Introduction

Ease of Use

With a large bulky zoom lens on the front and a pop-up flash, the Nikon Coolpix L610 is reminiscent of old 35mm compact cameras. However, if this was a 35mm compact camera, the 14x zoom lens would stretch from a wide 25mm to an eyewatering 350mm. That size zoom lens was unheard of back in the day when 35mm compacts ruled the roost.

The image goes through the lens onto an 16 megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor. The main difference between CCD and CMOS is that CCD yields a sharper image but a CMOS is more fuel efficient meaning your battery will last longer. The back-illuminated system describes the design of the CMOS. On a standard sensor, the pixels are surrounded by micro-circuitry which takes the information to the processor. The circuitry partially blocks the pixels meaning less light is collected. A back-illuminated sensor has the circuitry on the reverse so if you were to look at it mounted in a camera, it looks like it's on backwards. The lack of circuitry on the front means that more light can be collected theoretically making the sensor perform better in low light.

Front	Rear

On top of the Nikon Coolpix L610 the shutter release button is flush with the zoom rocker that wraps around it. A small power button sits between the shutter button and the stereo speakers/pop-up flash. A flash LED light completes the top of the L610. Instead of a more traditional command dial for switching through the various modes that the camera has to offer, there's a Scene button on the rear of the L610. There are five modes, Easy Auto, Scenes, Effects, Smart Portrait and Auto, with the last one providing the most user control.

On the back of the Coolpix L610, there's the usual medley of options on the navigation pad for flash options, macro, self timer and exposure compensation. A direct video button at the top right will start recording Full 1080p HD video whenever you press the button regardless of the shooting mode you're in at the time.

Being reasonably thick, the build quality of the Nikon Coolpix L610 looks to a higher standard that we suspect it really is. We're not implying that Nikon have cut corners but when it comes to stepped products such as the Nikon L, S and P ranges of digital compacts, you do tend to get what you pay for. This L series camera is towards the bottom of the ranges so has a good build but isn't as good as the S or particularly the P series cameras.

Front	Top

However, it's worth noting that people buying the L610 aren't going to be as bothered about fantastic build quality as long as it takes good pictures. The people who buy this camera will be going on holidays with the family and want to document as much as possible, and the build quality is perfectly sufficient for that. The Nikon Coolpix L610 is a camera that will be carried around all day so the lighter materials used, the better for the casual photographer.

The Nikon Coolpix L610's main menu will vary dependent on the mode you have the camera set to. In Auto there's lots of features and the L610 sticks to the traditional Nikon colours of a black background with a grey menu and yellow highlight bar. Everything is pretty easy to work through. The menu is set into three sections for shooting, movie and set-up. Pressing right will go into the highlighted tab whereas pressing left will go back to the tabs for faster navigation.

We took numerous shots in the shutter lag test and the results were a little disappointing. An average delay from pressing the shutter button to the camera taking a picture once the camera is focused is around 0.08 seconds, but the Nikon Coolpix L610 took 0.12 seconds. On the rare occasion that this happens, we generally give the camera a chance by testing it for longer than usual in case of user error. After all, this test has human reflexes to take into consideration. But the L610 gave similar results right through.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

Start-up time from pressing the power button to the Nikon Coolpix L610 focusing and taking a picture is just over 3 seconds. That's a little slower than we're used to seeing too, the average being around 2.5 seconds. The L610 has a pedestrain burst rate of 1.9fps for 4 frames, so this isn't a camera for capturing sports or action. Pictures taken in burst are displayed on the camera as a sort of slideshow. You have to press the OK button to play them then scroll through with left and right.

In playback, the Coolpix L610 shows basic information about the picture such as the file number, date/time and position in the line of pictures on the card. Pressing OK will change the display to a smaller thumbnail and more information such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO and even a histogram. Playback can be accessed from power off by holding the playback button down. In the menu area, there's a few different editing options such as D-Lighting, an auto quick retouch option and the filter effects. These can't be used on the burst images.

The lens barrel has minimal play in it and the battery door has a lock on it which is nice, as is the fact that the L610 uses easily sourced AA batteries. Nikon quote life of anywhere from 120 to 470 shots, depending on the battery type that you choose. The cover protecting the HDMI and USB ports is made of rubber and hangs off the camera. A plastic hinged version would've been nicer but is unlikely on a camera at this level. A plastic tripod rather inconveniently located right in the corner of the base of the camera completes the Nikon Coolpix L610's control layout.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb.

The Nikon Coolpix L610 produced images of good quality during the review period. Images are noise free at ISO 125-400, with limited noise and colour desaturation starting to appear at ISO 800. ISO 1600 exhibits quite visible noise, smearing of fine detail and colour desaturation, and the fastest settings of ISO 3200 is even noisier and best avoided altogether.

The Nikon Coolpix L610 dealt quite well with chromatic aberrations, with purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and adequate exposure. The night photograph was poor, with the maximum shutter speed of 4 seconds limiting what you can capture after-dark. Image stabilisation is a feature that works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range.

Macro performance is excellent, allowing you to focus as close as 1cm away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting and ideally require further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting if you don't like the default results.

Noise

There are 6 ISO settings available on the Nikon Coolpix L610. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 125 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Nikon Coolpix L610's 14x zoom lens offers a versatile focal range, as demonstrated by the examples below.

25mm	350mm

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately you can't change the in-camera sharpening level.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The Nikon Coolpix L610 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

Fine (7.35Mb) (100% Crop)	Normal (3.79Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Nikon Coolpix L610 handled chromatic aberrations fairly well during the review, with some purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Nikon Coolpix L610 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 1cm away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the Nikon Coolpix L610 are Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Off, On and Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (25mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (25mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (350mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (350mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the On or the Auto/Red-eye Reduction settings caused any significant red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red Eye Reduction	Red Eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Nikon Coolpix L610's maximum shutter speed is 4 seconds in the Fireworks scene mode, which is not great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 1 second at ISO 800.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Nikon Coolpix L610 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L610 / Pop-up Flash

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L610 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L610 / Turned On

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L610 / Shooting Menu

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L610 / Shooting Mode

Top of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Bottom of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L610

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Nikon Coolpix L610 is a simple-to-use travel-zoom camera that delivers good results and won't break the bank, but ultimately the lack of bells and whistles, slow response and the rather chunky design means we'd recommend looking elsewhere.

If you want a longish zoom lens and decent image quality in an easy-to-use package, then the L610 certainly fits the bill. If you want any manual features beyond a smattering of creative effects and the ability to control the likes of white balance and ISO, then look elsewhere.

Ultimately the Nikon Coolpix L610 offers a versatile zoom lens and good image quality, but lacklustre performance and a sparse feature-set means that we can't recommend the L610 quite as highly as some of its rivals.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	3.5
Features	3
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	3.5
Value for money	3.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Nikon Coolpix L610.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Nikon Coolpix L610 from around the web.

Specifications

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