Introduction

Ease of Use

At first glance the Nikon Coolpix AW100 looks very much like a normal compact camera, in that Nikon have chosen to style it in a more subtle way than some of the more chunky all-action cameras on the market. In fact, at 22.8mm thick, it's actually a slim model for compact cameras in general, never mind one that is water-proof, shock-proof and freeze-proof. The main giveaway signs that the AW100 is more robust are the large, textured shutter-release button and the shared battery / memory card / HDMI / AV-Out compartment which is securely locked via a large round dial and button combination and internally protected by a bright yellow rubber seal.

The AW100 is waterproof to depths of 10m, shockproof from heights of up to 1.5m and freeze-proof for temperatures down to -10°C. This isn't quite as good as the Panasonic DMC-FT3, which adds a couple of meters to the waterproof depth and half a meter to the shockproof height, but it should ensure that the AW100 will cope with most things that you literally throw at it, or throw it into. Note that it isn't also officially dust-proof, however, again something that the DMC-FT3 offers.

The Nikon Coolpix AW100's lens is located in the top-right corner when viewed front on, shielded by a clear lens cover that is open when the camera is turned off and on. The lens is a 5x zoom of the internally stacked variety, so it does not extend upon power-up or zooming. In 35mm equivalency, it spans focal lengths ranging from 28mm to 140mm. Aperture-wise it is not particularly fast, its brightness being f/3.9 at the wide end and f/4.8 at full telephoto. On the front of the AW100 there's also the slimline flash unit, four small holes below the lens for the camera's stereo speakers, and the shared self-timer/AF-assist/movie light lamp.

The AW100 has Nikon's Vibration Reduction (VR) feature on board to prevent blurring from camera shake. You won't notice anything unusual except you can take sharp photos at shutter speeds that are critically slow for the focal length used. Note that Nikon recommends to turn off the VR function when the camera is mounted on a tripod.

In addition, there are a range of other functions and modes that also help to prevent camera shake. High ISO light sensitivity up to ISO 3200 at full 16 megapixel resolution reduces the risk of blurred images, while the Motion Detection option automatically detects and compensates for both camera and subject movement. The Best Shot Selector (BSS) mode automatically selects the sharpest of up to 10 sequential shots. The Backlighting mode offers an in-camera high dynamic range (HDR) function, automatically producing an image with a broader range of tonal detail. All of these options and the Vibration Reduction system can be used at the same time if so desired.

Front	Back

On the top plate there is a large shutter release button with a cross-hatched texture to aid location, a square, recessed power button and one other control that's not normally found on most cameras, a built-in GPS receiver. This records the exact latitude and longitude and records it in the EXIF data of each image. The AW100 has a sophisticated suite of GPS options, from using it to set the camera's clock, plotting points of interest, creating a log of your routes even when you don't take any pictures, to even a built-in electronic compass. It does have a knock-on effect on the battery-life,

The large lozenge-shaped button on the left of the Nikon Coolpix AW100 has two functions. By default it accesses the World Map, a rather rudimentary but useful tool that allows you to see exactly where you took the photos on your memory card or internal memory, if GPS was enabled when you took them, and also to view any created routes if you turned the Create Logs option on. The World Map won't replace Google Maps in a hurry, but it's still handy for quickly reviewing your geographical progress.

Action Control is a clever mode that makes the AW100 easier to use when wearing gloves or underwater. When the camera's action control is set to ON in the Setup menu, the large button on the left of the camera that by default turns on the World Map now toggles Action Control On and Off. When activated, you can control certain functions of the camera by moving it from front to back or tilting it up and down. There are three settings - High, Medium and Low - which determine how much movement is required to actually change a setting. In practice this system works well once you've got the knack of it, although the number of settings that you can change is quite small - the scene mode, start movie recording, playback images, and GPS options.

The rest of the AW100 looks more like a normal compact. The rear panel features a 3-inch TFT LCD screen with a pleasingly high resolution of 460K dots. The LCD also features Nikon’s Clear Color Display technology which helps to minimize reflections in bright sunlight and underwater, and in practice this did make the screen easier to see than the majority of compacts that we test.

The Nikon Coolpix AW100's user interface opts for a conventional button-driven system. To the right of the screen are 12 buttons, with, starting from the top, a thumb-controlled rocker switch for zooming the 5x lens out and in, a one-touch movie record button, a pair of Shooting Mode and Playback buttons, a square navigation pad with an OK button at its centre, and Menu and Delete buttons underneath that. A small flash indicator lamp right at the top completes the rear controls. Our main observation is that although being rather on the small side, the buttons on the rear of the AW100 are surprisingly tactile to use with your right thumb, and they're logically laid out to prevent undue confusion.

