Nikon Coolpix S · announced February 2012

The Nikon Coolpix S6300: a slim 10x zoom for $199.95 that split the reviewers

We found no other regional name for it; Nikon's news release and the UK and US launch coverage all use the S6300 name.¹²

Nikon's cheap slim zoom of 2012 promised a back-illuminated sensor that would cope "even in low light". Two reviewers were pleased with the pictures. A third called the low-light results atrocious and pointed readers to a Canon instead.

Launched

February 2012

Launch price

$199.95 · £179.99²

Sensor

16 MP CMOS

Lens

25–250 mm, 10×

Card

SD, SDHC, SDXC

Battery

EN-EL12

Specs and sources

Meet the camera

Nikon announced the S6300 on 1 February 2012, together with the S9300, S9200, S4300, S3300 and S30 (Nikon's release names all six).¹² It was the new model in Nikon's S-series: a 10x lens that starts at 25 millimetres, a 16-megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor, lens-shift vibration reduction and full-HD video, in what Nikon called one of the smallest bodies in the 10x class.¹ Reviewed.com said it replaced the S6200.³ A later reviewer placed it above the S3300 for its 1080p video and 10x zoom, and below the S9300 and S6400, which have longer zooms, better screens or GPS.⁵

The US suggested price was $199.95; in the UK it was 179.99 pounds, with sales starting on 16 February 2012.² Nikon USA listed red, black, silver and blue; Nikon UK named black, red and blue.² It is about 94 by 58 by 26 millimetres and weighs about 160 grams with battery and card.⁴

Why this one was interesting

A long zoom in a thin body

Nikon's pitch was portability: it narrowed the body at the corners and top and added a ridged, metallic-feeling finish.¹ TechRadar called the design sleek and stylish and was impressed that a 10x lens fits so small a body.⁶ PhotographyBLOG noted that the lens does not quite disappear into the body, since the front curves out to meet the lens bezel.⁴

A sensor sold on low light

Nikon said the back-illuminated sensor suppresses the noise of high sensitivities for beautiful rendering in dark or dim surroundings.¹ The UK release went further, promising clarity "even in low light".² Whether it kept that promise is where the reviewers disagreed most, as the next sections show.

Playthings: panorama, 3D and filters

Nikon listed 3D photography, Easy Panorama, in-camera special effects and filter effects for editing shots afterwards, and a one-button movie mode that can join several scenes into a single file.¹ Reviewed.com counted 19 scene modes, and described the 3D mode as two photos taken at slightly different angles, to be played back on a 3D-compatible screen.⁵

For the budget end of the same range see our Nikon Coolpix S3300; for a rugged alternative from the same maker, the Coolpix AW120.

What was lost

This was not a camera with a manual mode. Reviewed.com called shooting a strictly automatic affair with minimal manual control; it named exposure compensation, flash, timer, macro and focusing distance among the few things you can change.⁵ TechRadar noted that in modes other than full auto, the Menu button lets you change only the picture size.⁶ PhotographyBLOG pointed to the plastic tripod socket, the screen that sits proud of the body, and a battery door without a separate lock.⁴ Reviewed.com was harder: it described the body as plasticky, coated in glossy paint that scratches easily.⁵

The dark: its weak point

The three reviewers did not agree here, and the gap is the interesting part. PhotographyBLOG found ISO 125 beautifully clean, faint colour noise at ISO 200, a slight yellow cast at ISO 400, colour noise visible at normal viewing size at ISO 800, and at ISO 1600 noise reduction that makes sharp edges begin to disintegrate; at the top setting colour was desaturated.⁴ It still called noise well controlled for the class.⁴ TechRadar used its lab chart and found the S6300's JPEG signal-to-noise ratio stronger than the Nikon S6400, Sony W690 and Panasonic FS45 across the sensitivity range, and reported only some smoothing at 100 percent, hardly noticeable at A4 or web size.⁶ Its resolution chart scores fell from 18 at ISO 125 to 12 at ISO 1600 and 3200.⁶

Reviewed.com reached the opposite verdict. Its lab noise numbers were very good, but it said that was because noise reduction was working so hard that detail went too: up to about ISO 800 the S6300 held up against the Canon PowerShot ELPH 110 HS, and at ISO 1600 and 3200 there was no comparison, with Nikon's result splotchy and blobby.⁵ It called the camera pretty atrocious in low light, and added that autofocus in dim light often fails, or wrongly claims to have found focus.⁵ Its video test found the camera held broadcast-level brightness down to about 15 lux, better than many rivals, but footage at that level was still unpleasant to watch.⁵

Photos taken with this camera at high ISO, with the value read from each file's own data, are below. They are shot in churches and at a railway platform at night, so they are a rough guide only.

