Nikon Coolpix S630 12MP Digital Camera with 7x Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD (Jet Black)

After looking at most of the cameras that fit the needs of my wife, I chose the Nikon - S630 COOLPIX. I read dozens of reviews - some good and some not so good. I think that the poor reviews were mostly from people who had too high expectation of this little NIKON. Well here is mind review. The camera is small and the controls are well thought out.The camera fits easily in a pocket or purse. One of the best features is the 7X zoom lens, that works great. I took a picture of a wall and window to a restaurant in the City Centre, Las Wages and then zoomed in thru the window to see a chef making Japanese Sushi, awesome pics. The camera is fast and the quality of the pictures is almost as good as my expensive DSLR. The only thing is does not take pictures while swinging the camera around, but who does that? The camera worked well in dark situations on AUTO. and also with the flash turned off. I shot sunsets and scenes in the desert with good quality. Inside shots were better than I thought they would be. The old camera was a Canon and it took great pics too, but the S630 Coolpic was even better to my surprise. Another great feature is the lens is out in a second or less ready to shoot, so you don't miss a shot. We got about 200 shots per charge on the rechargeable battery and used a 4 GB memory chip which gave over 1250 pictures at the highest quality. I have yet to use the movie feature and some of the other manual features. The camera can even tell when a person smiles or blinks - amazing. If you are looking for a compact camera and very good quality, this Coolpic S630 fit the bill for me. Now my wife want her Christmas present back, so she can shoot some pics and she did and her pictures came out great too. She liked the Zoom right by the release button. the 2.7 inch view is plenty big too! Happy hunting for a camera at $200 with a case and memory chip too. :)

The camera actually feels pretty solid in my hands, you can tell it's plastic but it doesn't feel cheap overall. The pictures I took came out great, everything was clear even on most of the 7x zoom shots (more zoom = you need to move less). I am very happy with the quality of the lens and the layout. Nikon really gave it some extras such as using a zoom ring and a comfortable thumb rest while shooting (portrait and landscape modes). I am pleased with the shooting response time (from powering on to taking a picture) and have not experienced any shutter lag (I know that it IS slower than others, but really if you're getting a small point and shoot you have to give up something when the camera is $225.) I did play around with some of the features such as messing with the AUTO settings and the automatic smile mode. I didn't find the auto smile mode (it shoots when it senses a smile) to be that worthwhile. There are a lot of scene modes which can be overwhelming, but the auto scene selector works great! I have not done enough testing to see how the color really turns out under different settings. I gave this 4 stars and not a full 5 for a few reasons that are more personal annoyances than performance issues. The first is that the little dial on the back feels cheap. I would have rather this been metal. It doesn't affect performance, but it does take away from the experience when you feel it. The second problem is that the menu is terrible. Nikon needs to put some R&D into making a menu that is very intuitive and user friendly. A nice GUI would really go a long way - this looks like a theme from DOS when you perform certain actions (such as format the card). Another thing is while looking at the thumbnails it is a pain to zoom back out. There is no quick way to get back to the picture in original size. Instead you have to zoom out .2x each time. Yow can hold it down, but then it goes to the view where you can see multiple thumbnails on the screen. A .5 or 1 second delay would help this out. The smallest complaint is that the charger does not have a flip out plug, you have to take the charging unit AND the (long) cord with you when you travel. All in all these are tiny complaints for such a great camera. I recommend getting a case and screen protector for it and of course a large SDHC card and extra battery (from experience). Really this is a great camera for a little over $220 (at the time of this review). As with anything make sure you do research and try to get a hands on demo before buying it.

This is actually my second Coolpix 630. My first one was stolen. I immediately ordered another one because dollar for dollar no other camera can produce the results I got from this small and handy powerhouse. The zoom is great at 7X optical, and 12 megapixel gives me all the resolution any normal user will ever need. Easy to use features, including an "auto" that does all the work for you. I can even make movies. I studied long and hard before I bought and my research paid off handsomely. I strongly recommend this product. My only suggestion is to spend the $40 for a 150X memory card for ultra-fast operation between shots.

