Introduction

Ease of Use

Not all of us want the bulk associated with a DSLR or the need to buy lenses for our compact system cameras; sometimes all we - or perhaps more accurately our other halves - want to do is take snapshots as a keepsake without spending a king's ransom.

The new Nikon Coolpix S3100 is certainly one of the more attractive point-and-shoots retailing for just a little over £100 and offering an effective resolution of 14 megapixels from a 14.48MP 1/2.3-inch CCD sensor. Forming part of Nikon's raft of stylish new releases for spring 2011, it updates the 12MP S3000, which its maker claims was Europe's best selling digital camera for 2010. It also reminds us a lot of the similarly dinky and great value Coolpix S5100 we reviewed last year.

Recording to SD, SDHC or SDXC card, the S3100 is one of a trio of new 'S' series models that also include the touch screen S4100 and the 7x optical zoom S6100. For its part the S3100 fields a 5x optical zoom with a wide-ish focal range equivalent to 26-130mm in 35mm terms with an aperture of f/3.3-5.6, bettering its forebear's 4x reach. The selling point here is the slim-line shell, lens retracted within the body when not in use: Nikon has managed to offer a bigger zoom whilst also making the camera thinner, the S3100 being 18.4mm in depth compared to the S3000's 19mm. Width and height are 93.5mm and 57.5mm respectively so just a tad more than your credit card size wise. The S3100 is not optically stabilised though, more's the pity, the camera featuring anti shake only of the software enhanced variety. The S3100 is unashamedly as much about style as substance, but there is still a surprising amount of the latter shoehorned in.

This includes the ability to now shoot 1280x720 pixels HD video, a jump up from its predecessor's standard definition clips, with recording here a one-touch process via a thumb press of the dedicated backplate record button. Do this and recording instantly commences, the screen's default 4:3 aspect ratio cropped to a widescreen 16:9 to ape how footage will look when replayed on a flat panel TV.

There's no HDMI output here, just standard definition AV out and USB 2.0. These share a port at the camera's base, next to a shared compartment for rechargeable lithium ion battery and optional SD, SDHC or SDXC media card. As with budget Olympus and Samsung models, here the battery is charged within the camera, as Nikon, doubtless in a cost saving exercise, has supplied a mains adapter plug rather than charger; one of the USB cable slots into this, the other end into the camera itself. It's a simple solution, and the argument that the set up doesn't allow you to charge one battery whilst using another in the camera is null and void because we can't in all honesty see someone bothering to buy a second battery for a £130 snapper. Annoyingly, as usual there's just a cursory quick start guide provided out of the box, with the full manual on CD Rom only.

Front	Rear

On a more superficial sales level the S3100 is available in a range of seven colours - an advance on its predecessor's five. This time we get citrus yellow, pink and purple alongside the more familiar silver and black varieties - suggesting the camera is as much aimed at females as males. Ramming home the point, at the camera's UK launch Nikon executives had placed the range amidst make up bags and lipsticks, and, with its slender depth and weight of just 118g, it will as easily slip into any clutch bag as it will trouser pocket. Our review sample was an electric blue. Whilst this wouldn't be our first colour choice the camera will undoubtedly stand out at a party, drawing the attention of subjects both willing and unwilling.

Unsurprisingly then, the S3100 is primarily geared towards taking people pictures with the minimum of fuss and the minimum of manual control, throwing in a beauty mode and face detection, with the second most popular subject of landscape coming a close second if the range of scene modes is anything to go by. With no optical viewfinder images are composed by 2.7-inch, 230k dot resolution back screen, of identical size to its predecessor yet modest when the industry average is now 3-inches.

Although the camera feels sturdy when gripped there's no actual grip on this Coolpix, at least as regards the faceplate. At the back there are six raised plastic nodules to provide a point of purchase for the thumb, a raised plastic surround encircling the video button adjacent, so this doesn't get accidentally pressed when fetching the camera out of a pocket. There's a vacant lug to attach the provided wrist strap at the side, and avoid accidental drops.

From the front the S3100 is your standard point and shoot, lens retracted within the body when not in use, flanked left and right by a lozenge shaped window housing the built in flash and, over at the opposite side of the lens, an AF assist/self timer lamp window. A built in microphone sits just beneath the lens barrel near the base of the camera, at the exact location we found our middle finger naturally resting (and so obscuring) when holding the camera steady in both hands. Conversely the built-in speaker is located at the base of the camera, rather than on the top plate or at one side.

Side	Top

The top of the camera features a prominently raised shutter release button with a definite half way point when pressed down to determine focus and exposure, encircled by a lever for operating the zoom, its ridged front edge preventing slippage when operated with the forefinger. Both these controls plus the tiny, recessed on/off button adjacently situated are set into a narrow chrome strip running along the top plate and feeding into the wider chrome 'bookends' at either side of the camera. As a result, activating the camera requires fingernail-precise operation; do this and - provided date and time were set when you first freed the camera from its box - it readies itself for the first shot in just over a second, which is impressively swift for its class, lens extending to equivalent 26mm wide angle setting and the rear screen fading up from black. If using the zoom, the lens travels through the entirety of its optical range in two to three seconds, though there's a brief pause before it kicks into life.

A half press of the shutter release button and there's a blink of an eye wait before the camera determines focus, AF point/s highlighted in green on the LCD, accompanied by a rather loud bleep that can thankfully be deactivated. Press down fully to take the shot, and the screen briefly blacks out, then displays the captured JPEG-only image for a few moments, a process lasting approximately three seconds before the S3100 returns to its live 'feed'. Average for its class then.

Two thirds of the back of the camera are taken up with the aforementioned LCD that, whilst not the sharpest available - meaning that we sometimes found it difficult to fully ascertain whether captured images were as sharp as we'd hoped - is nevertheless adequate as a framing device when shooting normally from shoulder height. When we attempted low angle shots close to the ground, the angle of visibility, with us crouching behind it, wasn't sufficient to be able to see what was on the screen.