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The little wins

Quick and sharp at the far end

TechRadar found autofocus quick and in most cases accurate, and said the lens-shift stabilisation did a good job at the telephoto end.⁶

The back of the S6300 · Jacek Halicki · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons

Close-ups

TechRadar liked the macro mode, saying that on several occasions it focused closer than the promised 10 centimetres. PhotographyBLOG found it did not have much of a macro facility and showed edge drop-off.⁶⁴

Choose your own focus point

TechRadar called it unusual for a compact at this price that you can pick the autofocus point yourself from the AF area menu; Nikon's table lists 99 focus areas.⁶⁴

Burst modes for a cheap camera

Reviewed.com counted seven continuous modes, including reduced-size 120 and 60 frames per second, and called the number surprisingly high for a cheap compact, though it said the buffer is tiny, about 6 or 7 full-size frames (its own figures differ slightly).⁵

Good video in good light

Reviewed.com measured 625 line widths per picture height of horizontal sharpness and 600 vertical in bright light, which it called acceptable for the class, and said bright-light video was vibrant and smooth.⁵

How it drew the picture

PhotographyBLOG gave image quality 4 out of 5, liking the colours and sharpness, and saw only faint chromatic aberration after hunting for it; it was satisfied with sharpness as long as the subject sat in the centre of the frame.⁴ TechRadar said pictures looked sharp with plenty of detail and vibrant colours that were not overly saturated, with good metering in mixed light.⁶ Reviewed.com disagreed on nearly every point: sharpest at full wide angle but only after in-camera sharpening it measured at up to 35 percent above normal, edges awful at middle focal lengths, and at the full 250 millimetres sharpness dire across the whole frame; purple and cyan fringing throughout the zoom range; a tendency to overexpose in bright light.⁵ It also found colour accuracy not very good in either colour mode (an uncorrected error of 3.27 in Vivid against 3.28 in the other mode, which it calls Natural in one place and Standard in another) and measured white balance as off under tungsten light by about 1,188 kelvin but within 81 kelvin in daylight; it called overall white balance performance quite good.⁵

Photos taken with this camera, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture. They come from a handful of uploaders and are not ours.

Where it let you down

Reviewed.com's complaints were the screen and the zoom end: 230,000 dots is half or less of what some competitors offered, the screen was hard to see in bright outdoor light, and it made reviewing sharpness difficult.⁵ PhotographyBLOG measured speed at about 2.5 seconds from cold to a shot, noting the camera did not always hit focus in that time, and up to 3.5 seconds for a sharp picture, and heard the lens noisy when zooming, which may cause problems in video.⁴ TechRadar liked the zoom action but found the camera slower to wake from sleep than from being switched on.⁶ Its panorama mode was among its weaker points: low resolution, visible smoothing and occasional stitching errors.⁶ PhotographyBLOG found vignetting in the corners without the flash,⁴ and Reviewed.com called the flash a tiny, weak unit, with a stated range of about 0.5 to 5.6 metres at wide angle and 1.0 to 3.1 metres at telephoto.⁵⁴

What the reviewers said in 2012

TechRadar named the Sony W690 and Panasonic SZ1 as its competitors, giving the full price as $199.95 in the US and £169.99 in the UK (Nikon UK's release gave £179.99, as above).⁶ Reviewed.com quoted a street price of about $130 against the $199.95 list price.⁵ PhotographyBLOG put the UK price at about £140 at the time of its review.⁴

The timeline

• 1 February 2012Nikon announces the S6300 with the S9300, S9200, S4300 and S3300; $199.95 in the US, £179.99 in the UK.¹²
• 16 February 2012UK sales start, according to Nikon UK's release quoted by PhotographyBLOG.²
• 27 August 2012PhotographyBLOG publishes its review.⁴
• 14 November 2012Reviewed.com publishes its review.⁵

Should you buy one now?

Buy one if you want a pocketable 25–250 millimetre zoom for daylight snapshots and you accept that it was not built for dim rooms. It launched at $199.95;² what it sells for now is a question for the sold listings, not for us. If you are comparing it with other Nikons, our other Nikon reviews include the S3300, S3700, S3000, L810 and P7000. Before you bid, check these:

• The name. Search the Coolpix S6300; we found no other regional name.¹²
• The battery. It uses an EN-EL12;⁴ a fresh one is on Amazon ↗. Reviewed.com said the same battery fits many Nikon models.⁵
• The card. It takes SD, SDHC and SDXC cards, and has only about 25 MB of its own memory.⁴ See our memory card guide.
• The cable. PhotographyBLOG says the box held a video cable and a USB cable that plugs into the charger unit, and Reviewed.com said a mini-HDMI cable is not included.⁴⁵ The cable codes are in the Quick answers box above; see also our Nikon cable pages.
• The screen and body. Look for scratches in the glossy finish, which Reviewed.com said scratches easily, and check that the lens extends and retracts without a grinding noise.⁵⁴
• Samples. Test a dim-room shot, since that is where the reviewers disagreed.

If you are wondering why cameras like this are being hunted down again, we tell that story once, in Pictures that never left the card.

See recent sold prices on eBay ↗Shop on eBay ↗EN-EL12 battery ↗

Sources

1. Nikon Corporation, Digital Compact Camera Nikon COOLPIX S9300 / S9200 / S6300 / S4300 / S3300 / S30 (news release, 1 Feb 2012, revised 7 Feb 2012)
2. PhotographyBLOG, Nikon Coolpix S3300 / S4300 / S6300 / S9300 (news, 1 Feb 2012: US, UK and euro prices; quotes Nikon UK and Nikon USA releases)
3. Reviewed.com, Nikon debuts S9300 and S6300 Coolpix long-zooms, two others (news, 1 Feb 2012)
4. PhotographyBLOG, Nikon Coolpix S6300 review by Matt Grayson (27 Aug 2012), with Nikon's specification table
5. Reviewed.com, Nikon Coolpix S6300 Digital Camera Review by Ben Keough (14 Nov 2012)
6. TechRadar, Nikon Coolpix S6300 review by Amy Davies (eight pages; no date shown on the pages we read)

Photographs are credited under each one, all via Wikimedia Commons. Links to eBay and Amazon are affiliate links.