Nikon 16 Megapixels Coolpix S9300 Compact Review by ePhotoZine With Rating 3.5/5

Average Camera Review Rating [13 reviews]
This camera is currently ranked at #68 of the top camera sales ranking in Japan.

On January 31 2012, Nikon announced four new digital cameras in the COOLPIX S-series lineup - Coolpix S9300, S6300, S4300 and S3300, ranging from $350 to $150 in price. The S9300 is a thin (1.5-inch body) camera with a 18x optical Zoom-NIKKOR ED glass lens (25mm-450mm) with Vibration Reduction (VR) image stabilization. It features a 16 Megapixels Backside Illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor, Full HD (1080p) movies, and built-in GPS (or the S9200 model without the GPS). The S6300 comes with a 10x optical zoom with a compact body and VR technology. It features a 16 Megapixels BSI CMOS sensor, full HD (1080p) movies, 180º and 360º Easy Panorama mode and Creative color options with effects like Low key, High key, Nostalgia Sepia, and Selective Color.

The 16.0 Megapixels S4300 features a wide-angle 6x (26mm-156mm) optical Zoom-NIKKOR glass lens, plus VR image stabilization. It comes with a 3-inch touch screen LCD, multiple Scene Modes, Nikon's Smart Portrait System with intelligent Smile Shutter function, and Face-Priority AF that can find and focus up to 12 faces. The S3300 features a 16.0 Megapixels sensor with a 6x (26mm-156mm) optical Zoom-NIKKOR glass lens. The camera has 19 Scene Modes, including the Scene Auto Selector which analyzes a scene and automatically selects from one of six scene modes. It only supports HD with 720p movie recording. The S9300 is available for $349.95 in black, red and silver. Here's the summary of review by ePhotoZine, giving the camera a rating of 3.5 out of 5:

"Portraits have excellent skin tones and are free from red-eye. The S9200 also takes a very pleasing shot in landscape mode, particularly on a bright, sunny day. There is also HDR mode, which combines two pictures in-camera. Images have a good level of detail at both ends of the lens and purple fringing is kept under control. Images are also well exposed with excellent colour reproduction. The lens has a minimum focusing distance of 4cm, this doesn't allow you to get really close to your subject, but you can still take a decent macro shot. With no noise at ISO 125, there is quite a bit appearing at ISO 200 and ISO 400, where images have lost a significant amount of sharpness. It doesn't worsen much when switching to ISO 800, but there is a much higher level of noise at ISO 1600, causing the images to be very soft. At ISO 3200, images are very soft with some detail lost. Auto White-Balance copes well under our studio lighting, with the incandescent preset taking a very similar image under the incandescent lights, whereas the fluorescent preset takes an image with a magenta cast under the fluorescent lights. The S9200 also has a range of special effects which can be used when picture taking, with examples of each below. The camera also as filter effects which can be applied to your images in the playback menu, as well as other editing options such as skin softening and quick retouch.

The Nikon Coolpix is priced at around £245.00. For £260 you can buy the S9300, which has GPS. Other cameras with a similar specification include the Leica V-Lux 30 (£499.00), Sony Cyber-Shot HX10V (£329), Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 (£249), Sony Cyber-Shot H90 (£229), Fuji FinePix F660 EXR (£205), Samsung WB700 (£129) and Pentax Optio RZ18 (£120). You'll also need to buy a memory card and a case or bag to keep your camera safe and protected - have a look at our complete guide to camera bags. When shopping around you can find the S9200 for £245, but retailers such as Curry's are charging £270. This makes it more expensive than the S9300 which you can get from Warehouse Express for £260, which has GPS. Thankfully, the S9200 takes pictures with good detail and colour reproduction and can shoot full resolution images at a fast rate, although noise is a problem from ISO 400 upwards. If the S9200 was cheaper, we'd be happy to recommend it, but for the price, you might as well look at the S9300."

Nikon Coolpix S9300 Sample Photos on Flickr

Nikon Coolpix S9300 Camera Reviews Roundup

TechHive: "The Coolpix S9100 earned among the best overall marks of any point-and-shoot camera we tested last year in PCWorld Labs' subjective tests for image quality. In contrast, the Coolpix S9300 falls squarely in the middle of the pack. Our judges rated its exposure quality as Good and its lack of distortion as Very Good, but the Coolpix S9300 picked up scores of only Fair for color accuracy and sharpness, which dragged it..." - Sep 29 2012 More »
TechRadar: "As a travel zoom camera, the Nikon Coolpix S9300 offers a very compelling zoom range and many great features, including Full HD video, GPS and speedy autofocus, plus reliable metering and white balance. However, the camera is afflicted with poor battery life, particularly with GPS on (and why pay for a camera with GPS if you don't use it) and suspect reliability considering the four times it completely froze during..." - Aug 22 2012 More »
Steve's Digicam: "Of course, the big gun here is the zoom lens. With both a wide angle (25 mm) and a maximum of 18x magnification (450 mm), the flexibility is tremendous. Using the zoom ring around the shutter button, the lens glides easily in and out to capture subjects near and far. It is quite thrilling to be able to zoom in so close on a distant subject in about two seconds. In my case, I got close shots of wildlife across a smal..." - Aug 17 2012 More »	N/A
Trusted Reviews: "Sadly, we have to report that we were actually slightly disappointed with overall image quality, with our main gripe being a lack of consistency with regards to general image sharpness and rendering of detail. All too often images displayed a displeasing softness, along with the trademark smearing of fine detail that's admittedly common to many small-sensor cameras with densely populated sensors. Even Nikon's genera..." - Aug 01 2012 More »