This is a good camera for it being an ultra compact. Don't let the 7x optical zoom advertisment fool you, it's actually 4x optical and 3x digital zoom. Tough camera too, my wife actually dropped it on our wooden floor and this thing still ticks! It takes good indoor pics and great outdoor pics. The various scene options make pic taking even better! We were trying to take pics of various objects in the house from max optical zoom and it had a hard time focusing on it. This was also at night. It sometimes does take a while for it focus on non human objects and beings. We were taking pics of our dog, also from a slight distance, and it took about 10 sec to focus completely on her. We took this camera with on vacation, and took pics of city scapes (like the tall buildings in chicago, cincinatti at night), and it captures the pics perfectly from a moving vehicle going 75MPH as if you were standing still! This was on the "high ISO" and auto scene selector settings and no flash. For best pic taking, I've had to explain to my wife and friends that you must lightly press the button down and the screen will change slightly to a better focus, then press it down to snap the pic when you're ready and it'll come out perfect! It takes really good video and captures audio decently too. I think the camera takes it's best pics without the flash. Otherwise this is a great camera to do just about anything with. Very fast boot up and the menu is easy to navigate. Very nice LCD display too. We haven't been disappointed with this camera yet and we've owned it since mid March 2009.

Terrible camera. Takes terrible night photos, too grainy, images are not high res, does not do well with exposure, colors are washed out. It also has so many SD card issues and didn't even come with batteries. If you are looking for the 'digital camera soft' look this is not it. Get the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V 18.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Camera with 20x Optical Zoom and 3.0-inch LCD (Black) (2012 Model) if you want a gX7ii dupe.

I received my camera 3 days ago, and so far so good! The size and look of the camera is awesome, very sleek and perfect to toss in my purse to have at ALL times. The picture quality so far has been outstanding, especialy outdoors. Great camera for normal everyday use. The retouch option works really well, and overall is very easy to figure out! So far my only complaint would be that on the continuous mode it is a little hard to keep the camera still enough to take quality pictures so close together. That could possibly be user error though....

For me, the real selling points of this camera were: its size, its outstanding zoom range, and the fact that it is a Nikon. The camera is an ideal size, and conforms well to the hands when shooting. The user interface is not entirely intuitive, but if you spend a little time with the camera, it is not very difficult to figure out. The zoom range is fantastic. But the motor used to control the zoom won't let you continuously zoom in and out; it is set to allow you to only zoom to a certain number of discrete positions. I found this to be really annoying--frequently, I wanted to zoom in or out just a tiny bit, but the darn thing would jump to its next zoom zone, which would be way off-the-mark. If you are looking for a point-and-shoot camera that works very well in fully auto mode, then this is NOT the camera for you. Virtually all of the fully-automatic shots I took with this camera, particularly indoors, came out poorly exposed--typically out-of-focus, blurred, with inaccurate color rendering, or with noticeable digital noise. I found that if I took the time to go to the menu and select the proper shooting mode (for example, "Indoor Portrait," "Still Life," etc) to conform to the shooting environment at the time, the results were much better, though still frequently flawed. If you are buying a point-and-shoot camera in order to actually point-and-shoot, I would argue that users generally don't expect to have to reset modes for every situation in order to get a decent shot. (I own a 6 year old Kodak 3.1MP camera that, hands down, takes way better point-and-shoot auto-exposed photos than the Nikon S630. Unfortunately, the Kodak is fairly bulky and its viewing LCD, by today's standards especially, is very tiny--which is why am I looking to supplement it with a newer camera.) It turns out that a cousin of mine bought the same camera at about the same time, and she experienced similar results, and returned the camera. I am going to do the same thing. For me, it was unfortunately not the right choice.

