Digital Camera Reviews - Customer reviews - Nikon Coolpix S4 6MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom

Manufacturer: Nikon

List Price: $349.95
Our Price: $436.20
You Save: $-86.25 (-25%)
Refurbished Price: $209.95
Used Price: $135.00

Average Customer Rating: -

Product details

Offers (8)

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Name: Alfredo Zamudio
Location:
Date: 2007-01-09
Customer Rating: -

Summary: the item was used
Comment: The item was used, did n't work, scratched, but the money back was as smooth as could be

Name: shri reviews
Location:
Date: 2006-02-01
Customer Rating: -

Summary: good one....but not best
Comment: Camera is pretty good and jazzy.
I like the flip-flop lens but sometime it is pain.
Also picture quality is not great.

Name: Bruno Alberto Mejia Cifuentes
Location: Colombia
Date: 2006-03-21
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Nikon Coolpix s4 - Lenta y lente
Comment: El lente se convierte en alguna desventaja cuando de brillos externos se trata, sigue haciendo alguna falta el visor de siempre. En cuanto a la velocidad de obturacion me parece que deberia ser mas rapida

Name: Yacht shooter
Location: Marina del Rey, CA
Date: 2005-10-02
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Lens and flexibility are great; viewing & focusing are unusable
Comment: I took delivery of my S4 yesterday afternoon and put it through its paces. The quality of the camera and the lens are absolutely terrific. However, when shooting indoors: it won't focus or yield a non-blurred image when shooting indoors in available light. If you're willing to use a flash all the time, it's fine, except for the fact that you can't turn off the "in camera red-eye correction" which sometimes leaves people and animals with a white hole where the pupil should be. In other words, the camera takes out the red, but it doesn't always insert the black pupil! If you shut off the red eye correction, then you get the glowing red eyes people hate to see. Hey Nikon, make the in-camera red eye correction a "feature" that can be turned on or off, independent of the multiple flash red eye correction. Right now you either have to take both or neither. NOTE: This is also the case with the Nikon 7900 that I bought for my wife but returned a day later because she couldn't use it to do indoor snapshots of her beloved animals. As she said, "With white pupils, the animals looked like they has lost their souls." What a shame because it too is a wonderful design.

Outdoors there's an even more severe problem with the S4: I have more than a thousand pictures of yacht races and boats on a commercial website; all taken with a Nikon 8800 that I'm crazy about. Today I tried shooting boats with the S4 and it was a complete bust. It was a classic cloudy bright day with terrific glare off the water and sky; and it was nearly impossible to use the S4's LCD finder to compose my pictures. No matter what angle I tried, the glare on the screen was almost impossible to penetrate. What good is a 10x zoom if you can't aim the camera??? And before you ask, I did adjust the screen brightness from dim to very bright, and no matter which setting I used I ran into the same problem. On the other hand, when standing in some shade, I did a terrific telephoto shot of a parrot's head from about 10' away that when blown up to 11x14" showed every head feather clearly.

I returned the S4 to my long suffering camera store and bought a Canon SD550. I've already satisfied myself that it does fine indoors where focusing and available light shots don't seem to be a problem (although it too produces red eye, but not nearly as bad as the S4's); and the optical finder makes taking my yacht pictures a snap (no pun intended). An 11x14" enlargement of a dock shot was crystal clear, with bright realistic colors. Following the advice of some of the Canon 500 owners, I keep the resolution Extra Fine, and the color adjustment to Vivid, and in these modes it seems to be the equal of any film camera I've ever used.

Please Nikon, realize that doing away with the optical finder to make the screen 1/4" higher is a DUMB thing to do; unless you want to deliver the entire serious amateur and professional market for compact cameras to Canon. Please give us a revised S4 that has an optical finder, available light capabiilties equal to the Canon SD550, and either 2 separate redeye controls, or only the customary flashing light.

And while you're at it, why did you add your terrific Vibration Reduction mechanism (fabulous on the Nikon 8800), only to the movie mode of the S4? DOUBLE DUMB. The vibration reduction feature is really needed whenever you're using a 10X lens; please give it to the S4's successor for still pictures also.

Please understand, I've been using Nikons for more than 40 years and I love them. I love my 8800. But to cause me to return both an S4 and a 7900 in the same week means that you're now doing some things terribly wrong. Please get back on track as soon as you can!!!

Name: David Kennedy
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Date: 2007-04-28
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Quite unlike its predecessor
Comment: I purchased this item with hopes that it would aspire to the former incarnation I had wished to update: the Nikon CoolPix 950. I bought the 950 in 2000, and it consistently provided quality shots and unfettered flexibility throughout its tenure despite its somewhat antiquated technology... at least until that fateful day the airline destroyed it along with my baggage.

I was delighted to see that an alternative "Swivel-Lens" model had been released by Nikon. What could be better? The Swivel-Lens versatility I'd come to know and love, coupled with updated technological prowess.

It took roughly three pictures to determine that this was one of the weakest digital cameras I'd ever had the displeasure of using. The flash is pretty much REQUIRED - unless you're directly in the path of the sun with its radiant heat beaming down upon you with an intensity great enough to sizzle the very skin off your bones, the flash will automatically engage (unless, of course, you manually turn it off - in which case you're in for a real treat: the "blur sensor", while obviously intended as some sort of warning mechanism, never goes away... even if you set the camera down on a stationary device and gingerly press the button with the gentlest of taps). The problem with this is that flash-enhanced photos on this camera appear synthetic and overly-red, even after the settings have been adjusted. Expect to use PhotoShop or some other third-party photo editing software to make these pictures viewable.

I thought perhaps my novice expertise in the field of photography might have been to blame, so I contacted Nikon. I explained that this camera was difficult to operate in comparison to the earlier 950 model. They proceeded to chastise me for having purchased an inferior model of camera (keep in mind that they are referring to THEIR OWN PRODUCT, and that the "superior" model is a camera over 7 years old) and offered no suggestions whatsoever as to photograph improvement.

This was a severe disappointment. While I thought the first Nikon camera had made me a customer for life, this perception was quickly undone by my second purchase.

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