional digital camera arrangement.
The Nikon Coolpix S6000 runs on a lithium-ion rechargeable package, which promises to deliver a meager 210 shots; this was proved in testing as well, though the test was a blend of movies and stills. The battery of the camera can be charged through a USB by connecting it to a computer or a wall adapter and the best thing is that the battery can be charged in the camera itself. The battery takes around 4 hours to get fully charged from a completely drained state, and if you are charging the battery using a computer it might even take a little longer. The card and battery compartment are positioned on the base of a locking door. Positioned alongside it is an AV/Mini-USB port. There also is a Mini-HDMI port, positioned on the right of the camera and is covered. It is for connecting the camera to a monitor or to an HDTV; though for this connection you definitely will need a cable.
Nikon Coolpix S6000 comes with a promise of delivering brisk performance min comparison to some other cameras of its class, and it keeps its promise. The camera for sure is fast, and takes only 0.8 seconds from a completely off state to capture its first shot. Even the shutter lad of 0.4 second in decent lightening conditions with high-contrast subjects and 0.7 second in comparatively low-lighting conditions is impressive with the camera.
Another good thing here is the shot-to-shot time, which without flash is pretty average and is of 1.7 seconds; though, turn on the flash and that time goes up to 3.1 seconds. the camera offers a decent full-resolution shooting speed of 1 frame per second for about 10 shots, but at the same time it offers a burst 3-megapixel photos at 3fps for about 45 shots.
The Nikon S6000’s photo quality varies from good to very good, but it largely depends upon your use of the photos. The biggest problem with the photo here is the ISO sensitivity, the photos shot from the camera are soft, which means you never will get very sharp photos from the camera. So the quality of photos shot from the camera largely depends upon the way you want to use the photos.
Nitty Gritty:
The Nikon Coolpix S6000 delivers really good performance and feature set for its price. But the quality of photos shot from the camera is good for small sized prints and web use only.
