Nikon S205 Digital Camera

orezomi August 22, 2012 0

Well, like the first review, I purchased it on Black Friday. I actually purchased two different cameras and I am in the process of determining which one is better…

I decided to “up” the stakes on the comments about photo quality. My old camera is a Samsung L60. Great little camera, but it’s getting beat up and old. So I thought I would take advantage of the sales yesterday.

So, what I did was take a series of photos from sitting on the sofa with each camera so I had true, side by side comparisons.

This is what I learned…

Out the window shot of leafless tress at max zoom… Nikon hands down had the better photo. Put my beloved Samsung to sham. Better Color, Better Clarity, Better everything across the board and this was at Max Zoom (Optical and Digital on both cameras).

Next was an indoor photo of my computer. No zoom, about 3′ away on generic auto program modes. Samsung’s photo dominated this round. The Nikon photo was completely washed out, our tan sofa looked cream and my black computer looked gray.

Next was a shot across our family room at our fireplace, 12′ away, flash on and optical zoom max. Samsung won by slight lead only because of the color saturation, photo was soft. The Nikon’s shot was sharper, but considerable darker, the flash did not carry.

Last Shot was the same fireplace shot without flash. Nikon won this due to it’s clarity. The Samsung was very blurry. Both had poor color saturation.

MP comparison… My Samsung was a 6 and the Nikon was a 12. The Nikon was slightly improved over the Samsung in actual photo quality. I thought it would be a bit more of a visual difference, but it wasn’t.

Flash… The Nikon Flash didn’t seem to travel pass about 8 feet. It only seemed to have one level of power on the flash regardless of how far away the subject matter is. The Samsung made it across the room without issue.

Lag Time… Nikon much much better. The Samsung was about a 2 sec lag time compared to the Nikon which I didn’t even notice.

Flash Cycling… About the same. Takes a few seconds.

Final thoughts… It’s a good average camera. I paid $300 for the Samsung 4 years ago and the Nikon is $70 for pretty much the same camera with better lag time. So, it is worth it? If you are looking for a generic camera to take mainly non-flash pictures I think this would suit you very well. If you are taking a lot of indoor photos in need of a flash I would shift your attention elsewhere.

Hope this helps…

Nikon Coolpix S205 Digital Camera