I love everything about this camera, except.... it takes a terrible picture.The good:
The form factor is great
I like the way you slide the cover to open the lens and turn the camera on. Makes turning on fast and easy.
The touch screen is great. Very easy to change settings. Screen is responsive. You can touch where you want to focus, which is really cool.
The ability to shoot in 16:9 ratio is nice, but you're limited to 8MP in that mode.
The Bad
This camera just wouldn't take a good picture. Outside in daylight I could get a pretty good photo, but anything indoors was poor at best. Even indoors during the day when there's decent light. After taking my first set of shots I assumed I must be doing something wrong, so I read the manual, tried all the different "scenes", I tried adjusting ISO, resolution, etc.
Granted, I'm a fairly novice user, so perhaps a more experienced pro could get a better picture out of this camera. I finally pulled out my old Canon SD200 3.2MP camera that I was looking to replace. I took many photos side by side. I never took the Canon off "auto" mode and I tweaked the Nikon a million ways. Virtually every time the Canon was sharper, and more color accurate.
So, I thouht maybe I got a bad camera. I went to Best Buy and tried their display model. You could see on the camera screen that the images just weren't that great. Maybe if I didn't have a side by side comparison it wouldn't have been so noticable, but I really expected this Nikon to be better than my very old Canon.
If anyone believes it's the operator and not the camera I'm more than open to advice, because I loved everything else about this camera. I did return it, but would buy it again if I found out it was just operator error, however, I really don't think it was my error.
But, the camera will not take a sharp photo. I took my card into the store and shot numerous people and signs at all iso's
and image styles and basically I got mush. I brought my card home and opened it in Photoshop and no amount of tweeking or sharpening could save these images. It boggles my mind that a company like Nikon will release such a camera.
Look for this $400 camera to be $125 by Christmas. Hint to Nikon, all the features in the world won't sell a camera if it won't take a decent image.When I first read the specs on this camera I was very excited about getting my hands on it. I was especially interested in the OLED touch screen and the compact lens design. I went ahead and purchased the camera despite the mixed reviews it has received so far.
There are several problems with this camera. First, I took a number of shots both indoor and out on several settings and the picture quality is not very good. The pictures taken on my old 5 MP Minolta Dimage are far superior to this camera. Second, the design of the camera makes it almost completely unusable in normal shooting situations. The OLED screen takes up the entire back of the camera and is very touch sensitive. I found myself inadvertently activating functions without intending to. Also, the location of the lens is so close to the side of the camera my fingers continually ended up getting in the photo. So between the touchscreen and the lens location you end up with a continual camera holding balancing act that you can't win.
Overall a great feature set, but less than adequate picture quality and design. I returned it and purchased the Panasonic DMC-ZS3, and having now tried it out it beats the Nikon hands down.The new S70 lives up to all of the Nikon claims. Like most Nikon cameras I have owned, it functioned perfectly right out of the box. Having been highly disappointed with the previous S60, this new S70 seems to have corrected all of the shortcomings of the S60 and much more. The new OLED touch screen is a joy to use sensitive and responsive. The screen visibility and clarity is excellent under all lighting conditions. Nikon also substituted a more robust battery which in combination with the OLED panel should extend camera use between charges.
Perhaps more important is the clarity and sharpness of the images taken with the S70. They are impressively sharp and clear under magnification. The menus are intuitive and easy to navigate. The touch screen focus and shutter release function is a nice touch. The simplified and enhanced in-camera cropping and retouch functions are well done and welcome additions. The Easy Auto mode handles very well all of the major camera settings and functions required for a good picture when a quick "point & shoot" situation arises. I would have preferred however an out-of-camera battery recharging system as I usually charge and carry a spare battery. I will be purchasing an external charger.
I have owned Nikon film and digital cameras for the last 25 years and I consider my new S70 to be a very worthwhile addition. It is stylish, functional, fun to use, and takes great photos. When you need a high quality pocket sized camera, you should take a close look at this one. I would highly recommend the S70.I have not tried the S70 yet (so disregard star rating) but I have noticed several reviews with frustrations about poor image quality. I also saw in the CNET Editor's review that they suggested that the user sets the Auto ISO limit to 80-200 for best results in most conditions and 80-400 max under difficult lighting conditions. Anyone who is experiencing photo quality issues might want to try that to see if it makes a big improvement. I expect that it will make a big difference since CNET said the pictures were "very good for a snapshot camera" once those settings have been changed. My guess is for some reason the camera is trying to use a ridiculously high ISO setting (1200-6400) and producing predictably grainier photos as a result. As Wikipedia explains regarding ISO speeds, "In both digital and film photography, the reduction of exposure corresponding to use of higher [ISO] sensitivities generally leads to reduced image quality (via coarser film grain or higher image noise of other types)." If that is in fact the problem it would still be a design flaw but one with perhaps a simple and very tolerable workaround.
From CNET:
"The photo quality from the S70 is very good for a snapshot camera...The camera lets you limit the auto ISO range to either 80-200 or 80-400. If you're in daylight or bright conditions, I recommend locking it down to 80-200. Again, it did perform well through ISO 400, but it's at its best below ISO 200."
Good luck with that workaround.
Also, anyone who has problems tapping the screen by accident should probably set the camera to only use the shutter button.
I still like the specs of this camera so plan to check it out at the local Best Buy with my own SD card and I will be playing with these settings and I will update my review once I have.
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