I have been a dedicated Nikon 35mm fan for years, but this is my first Nikon digital camera. I did debate very long between the SLR series and the Coolpix line, but in the end, the compact design and the lighter weight of the Coolpix nudged me in that direction. So far, I am not disappointed. The menu structure is different from the Olympus menu system I had become used to, but a short session with the Nikon owner's manual quickly showed me how to access all the functions. Perhaps it is because I had used another band of digital camera for the last few years, I did not originally find the Nikon menu quite as intuitive. I had no trouble changing over however, after less than an hour or so. The Coolpix is clearly designed as a point and shoot digital camera. Personally, I favor more of a wide angle style than what this camera delivers, but the zoom range is quite nice and very useable. Automatic modes are the default for everything. In my initial testing, I found very few photos that were not acceptable using the fully auto everything. Excellent optics and a vibration compensation system yielded very crisp hand held images. Good marks for this area. While there is no full manual operation for the S630, there are shooting modes galore that will provide settings to isolate the subject from the background using larger apertures (portrait modes) or favor smaller apertures for greater depth of field when photographing scenic views. There is even an extreme close up mode, similar to the macro mode of many 35mm cameras. Other overrides will allow you to modify the flash effects (fill in, red eye reduction, off and others), fire bursts of shots (depending on exposure up to several per second), set automatic intervals (pre-determined) or even some in camera creative effects. While it did take some getting used to the controls, the S630 again took high marks in this area. One of the features I really like about the Coolpix S series in general is the large, compared to my older digital camera, viewing screen. I was even more pleased to find I could superimpose a small grid as an aid in composition. I was trained on a 4x5 view camera and had a grid screen for my old Nikon F2S, so this was like coming home for me. I would have liked some intermediate lines in addition to the three by three box pattern, but even this simple implementation will prove useful. The S630 uses an exclusive rechargeable battery. I suggest buying at least one spare battery with your camera. While the battery is rated at well over 200 exposures before needing to be recharged, I'm sure Mr. Murphy will be at the party you are photographing and your battery will die, just as you are about to snap that great celebrity photo you dreamed about taking. The S630 makes the external charger as part of your purchase package and an AC cord is an option. If you like being able to run on standard batteries, this may be less than desirable for you, but I like the rechargeable feature from an environmental standpoint. Call this an even trade. I was disappointed in the lack of an uncompressed format to save images in. My last digital camera had a RAW format that while not used for every photograph nonetheless was used often enough I miss not having it. You do have some selection in the JPEG compression, however, so I have to be content with that. Your photos do look their best using the maximum pixel count, so you will want a high capacity card. I urge you to get at least a 4 GB card to supplement the minimal onboard memory. Now we come to my only real dissatisfaction with the S630, and that has little to do with the camera itself. I hate the software suite Nikon supplies. I must digress a moment here. If you use a high capacity SD card, one that is 4 GB or more, you may not be able to read the card with the card reader built into your computer. While technically still an SD card, the SDHC series cards use some internal difference to break the 2 GB barrier. Whatever the reason, you should purchase an external reader capable of handling the SDHC format cards. Without an external card reader, you need to plug the camera into your computer and use the Nikon Transfer software to transfer the images to your computer. While the plug fitting on the camera looks like a mini-USB, I could not get a mini-USB cable I already owned to fit the socket. I needed to use the Nikon supplied cable. My computer would not recognize the camera until I loaded the software. The transfer process is slow and the interface is clunky at best. I also have my own photo retouching software and do not need the software Nikon supplies. With an external card reader, the process is greatly simplified: remove the SD card, pop it in the reader and transfer the images just like any other file collection. An external reader will also provide a faster transfer speed. All together, I found the S630 a very nice travel package. This camera will deliver some very high quality images without the bulk of an SLR. You can easily fit a spare battery, spare memory cards and the camera into a small case not even the size of a case for sunglasses. Well worth the price until you really need the versatility of a digital SLR. 6/30/2009 Recently returned from 10 day trip to Japan. The camera performed flawlessly and delivered photos even better than I expected. Great available light shots, very good flash fill in, good video in karaoke bar and wonderful overall grab shots. My only complaint is I wish it had a wider wide angle, but I knew this going into the trip. Used the telephoto at maximum to capture details at the top of castles, shrines and temples; great results there made up for the lack of a wider view.