We take a look at Nikon's newest Coolpix model, the Wi-Fi enabled s51c.
The appearance of the s51c is impressive; the lines are very smooth, and the all-metal body looks sleek and feels sturdy. The little nub on the lens side of the camera is a bit strange, but required for Wi-Fi transmission. It's also the only visual difference between the s51 and the s51c. We loved the large screen and the black surface surrounding it on the back of the camera; we think the contrast it creates is very visually pleasing, and we'd like to see it on more cameras regardless of their color.
The images we took were extremely limited in both scope and range, we were in a dimly lit ballroom and didn't have much to photograph except people. The focal time was about average, and the images looked about as good as we could expect to view on the small LCD screen. We liked that it took shots in 16:9 widescreen, and not just in the low-resolution of 1920x1080 as with some cameras, but in 3200x1800, taking full advantage of the 8.1 megapixel sensor. One of the more unique options we've seen was the s51c's stop-motion video option; it allowed us to take a picture, then layered a "ghosted" image of that picture in the viewfinder to set up the next shot, bundling all the consecutive images into a stop-motion movie on our computer. We don't see ourselves creating a new "Wallace & Gromit" video, but the option is certainly very cool.
Unfortunately, we were unable to fully take advantage of the Wi-Fi capabilities, as Wi-Fi limitations at the event prevented us from actually sending any pictures directly from the camera. One thing the lack of Wi-Fi did highlight though, was the picture queue; when a picture is added to the queue and you are out of range of wireless internet, whenever you are within range of an open or recognized wi-fi network, it automatically sends the pictures for you.
The setup process for wireless transmission itself was rather simple, if a bit tedious, and could be done directly on the camera. Entering e-mail addresses was time-consuming but not difficult, since we had no letter keys and only a scroll wheel to cycle through the alphabet. Luckily, the entire Wi-Fi, e-mail and MyPicturetown setup can be done on the computer with the included software. We liked how there was both a dedicated picturemail button and a MyPicturetown button, putting the main feature of the camera prominently along the top of the camera.
We also loved the aforementioned scroll wheel. We're actually pretty surprised we don't see it on cameras that often, considering the interface options it provides; scrolling through massive menus is extremely simple when using the wheel. But the s51c's menus were relatively sparse; they chose to separate the features and options into numerous smaller menus rather than one giant one. We would have preferred something more centralized, as jumping from menu to menu (especially having to remember which features and options are on which menu) is a pet peeve of ours. But otherwise, Nikon seemed to nail the use of the scroll wheel, making all of their menus circuitous. Our favorite was in the photo viewer mode, where a partially obstructed circle was on the right side of the screen, showing previews of pictures in line to be viewed, while the actual picture selected appears on the left side of the screen.
Our first impressions of the s51c were almost all positive, but we'll withhold final judgment after our forthcoming full review.
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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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