Front	Side

The Nikon AW100 runs on a dedicated Lithium-ion battery, and records images as well as videos on SD / SDHC / SDXC cards. As already mentioned, he battery and card share a common compartment with the HDMI and AV-Out ports, whose locakble, sealed door is found on the right of the camera (looking from the rear). The quoted number of images that can be captured on a single charge is a rather average 250, though the actual figure may vary considerably with the amount of flash, GPS and zoom usage that you opt for. On the bottom of the AW100 is a plastic tripod socket that's centrally located in line with the LCD screen.

There are five main shooting modes on the Nikon Coolpix AW100, accessible via a dedicated button marked with a green camera icon, which include Easy Auto, Scene, the new Special Effects mode , Smart Portrait and finally Auto. Somewhat confusingly, Auto is the mode that gives you the most control over the shooting process. You don't get to set shutter speed or aperture directly - the latter would be impossible given the lack of a diaphragm anyway - but you can set the ISO speed manually, which is something you cannot do in the other modes. Functions and features accessible in this mode include the self-timer, flash mode, image quality setting, exposure compensation, macro, drive mode, white balance, and zoom. New to the AW100 is the Effects mode, which shoots both still images or movies using a special effect, such as Soft Focus and Nostalgic Sepia.

The Easy Auto mode is similar to Auto, identifying the type of subject and automatically applying the optimum scene mode, but with less user control options provided. The camera also has 17 pre-programmed scene modes as well as a Scene Auto Selector. The scene modes on offer include Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night Portrait, Party/Indoor, Beach, Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Close-up, Food, Museum, Fireworks Show, Black and White Copy, Backlighting, Panorama Assist and Pet Portrait. The accessibility and behaviour of the various shooting functions (such as flash mode or autofocus area selection) depends on which shooting mode you are in. By enabling the Scene Auto Selector, you entrust the camera with picking the right scene mode at its own discretion. In this case, it can only choose from Portrait, Landscape, Night Portrait, Night Landscape, Close-Up and Backlighting.

In the Smart Portrait mode, the face priority and smile timer functions are activated. In other words, the camera hunts for human faces, keeps track of them, and if it detects a smile, it even fires off the shutter for you. The AW100 can detect up to three faces, but it will always focus on the one closest to the centre of the frame and will only take a shot if a smile appears on that particular face. You have no way of telling the camera to focus on and monitor a different face within the frame. You can, however, take a picture any time you want to, by pressing the shutter release button as normal.

In Smart Portrait Mode, you can also have the camera digitally soften the skin of people automatically after capture. The level of skin softening can be specified by the user. The default is Normal, with a High and a Low option also available. Skin softening can also be turned off. Furthermore, the AW100 has a blink-proof mode, in which two shots are taken in rapid succession, and if the subject's eyes happen to be closed in one of them, the camera discards that photo, while keeping the other one. The flash is disabled in blink-proof mode, as it cannot recycle fast enough.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

The Nikon Coolpix AW100 is one of the few Coolpix models to feature a Full 1080p HD video mode, complete with stereo sound. You can set the set the movie quality to 1920x1080p (two quality levels are available), 1280x720p, 960x540 or 640x480, all at 30fps. Four further options, HS 240fps and HS 120fps, HS 60fps and HS 15fps allow you to film in slow or fast motion.

The video features themselves are rather basic: you can uswe the 5x optical zoo, choose from single or full-time autofocusing, turn the movie light on or off, switch the macro mode on or off, and turn wind reduction on or off. You cannot manually set white balance, gain or exposure compensation, neither is there an AE lock function. The clips are compressed using the Quicktime codec and stored in a MOV container.

Once you've captured a photo or a movie clip, you can enter Playback mode via its dedicated button. The user can choose from a number of viewing modes, including full frame, magnified view, and index views of 4, 9 or 16 thumbnails. A calendar display is also available. Quite surprisingly, the camera does not display any meaningful exposure data along with the photo you are viewing; nor does it provide a histogram to judge exposure (there is no live histogram in record mode, either).

On the other hand, there are quite a few post-capture image modification / retouching functions, including Quick Retouch, D-lighting, Glamor Retouch, which applies adjustments only to faces in an image, seven creative effects - Color Options, Soft, Selective Color, Cross Screen, Fisheye and Miniature Effect and Fog removal - set the print order, view a slideshow with music, protect certain images, rotate and downsize them for Web resolution, add a voice memo, copy them to or from the internal memory or memory card, set the sequence display, choose a key picture, and choose your favourite pictures.

As with most Coolpix's that we've reviewed, the AW100 comes with a comprehensive manual that is also downloadable as a PDF from the Nikon website. It is quite thorough and very well cross-referenced. Nikon supplies a Software Suite CD that includes Nikon Transfer, Nikon View NX and Panorama Maker. The first two are standard Nikon camera / imaging applications, while the latter is used to stitch together images shot in the Panorama Assist scene mode.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 16 megapixel High JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6.5Mb.

