Nikon Coolpix S9100

The speedy-shooting Nikon S9100 delivers a big 18x optical zoom lens and a high-res LCD in a small, pocket-size package at a great price.

Angle

The S9100 wants to be taken seriously, and opts for professional looks over gimmicky or colorful attributes. It comes in black, red, or silver—my test unit was black. 

Back

The 3-inch LCD on the back of camera is one of the best on the market. Most compact cameras fill their displays with 230,000 dots, and a few go up to a sharper 460,000. The S9100 tightly packs in 921,000 dots, and the result is an LCD that looks like it belongs on a D-SLR camera 

Top

You'll be hard-pressed to find a camera the S9100's size that can offer more than its 18x zoom. 

Right

It qualifies as pocket-sized, but just barely at 2.5 by 4.2 by 1.4 inches (HWD). The front right has a small grip—basically just a vertical bar—that looks like a design flourish but is meant to give you a better hold. 

Left

Like many higher-end cameras, the S9100's flash must be manually popped up to be used. 

HDMI Port

You can play videos back on your HDTV by connecting a cable to the S9100's built-in mini-HDMI port. 

Shooting Menu

The S9100 is generally simple to operate. There's fully automatic shooting, and a scene mode for most shooting situations. 

Movie Options

You have a lot of options for recording high-definition video with the S9100—1080 at 30 frames per second and 720 at 30 and 60 fps.

Picture Screen

The S9100 is an absolute speed demon. The camera powers up and shoots in an average of 1.56 seconds. When powered on, it averages just 0.50 seconds of shutter lag, and only a 1.58-second wait between shots. 

Angle

The Nikon Coolpix S9100 is an top-notch choice for a compact superzoom camera. The $330 shooter offers one of the biggest optical zoom lenses you can find in a compact camera, along with excellent image quality, nice video capture options, and an incredible LCD at a fair price.

Price Range	$285.00 - $329.99

Spec Data

Type Compact

Megapixels 12.1 MP

Media Format Secure Digital Extended Capacity

Battery Type Supported Lithium Ion

35-mm Equivalent (Wide) 25

35-mm Equivalent (Telephoto) 450

Optical Zoom 18 x

LCD size 3 inches

LCD dots 921k

Wireless Connectivity No

HD Video Capture Yes

Boot time 1.56 seconds

Recycle time 1.58 seconds

Lines Per Picture Height 1767

Benchmarks

Recycle time

1.58

Lines Per Picture Height	1767
Boot time	1.56

Posted in: Camera