From Michael Carr,
Your Guide to Digital Cameras.
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The Nikon Coolpix S600 features 10 megapixels in a small, compact point-and-shoot camera body. It excels at many types of photography with little or no tinkering with settings required. In fact, it does an impressive job of macro shooting with simplicity and ease. That makes this an ideal camera choice for the nature photographer who wants a tiny camera for hikes and walks. Action photos are more challenging, however. Find out more with the Nikon Coolpix S600 review.

Nikon Coolpix S600 for Macro and Portrait Photography

The two areas in which the compact Nikon excels are in macro photography and portrait photography.

With very little effort, a user can click the dial to switch to macro mode. Even items placed right next to the lens, and even those in mediocre lighting conditions, turn out bright, clear and crisp images. The colors stay vivid, and there is very little blurring.

Shooting a portrait is also made easy with a simple switch to Face Priority focus. When this is activated, the camera's LCD screen displays a box that shows which face is the focal point. As you lightly depress the shutter, it brings that face into focus. This worked nicely even with subjects who moved slightly. The portraits turned out very clear and in focus.

Nikon Coolpix S600 for Children, Sports and Action Photography

The Nikon, however, is less impressive when attempting to capture action. There is a scene mode called Active Children, which sounds very appealing. In this mode, it locks onto a hyper child and capture an image. It did do just that, but wasn't terribly reliable.

It also isn't very user-friendly, especially shooting in a rush. It has some shutter lag when locking in, and even finding this scene mode on the fly isn't easy.

Scene modes should be very easy, one-click buttons. On this Nikon, however, you need to click the "Mode" button. Then you move around the dial to choose "Scene." Then the LCD displays your photo subject. Then, you click "Menu." Then you move around the dial to choose your mode. Not exactly a quick process for capturing images in a rush. The good news is it defaults to the Active Child scene, cutting a couple steps.

The action images seem very hit or miss. Sometimes, you get a blurry mess and the lag results in that blurry image not even including the moving subject you intended. Other times, everything seems to mesh and you capture that moment in motion brilliantly.

All that said, however, it's important to remember this is a small, compact camera and not an SLR. It isn't particularly worse at capturing action than comparable compact cameras. It also does include some features that are conducive to catching action, such as continuous shooting modes and a 0.7-second startup time.

Nikon Coolpix S600 Picture Quality

The image quality and clarity from this camera are nothing short of impressive for a point-and-shoot. Images have very little noise, which is perhaps thanks to the camera's image stabilization features.

In shooting with this camera, there is definitely less demand for user skills and a much lower number of shots that turn out to be a disappointment, either due to blurring, graininess or washed out colors.

Featuring 10 megapixels, these images are also suitable for very large prints.

Nikon Coolpix S600 Compact Size and Style

This camera looks good, and it's small enough to easily tuck into a purse or pocket on the go. It is a stylish metallic black, and it weighs just 4.6 ounces.

The Coolpix has the following dimensions:

• Height: 2.1 in. (53mm)
• Width: 3.5 in. (88.5mm)
• Depth: 0.9 in. (22.5mm)