Nikon Coolpix S8000

UPDATE 19 October 2010: the overall score of the Nikon S8000 has been brought down to three stars. In line with our newly tightened test criteria, the less-than-perfect picture quality, slow start-up and lack of automatic picture rotation cost the S8000 a star.

The battleground for compact digital cameras used to be in the smallest, sleekest models, but now competition seems to be hotting up on models with big zooms, by which we mean those offering at least 10x.

This is the first time Nikon has released a camera in this segment, and the manufacturer has decided to make up for lost time with the S8000, an incredibly thin camera with a particularly stylish look.

Handling

Our first impressions of the S8000 were somewhat contradictory: the front is a real success, with the moulded case providing an attractive mount for the lens, and, on the bronze-coloured model that we tested at least, a very nice finish.  When the flash isn't in use, it's very well hidden, but two very visible screws rather spoil the effect when it pops up.  Turn it over, though, and it's an entirely different story: made of lightweight black plastic, the buttons don't feel great under your fingertips, while the covers for the USB and HDMI connectors are just lumps of plastic attached to rubbery hinges.


A 3'' screen is great to use, with a VGA resolution and very wide viewing angles.  Overall, the controls are very traditional and remind us of Nikon's entry-level compacts: the photo button offers a choice of scene modes, while a red button allows you to start recording video straight away.  A four-way directional control is mounted on a scroll wheel, making it easy to adjust the handful of settings that you do have control over, but it's a shame that there is no shortcut menu to get to the key settings like white balance and sensitivity.  Instead, you have to go via the main menu every time.

Responsiveness

One thing that Nikon was keen to point out last year was the hard work that its engineers have been putting in to give its latest cameras faster autofocus.  In good light conditions and wide-angle mode, it's almost instantaneous on the S8000.  It's less impressive if you're in a dark room or zoomed in, but it's still pretty decent.  Overall, the S8000 came out of this part of our responsiveness tests looking good.


Update 23/04/2010:

Our original test reported that the S8000 took five seconds to start up, although the camera could actually take a photo in less time--but without focusing.  We've conducted some more tests on a second unit, and the results weren't the same: if you hold down the shutter release while the camera is starting up, the autofocus starts work straight away and the effective start-up time falls to around one second.

However, if you want to use the zoom, change the scene mode or adjust any of the settings, you need to wait until it's fully available, which still takes five seconds.  That makes the S8000 something of a hybrid: it has one very fast mode allowing you to grab a quick snap without zooming in or modifying any of the settings, and a second, more advanced mode, that you need to wait around to use.

Image Quality

The S8000 is one of the first cameras that we've tested that uses a new 14 Megapixel sensor that's the same physical size as a 12 Megapixel sensor that disappointed us in so many entry-level cameras.  With individual photo sites that measure just 1.43 µm across, the least you can say is that we were keen to try it out.


The results are pretty unanimous: noise and blurriness are present starting at 400 ISO, without being too much of a problem at this point.  At 800 ISO, blurriness really becomes visible, and, more worrying, black areas begin to see the first hints of purple fringing, a problem that afflicted the first generation of 12 Megapixel sensors, and it seems that their successors have inherited the same weaknesses.  Don't expect to be able to use a 1600 ISO photo to make anything bigger than a 4 x 6'' print.

Nikon's lens performs identically at every focal length, from 30 mm to 200 mm (the maximum focal length in our lab), the centre of the frame is sharp enough, but the level of detail drops away towards the edges.  Worse, purple fringing is visible in the corners whenever there is a lot of contrast in the scene.

Video

The S8000 films in 720p HD, which is pretty much the bare minimum for cameras in this field.  Nikon has chosen the AVC1 codec in a Quicktime container file, rather than AVCHD.

A stereo sound input produces decent quality audio, but the optical zoom doesn't work while you're shooting.  As a result, any aspiring filmmakers will certainly want to turn to one of its competitors, several of which can already film in Full HD.