Apart from the aforementioned video capture button, there are five further controls on the backplate. Uppermost are the 'scene' button, which one would imagine to provide access to just the pre-set scene modes but in fact brings up a toolbar providing access to all shooting modes, plus, parallel with it, the playback button.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

The shooting modes here are regular auto mode, the collective scene modes - some 19 in total if you include the 'intelligent' auto scene selector option - plus smart portrait and subject tracking modes. Whilst the latter is self-explanatory, smart portrait mode not only detects faces, but also, if you press the menu button while in this mode, provides access to skin softening, smile timer and 'blink proof' modes to ensure portrait images automatically end up looking their best.

Beneath this is a four-direction command pad, with flash (auto, auto with red eye reduction, flash off, forced flash, night portrait), exposure compensation (+/-2EV), macro (as 'close' as 10cm) and self timer (two seconds, 10 seconds) options respectively ranged around it at points north, east, south and west. At the centre of this pad sits the traditional 'OK' button for effecting any menu changes.

Just below this are a separate menu button (sometimes of course incorporated in with the OK button on rival point and shoots), and adjacent to that a very useful dedicated delete button for dispatching duff shots. Although small, a press of each button and the camera is as swift to respond as one would want.

The bottom of the Coolpix S3100 meanwhile features a screw thread for attaching a tripod over at one edge rather than dead centre, with the combined AV/USB out port occupying that position instead. Alongside this is a slide open cover protecting the combined battery and SD card compartment, with 45MB of internal memory to fall back on out of the box.

So how does this svelte beauty perform when it comes to image quality? Is it all exterior fluff and no interior grit, or does this particular swan have the might of an eagle lurking beneath? Read on to find out…

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 14 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 4.5Mb.

The Coolpix displays some familiar bugbears of the snapshot camera when it comes to image quality. Burnt out highlights in stronger light and pixel fringing is inevitably one, visible as purple lines tracing edges between areas of high contrast - tree branches silhouetted against the sky giving rise to the most visible examples. As is fairly common at the budget end of the market with shots taken at maximum wideangle setting, here 26mm equivalent, we witnessed corner softness too. Neither are deal breakers and in all fairness we can't expect perfection from a camera costing just £115 from the UK's largest e-tailer.

Rather more problematic however was that we struggled to get a sharp image when shooting handheld in daylight at extreme telephoto setting. The S3100 is so slim that camera shake is a real issue at maximum zoom, leading us to take three shots in order to get one keeper - and even on occasion to deploy the self timer to avoid jogging the shutter release button.

As is common amongst Nikon compacts, though pleasingly sharp towards the centre of the frame, images can look a little flat and drab straight out of the camera. Colours are rather too muted for our taste when the camera is left on its standard colour setting, but fortunately there's the 'vivid' option to provide some much needed pep. With this mode activated, users are more likely to end up with the flattering, well-saturated colour tones one would expect from this class of camera. In other words, no post processing will be required. The other selectable colour options here are black and white, sepia, and more unusually still, the silvery grey cyanotype - rather eccentric given that most of the S3100's intended audience will have no idea what a cyanotype is/was.

Despite a relatively high number of pixels being crammed on to a small chip, up to and including ISO400, with the lowest setting being ISO80, there are no problems with image noise creeping into shadow areas. Whilst some grain is visible at ISO800 you have to look hard to find it. At ISO1600 detail is more noticeably absent and at maximum ISO3200 this is deteriorating to such an extent that we're getting a painterly watercolour look. At least these settings are still achievable at full resolution though.

All the above being said, this is still slightly better than we expected from a point and shoot camera in the S3100's relatively modest snapshot class.

Noise

The Nikon Coolpix S3100 has sensitivity settings ranging from ISO 80 to ISO 3200 at full resolution.

ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops - the right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are slightly soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can't change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your tastes.

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

Chromatic Aberrations

The Nikon Coolpix S3100 shows little purple fringing, although you can find examples of it in areas of high contrast as shown in the examples below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Nikon Coolpix S3100 allows you to get as close as 10cms to your subject, in this case a Compact Flash card.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

Vignetting is not a major issue with the Nikon Coolpix S3100, irrespective of whether you use the flash or not.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (26mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (26mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (130mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (130mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots - red-eye wasn't a major problem.

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

Night

The Nikon Coolpix S3100 is hardly the ideal tool for night photography, as the longest shutter speed is 2 seconds and you cannot set it manually. The shot below was captured at a shutter speed of 1/2 second at ISO 400.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Nikon Coolpix S3100 camera, which were all taken using the 14 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 Camera

Front of the Camera / Turned On

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The S3100 is as well put together as one would expect a Nikon camera to be. The main improvements over its predecessor are a broader focal range, a couple of million extra pixels in terms of headline resolution, and High Def video rather than standard definition - all of which are worth having. Its metal shell, respectable zoom range and quick response times for the most part leave us with little to grumble about.

Having said that, this Coolpix had us again wondering about how slim is too slim for practical use. Especially on a model that doesn't have the benefits of optical nor sensor shift anti shake alongside the less effective electronic variety. If you're not shooting toward the telephoto end of the zoom nor in low light without some supplementary means of support regularly it's not a problem. However, in using it on a daily basis over the course of a week it does appear that a certain amount of usability has been sacrificed on the altar of style.

Nevertheless, in summing up, the Nikon S3100 is one of the slicker budget-priced point-and-shoots out there. And, whilst not perfect in every single regard (what is?), for just over £100 there's the sense that for such an outlay you can't go far wrong.

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

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Nikon Coolpix S3100 from around the web.

Specifications

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