The Nikon Coolpix AW100 produced images of above average quality during the review period. The 16 megapixel sensor used in the AW100 suffers from noisy images even at the relatively slow speed of ISO 200. ISO 400 exhibits quite visible noise and colour desaturation, and ISO 800 and 1600 are even noisier, although still usable for small prints. The fastest seting of ISO 3200 is best avoided altogether.

The Coolpix AW100 dealt well with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple fringing effects appearing mostly in high contrast situations. The flash worked fairly well indoors, with a little red-eye and adequate exposure, except in the corners of the frame at the wide-angle setting. The night photograph was poor, with the maximum shutter speed of 4 seconds not allowing you to capture enough light.

Macro performance is very good, allowing you to focus as close as 1cms 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, as you can't change the in-camera setting if you don't like the default results. Anti-shake 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, while the new range of special effects and the Easy Panorama mode allow you to add a little in-camera creativity to your photos.

Noise

There are 6 ISO settings available on the Nikon Coolpix AW100.  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 AW100's 5x zoom lens offers a fairly versatile focal range, as illustrated by these examples:

28mm	140mm

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 a little soft at the default sharpening setting. You can't change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.

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

File Quality

There are two JPEG quality settings available at full resolution, Normal and High. On the camera, the latter is denoted with an asterisk next to the megapixel count. The Coolpix AW100 doesn't shoot RAW. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options.

16M High (6.81Mb) (100% Crop)	16M Normal (3.21Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

For a camera with an internally stacked zoom, the Nikon Coolpix AW100 handled chromatic aberrations well. Here are a couple of 100% crops that show what you can expect in the worst case.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Nikon Coolpix AW100 has a very good macro mode. The minimum focus distance is 1cm. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject. The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Nikon Coolpix AW100 are Auto, Flash On, Red-eye Reduction, Slow Synchro and Off. These shots of a white wall were taken at a subject distance of 1.5m. It is obvious that the flash struggles to evenly illuminate the entire subject at the wide end of the zoom range, but the flash coverage issue is much less severe at the maximum telephoto setting. In the photos taken without flash, we can also see a bit of light fall-off in the corners.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (28mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (28mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (140mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (140mm)

And here are some portrait shots. The flash has a red-eye reduction setting, though in this test there was not much of a redeye effect to begin with.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Nikon Coolpix AW100'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 4 seconds at ISO 125. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Night Landscape

The Nikon AW100 has a Night Landscape mode that increases the ISO to produce sharper results, although at the expense of greater noise.

Night Landscape	Night Landscape (100% Crop)

Vibration Reduction

Vibration Reduction is Nikon's name for anti-shake, which in the Coolpix AW100 works via a sensor-shift mechanism. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/10th / 28mm
0.5 sec / 140mm

Special Effects

The new Effects mode offers a variety of creative options.

Off	Soft
Nostalgic Sepia	High-contrast Monochrome
High Key	Low Key
Selective Color (red)

Easy Panorama

The Easy Panorama shooting mode lets you pan the AW100 either vertically or horizontally to create an auto-stitched panorama.

Normal (180 degrees)

Wide (360 degrees)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Nikon Coolpix AW100 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel High 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 Camera

Front of the Camera / Lens Opened

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Scene Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

Looking much like a regular digital camera, the new Nikon Coolpix AW100 can withstand almost everything that life can throw at it, underwater, in the cold, from a moderate height, although it's not dust- or crush-proof like some rivals. The inclusion of a suite of sophisticated GPS features, which doesn't affect battery-life too adversely, and the innovative Action Control feature makes the AW100 a great travel companion. Sure, just like a regular digital camera, it may not produce the best images and it does cost substantially more than most compacts, but the AW100 is still an assured first stab at an all-action model.

The camera element of the AW100 only produces so-so image quality, being geared more towards point-and-shoot users who will mainly use it in good lighting conditions. Noise at slow ISO speeds, light fall-off and inconsistent sharpness at the edge of the frame, and a poor night mode contribute to merely adequate photographs from the AW100. Video performance is much better thanks to the full HD 1080p mode with stereo sound, slow- and fast-motion options, the ability to use the optical zoom during recording and the economical MOV format, although the video features on offer are still somewhat basic.

An asking price of £329.99 / $379.95 is a lot to ask for a 16 megapixel camera, but it is comparable with the AW100's main action rivals, so as ever with such a specialized camera, you really need to decide exactly how much mileage you'll get out of the extra weather-proof and GPS features. If they fit your particular bill, then we can definitely recommend the new Nikon Coolpix AW100.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	3.5
Value for money	3.5

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Nikon Coolpix AW100 from around the web.

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