Nikon Coolpix S5 review

Performance
The Nikon Coolpix S5 is a snappy performer, capturing its first shot after power-up in just 2 seconds. The camera performs even better when you actually start shooting, delivering a shot-to-shot time of 1.8 seconds. It stays quick even with the onboard flash enabled, requiring just 2.1 seconds to recycle between flash shots. The Coolpix S5 exhibits impressive autofocus and shutter-lag performance in good lighting as well, focusing on and capturing CNET's standard high-contrast target in 0.5 seconds. Low-contrast shooting is a bit more sluggish, upping shutter lag to 1.7 seconds.

The Coolpix S5 is quick enough in burst mode -- in our testing it captured 41 shots at 1.3fps using the highest image-quality setting. At the lowest image-quality setting, the camera captured 73 frames at 2.1fps.

Shooting speed
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Kodak EasyShare V610

1.8 

1.3 

0.2 

Casio Exilim EX-Z600

1.7 

1.8 

0.4 

Canon Digital IXUS 65

1.9 

1.4 

0.5 

Fujifilm FinePix V10

2.0 

1.5 

0.5 

Nikon Coolpix S6

1.8 

2.0 

0.5 

Nikon Coolpix S5

1.8 

2.0 

0.5 

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5

2.6 

3.0 

0.9