Nikon Coolpix S200 review

Performance
An inordinately long low-light shutter lag holds back the S200's otherwise acceptable performance. While the camera took only 0.6 seconds for our high contrast shutter lag target, it took a startling 2.6 seconds with our low contrast target. This long wait seriously hinders the camera's usefulness when shooting in low light.

Otherwise, it performed sluggishly in our lab tests. After taking 1.7 seconds to start up and capture its first JPEG, the S200 could fire off a new shot every 1.9 seconds with the flash turned off. With the flash enabled, that time increased to 3.2 seconds. Burst mode snapped 10 full-resolution shots in 10.2 seconds for a rate of about 1 frame per second.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Shutter lag (low light)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon Digital IXUS 75

0.9

1.6

1

0.5

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80

1.4

1.2

1.8

0.6

Nikon Coolpix S200

2.6

1.9

1.7

0.6

Nikon Coolpix S500

2

2.8

2.9

1.1

Image quality
Images from the S200 aren't as sharp as we'd expect from a 7-megapixel camera. Finer details, such as smaller text or the texture of fabrics, just aren't as crisp as they could be. We saw some ISO-related noise, even at the camera's lowest ISO setting of ISO 50, though it was minor and visible only on monitors and not in prints. This remained about the same at ISO 100, though Nikon's noise reduction eats up a tiny bit of sharpness in the process.

At ISO 200, noise increases a little bit and a tad more sharpness is lost but you should still be able to get nice prints. The same can be said for ISO 400, which has a similar slight increase in noise and decrease in sharpness along with a minor loss of overall dynamic range. At ISO 800, noise increases precipitously, becoming a covering of white speckles, while a large amount of shadow detail goes by the wayside. This only becomes worse at ISO 1,000. We suggest staying below ISO 800.

Thanks to the S200's disappointing lens, most photos appear at least slightly distorted. Both wide-angle and telephoto shots develop a small amount of barrel and pincushion distortion, respectively. Strangely enough, we found that the most distortion appears in the middle of the lens, between the wide-angle and zoom extremes.

To its credit, the S200 does some things right. For example, its automatic white balance does a very nice job of neutralising colours in incandescent and fluorescent lighting, and its tungsten preset was able to cope with our tough tungsten studio lights. Plus, the camera did a decent job of balancing flash with ambient light sources.

Conclusion
The Nikon Coolpix S200 suffers from a bad case of style over substance. Its ultra-slim, attractive metal body looks great sliding into your pocket. When you slide it out of your pocket and start shooting, though, its image-quality issues and slow low-light performance severely tarnish the pretty camera's shine.

Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday