Nikon S4000

UPDATE 19 October 2010: the overall score of the Nikon S4000 has been brought down to two stars. In line with our newly tightened test criteria, the lack of stabilisation cost the S4000 a star.

The Coolpix S4000 is an ultra-compact, brightly coloured Nikon camera with a wide-angle lens, a touch-screen and a price tag that's really quite reasonable. However, the lack of any kind of decent stabilisation system is a real drawback, even for an entry-level model.

Handling

Heads or tails? Flip this camera round it you could be mistaken it's a different model. Whereas the front side looks stylish, well-designed and attractive, the reverse is a tad more off-putting. The front is made from a pretty decent-quality plastic casing, and has been thoughtful designed and manufactured with the shutter-release button and the lens surrounded by a sleek chrome-effect detail. On the back, however, the screen is surrounded by a low-quality black plastic frame, which almost looks like it's been stuck on afterwards, not to mention an ugly panel at the side with two chrome-effect buttons and a thumb-rest.


The camera screen also has a bit of a split personality. At first glance, it's a pleasant screen with 460,000 pixels that's well integrated into the camera's super-slim body. However, you'll have trouble using it unless you're absolutely face-on to the screen, as the TN panel's viewing angles are ridiculously tight (vertically, at least).

The touch-screen interface is based on a system of virtual buttons that you use to navigate through menus. This may be standard practice for a digital camera, but we can't help but think it seems a little outdated since smartphones have got us used to flicking up lists of options and sliding things around (although this type of intuitive control system has been seen for a while in Sony cameras). You'll also have to press quite hard on the screen for it to register your choices (here too, Sony screens are more sensitive and more comfortable to use).

Responsiveness


The S4000 isn't particularly remarkable in this field. It takes three seconds to take the first photo, and you'll have to wait almost as long between two shots. The autofocus is actually quite good too, so long as there's enough light. It's all pretty average and unexceptional stuff.

Picture quality

In wide-angle, the S4000 has a real problems keeping the picture-quality constant. Pictures look fairly sharp and well-defined in the centre, but sharpness quickly deteriorates towards the edges. In fact, the lack of sharpness is even visible in the corners of 10x15 cm prints. In telephoto mode, the centre of the picture is less well defined and the edges don't really get any better. Overall, this lens is far from being the best we've seen.

Noise is handled fairly typically for this kind of 12-Megapixel sensor. In other words, smoothing and noise remain reasonable (although visible in a full-size view or print) up to 400 ISO, but they soon get much worse if you go any higher than that. Plus, the lack of any real stabilisation system makes things a little more complicated at low sensitivities. We only got a clear shot of Barbie at 1/15 seconds, which confirms just how ineffective the 'electronic stabilisation' system actually is.



Video

There is a 720p HD video mode, but sound is recorded in mono, there's no optical zoom, there's an annoying amount of noise when filming indoors. Plus, any change in brightness make for painful transitions.