Nikon connects its new S51c camera to the net with Wi-Fi capability, but are its photos worth uploading?
Review summary of the Nikon Coolpix S51c:
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 The Wi-Fi functionality in Nikon’s Coolpix S51c just might be an evolutionary step for point-and-shoot (perhaps all) cameras, but it isn’t quite intuitive yet. Too bad, because it’s otherwise the camera’s best feature: for a $250 MRSP, the image-quality is average at best and the video-quality outright mediocre, and curiously Nikon’s software bundle includes a multi-image panorama utility but no basic editing-software. For users who crave the immediacy of Wi-Fi uploading, the S51c may fit the bill, but others could do better for less money. Release: September 2007. Price: $200.
Pros: Wi-Fi connectivity, panorama-assist utility, external charger, film-grainy noise
Cons: Unwieldy ergonomics, Wi-Fi can be flaky over WEP and troublesome to setup for WPA/WPA-2, no editing software, average image-quality, terrible video-quality
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Full Nikon Coolpix S51c Review:
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Design - Good
With its smooth and reflective surfaces, Nikon clearly intends the S51c to be a glossy, stylish camera, but we couldn’t get over the fact that it ultimately looks and feels like a cigar case. There’s a hollow, almost airy quality to the camera’s weight distribution. It feels susceptible to being crumpled or bent, and even despite its relative thinness, the camera is noticeably front-heavy, making it cumbersome in a manner that belies its small footprint.
The top eschews the typical compound shutter-release / zoom-control for four simple buttons: a face-detection toggle, a WI-FI toggle, a power button, and a standalone (and atypically rectangular) shutter-release. Down the left is a bizarre, post-modern bevel that presumably houses the Wi-Fi antenna, which makes the body ungainly and makes single-fisted operation awkward.
The back mostly makes up for these shortcomings with its snazzy black-styling, 3-inch LCD viewfinder, and intelligently placed controls, which include mode, menu, playback, and delete buttons, in addition to a useful wheel-controller. On the bottom is a single connection that accommodates both the charger and the combined USB / AV cord; kudos for Nikon for using an external charger that doesn’t require removing the battery, though this comes with the slight caveat that the memory card is inaccessible while either the USB / AV or the power cord is connected. All-in-all it’s a capable design, but the Gaudi-esque accents are more cumbrous than alluring.
Features - Very good
The most notable, and unique, of the S51c’s features is its Wi-Fi functionality, a welcome addition to point-and-shoot connectivity that marginally simplifies transferring images to a user’s computer (as in, no wires or switching-out memory cards) and greatly simplifies uploading images to a website (in that it cuts out the need for an intermediary PC altogether). Configuring Wi-Fi on the camera itself is an ordeal and not recommended but, thankfully, Nikon has included software that allows users to setup networks via a computer over USB. This is much easier, and indeed is the only way to configure WPA / WPA-2 connections. Otherwise Wi-Fi functionality is a nifty feature that unfortunately had spotty success-rates in our trials. Public WEP networks frequently failed to connect, and, worse yet, the camera reported back with uninformative error-messages. We predict Wi-Fi on cameras, even pro D-SLRs, will become ubiquitous in the coming years, but as of now it’s not a seamless experience.
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Our favorite feature of the S51c was its ‘panorama assist’ function, which displays a guide to help users accurately take a series of juxtapositional photos; the user then feeds them into included software, which in turn outputs a seamless panorama. Technically this is nothing a careful eye and any editing software couldn’t accomplish, but it tremendously simplifies and error-proofs the process. Another plus is enough built-in memory to store three photos at highest quality, which isn’t much, but could be a huge boon in a pinch (we’ve all forgotten memory cards one time or another).
On the negative side, the S51c does feature a continuous mode, but it’s fairly slow (rated at 0.8 shots per second); there’s also a 16-shot burst mode that’s markedly faster, but completely inflexible. We would have welcomed at least 4- and 8-shot modes as well. Moreover, in standard mode the camera can be prohibitively sluggish, often taking several seconds to process one image.
Finally, the S51c includes both video and audio-recording modes. The video is set unchangeably to 320x240 and renders to MJPEG in an AVI header. The video-quality itself is highly compressed and, resultantly, distorted and extremely pixilated to the degree that we're not sure we would even upload its videos to YouTube. The audio-mode (which Nikon downplays as a ‘voice memo’ mode) records audio to 22 khz / 4 bit WAV files, and, to review it on Nikon’s terms, the quality is perfectly suitable for memos.
Interface / Software - Good
As mentioned, Nikon has included software that makes pasting together expansive panoramas a breeze, and it’s by far the best component in their bundled software-suite. In sharp contrast, however, Nikon has neglected to bundle any editing-software whatsoever. This is a serious gap in the camera’s usability, considering that the typical point-and-shooter wouldn’t have, nor would need, a copy of Photoshop, and the photo editor built into Windows is bothersome at best.
Nikon has also bundled a ‘my Picturetown utility’ that facilitates Wi-Fi configuration and allows a user to more quickly input their ‘my Picturetown’ user-names. ‘my Picturetown’ itself is an online photo-library maintained by Nikon, and one of the primary draws of the S51c’s Wi-Fi feature is the ability to upload photos directly to it. This is a great bonus, though it should be noted that, as far as we could tell, anyone can create an account with ‘my Picturetown’ regardless of what camera they use; only the Wi-Fi connectivity to the site seems exclusive to the S51c.
The interface on the S51c itself is elegant and relatively intuitive: the combination wheel / four-way controller makes scrolling through menu options quick and painless, and Nikon has included shortcuts for macro, flash, and timer-release buttons to make the camera even more accessible. Still, as with most point-and-shoots, the manual ISO-modes are buried in the menu, so those who personally select ISO sensitivities might be less enthused with the camera’s setup. Accordingly, we felt that, for future iterations, Nikon should consider replacing the timer-release shortcut with a shortcut to ISO settings.
Image quality - Good
The best aspect of the S51c’s image quality is its noise management: the camera is just as densely noisy as most other point-and-shoots, but, similar to Nikon’s D-SLR offerings, the noise has an appreciable film-grain quality to it, making high-sensitivity photos less sickly looking than those from other digital cameras. Otherwise ISO settings range from a typical 100-1600, with noise unnoticeable until 400, some white-balance distortion occurring at 800, and at 1600, as expected, images were awash in speckling.
Scene test
Surprising, however, that even at ISO-100, the camera produces somewhat murky images. In this sample, note the spotty color-reproduction and poor edge-delineation, particularly at full-size. Granted, this is a relatively stressful test, given the image’s strong backlighting, but at ISO-100 such haziness is disappointing.
Edge test
The S51c performed far better in this test for haloing and edge artifacts, in that there are no such deficiencies to be found. However, this success is offset by the lack of definition in the brick patterns along the edifice.
Macro test
This macro test finds the camera rendering an above-average level of detail, but with distracting focus-aberrations in the corners of the image. Furthermore, the macro-mode fails to focus within an entire foot of the subject, which makes the feature dubiously useful anyway.
The S51c takes useable images, but for a $249.99 MSRP, its image-quality edges dangerously close to subpar.
Price and availability
The Nikon Coolpix S51c will start selling for $200 () in September 2007.
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