Nikon updates compacts: S70, S570, S640

A week after the D3000 and D300s SLRs, Nikon has introduced its point-and-shoots for the autumn, with a little surprise: a general rolling out of wide-angle lenses. Three existing products have been updated, so lets start with those.

Nikon CoolPix S70

Almost exactly a year after the S60, the first Nikon touchscreen compact, the Shinjuku manufacturer is introducing its successor.

No surprise, the sensor is up to 12 Megapixels from 10 but the lens itself is completely different. The first impression is that this is excellent news: the 5x zoom now starts at 28 mm, a nice wide-angle for landscapes or confined spaces. Unfortunately however, this hides a serious default: this lens has an aperture of at f/3.9… at wide-angle! It therefore captures precisely two times less light than compacts at f2.8, and 50% less than those at f/3.3.
Given the very relative sensitivity of the sensor used, we can already tell you that, unless some kind of miracle has been performed, the S70 will be useless at parties (low lighting conditions).

There is still an enormous 3.5 inch touch screen with definition increased to… 288,000 points – we tend to consider 460,000 the minimum for this screen size. Good news however: it’s an OLED rather than an LCD, giving nice wide angles of vision and improved comfort – like on the WB1000 for example.

With 720p HD video and a capacity of 200 shots, the S70 is a step up on paper from its predecessor, but it remains quite limited in comparison to, say, the Sony T900.

Nikon CoolPix S570

Replacing the S560, the S570, like the S70, has been upgraded to a 5x wide-angle zoom (28-140 mm). However, the wide-angle is up by 1 EV: with the aperture at f/2.7 – that much more important as the S570 has no stabilization.

There’s one major problem however: we initially thought it was a typing error in the tech spec but the visuals confirm that the lens, pretty bright in wide-angle mode, falls to f/6.6 when the zoom is at a max. In other words the EV is down 3 points, capturing 8 times less light when you zoom, which is enough to eliminate it for good from the list of recommendations…

For the rest, there are no surprises; a 2.7 inch screen with 230,000 pixels, a rather compact casing and ordinary entry level spec (VGA video for example).

Nikon CoolPix S640

The S640 has the same lens, 12 Megapixel sensor and casing as the S570 but it has optical stabilization (which doesn’t compensate for the unforgiveable lack of brightness at maximum zoom). With its 5x zoom, it is closer to the S620 than the S630 (7x zoom).

Nikon are highlighting the rapidity of this model, announed with a 0.7 second start-up and focus in quarter of a second. These speeds are far ahead of anything else in the compact range and we hope to be able to verify rapidly that this S640 is truly “as responsive as a reflex”

Congenital disease?

These three cameras all have a problem with brightness, particularly in wide-angle for the S-70, a model that has put the accent on elegance and trendiness rather than technical perfection, and zoom for the S570 and S640.
This is rather a shame as with a 12 Megapixel sensor and 1/2,3", the diffraction reduces image quality beyond f/4: it may be a problem getting a sharp photo with the zoom then, whatever the light conditions!

Product survey: Compact Digital Cameras