The Nikon Coolpix S70 is a touch controlled digital camera. Apart from turning the Coolpix S70 on and off every control can be set through the touch screen, even zoom and taking a photo. The screen is 3.5 inches in size and I found it easy to see and use.

Other features include 12 megapixels and a 5x wide angle lens, image stabilisation and High Definition Movies. Other more fun based features include a setting to make the camera automatically take a picture if it detects someone is smiling, skin softening for portraits and the ability to add hand written notes to photos.

It is also worth pointing out that the Coolpix S70 can be set up to charge by connecting it to a computer instead of through a wall socket.

The big attraction is the touch screen.

Outdoor 1 (Medium Zoom)
With my first test photo we get off to a bit of an indifferent start. Although I like the colours the sharpness of the photo drifts as you move out towards the edge of the shot.

Outdoor 2 (No Zoom)
This is an average effort. There is a fair amount of slippage in terms of sharpness as you move out towards the edges of the shot. I can also see darkness creeping into the corners of the shot.

Outdoor 3 (Maximum Zoom)
On the whole this is a better effort than with the lens zoomed out. Even so there is still a fall off in sharpness as you move out away from the centre of the photo.

Outdoor 4 (Building)
All four of my outdoor scenic shots suffer from a loss of sharpness as you move out towards the edges of the shot. I have checked back to my review of the previous camera in this part of the series the Nikon Coolpix S60 and I was much happier with the results I achieved with that camera. The difference between the two cameras is that Nikon has used a wide angle lens with the Coolpix S70. As I have noticed with other cameras with a wide angle lens this has lead to a fall in the sharpness of photos.

Outdoor Portrait
My outdoor portrait test shot works well. I like the colours, brightness and sharpness.

Indoor Portrait with Flash
Looking at this picture the light from the flash is quite strong. The downside of this is it washes out some of the colour leaving a pale photo. The upside of this is that the photo has plenty of brightness.

Indoor Portrait without Flash
This is a good effort by the Coolpix S70 compared to other cameras I tested at the same time, in the same lighting conditions. If you are indoors it is likely that flash will be required unless you have access to good quality window light.

Colours
The colours produced by the Coolpix S70 have quite a light touch. They are not as deep and vivid as some cameras produce. This is not necessarily a good or bad point. It all depends on how strong you like the colours to be in your photographs.

Macro
As with other Nikon digital cameras the Coolpix is capable of producing surprisingly good macro shots for a small pocket camera.

Overall
My test shots are a bit of a mixed bag. Snapshot sized shots should be fine, but if you increase print sizes you are likely to start to see a loss of crispness about your photos.

Times to turn the camera on and take the first picture are all standard, but the Coolpix S70 is slow to take more than one picture. Times without flash are:

one picture: 0.35 seconds - five pictures : 31.08 seconds.

Times with flash are:

one picture: 0.51 seconds - five pictures : 32.19 seconds.

To turn the camera on and take the first shot took 2.49 seconds.

You can compare this camera to other models by taking a look at the Shutter Lag Comparison Table.

This is a slimline pocket camera. The lens cover slides down to turn the camera on. A section on the front of the camera has what feels like a rubber section. This helps to give the Coolpix S70 a different look and feel. There are four colour versions available. These are red, champagne and beige, black, or champagne and light brown.

96.5 x 60.5 x 20mm

140g

Lithium ion (EN-EL12). Nikon estimates you should be able to take around 200 shots in between charges.

Nikon has only built a small amount of memory into this camera. I found it was only enough for 4 photos. The Coolpix S70 is also compatible with SD and SDHC memory cards..

Click here to save money on SD cards..

On the whole the touch control screen works well. The way Nikon has designed the interface it is very easy to select a feature and change the setting. Selections are icon based rather than text based, so you will need to be comfortable with using icons.

Personally I think including zoom as a touch control item may be taking this idea a bit far. I found it difficult to set the right amount of zoom quickly and this increased my chances of missing shooting opportunities.

Ease of use - - touch control screen

Zoom controlled by touch - loss of sharpness with more distant scenes

In my opinion the only other digital camera where the majority of functions are controlled through touch and the screen is as responsive as this one is the Sony Cybershot DSC TX1.

The Nikon Coolpix S70 is likely to appeal to the gadget conscious with its touch screen control. In the main picture quality is good enough for snapshot quality, but I did find a tendency for sharpness to fall away when shooting subjects from distance.

Front View

Back View

Top View

Sample Menu

Description:	12 megapixels and a 5x optical zoom lens
Ease of Use:	8
Features:	8
Colour:	8
Macro:	8
Indoors:	8
Value for Money:	8
Style:	8
Movie Mode:	8
Image Quality:	7
Build Quality:	8
Total:	79
Verdict:	This camera offers you complete touch control. The camera is easy to operate as long as you are comfortable with screen icons rather than text based menus. Picture quality is good in a lot of instances, but sharpness can fall off in more distant scenes.
Review Date:	December 2009
Related Pages:	Nikon Coolpix S70 Specification Nikon Coolpix S70 Sample Images Nikon Coolpix S70 Features
Comparisons:	Nikon Coolpix S70 vs Sony Cybershot DSC TX1

	GBP 199.99
Click a flag for prices from other countries:

Camera	Rating
Panasonic DMC FP1	86
Panasonic DMC FP3	86
Canon IXUS 105	86
Canon IXUS 210	86
Sony DSC TX7	86
Panasonic DMC FX60	86
Canon IXUS 120 IS	86
Sony DSC TX1	86

Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, please make sure you double check the feature set and specification at the point of purchase.

Nikon Coolpix S70