Nikon Coolpix S205 Digital Camera (Red)

As I make this in December of 2024 thank you for selling me this camera way back when. I still have it and it works beautifully.

I picked this camera up for $80 on this black Friday planning to use it as a carry around camera for those situations which I don't have my other cameras with me. I bought it because our family have a few Nikons that I all like. With this price, I don't have high expectations for this camera. However, I took a few pictures, I decided that the camera is not usable and return it on the same day. The focus is slow and not always work in lower light situation. It was gloomy outside. All the pictures were blurry because the shutter speed was something like 1/10 second. I can only get to its largest aperture (3.2) when zooming out wide. In that case, the pictures are acceptable. In door flash pictures are blurry (or noisy). Maybe, this camera can give reasonable pictures outdoor when it is sunny. However, there seems to be very few situations that I can use this camera to get reasonable pictures. My ten years old Sony S85 6M pixels gives better pictures.I guess I have to pay more to find another camera.

This camera has a lot of features for the price. I am a longtime Canon fan, and I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of use and quality. I bought this camera for my wife and I so we don't have to take a big camera with us on trips. I didn't like Nikon cameras in the past because the controls were not intuitive for me when I am taking photos. My wife likes a camera that is easy to use, and this camera is easy to use. For people that like a lot of features in a camera this one has it. It won't have them same photo quality of a DSLR. However, it will give you 12mp quality photos--Which is amazing for a little camera. You can easily change the image quality from 4000x3000 down to 640x480. It has a glass lens instead of plastic one. I like the control button for navigating to different settings. They are easy to get to and understand. Exposure compensation is one of the many features I like, and it easy to change. One minus of the camera is that the flash output is only good for about 10' or less. Which is typical for compact cameras.For most people I think that this camera will be a great choice.

I've had a number of digital cameras over the years, but this was my first nikon purchase. I purchased at Target on Black Friday and definitely regret the waste of my time waiting in line to get such a poor camera. I liked the size, the color and the price and that it had a rechargeable battery. This purchase was a gift for my 11 year old daughter. I made sure to get a case for it right away. Well, inside the case, the darned LCD cracked, rendering the camera useless. First, you discover that unlike most digital cameras, the lcd is exposed, as opposed to being covered with a hard plastic covering. Then you do some research and figure that maybe you can replace the screen yourself for about 20 bucks, but WAIT, there is nothing for this model. Oh, and I forgot to include that when I went to register this camera, it's listed as a gray market camera, which means Nikon doesn't honor the warranty on it. I think this is highly unacceptable. I blame both Target and Nikon for this failure!

Well, like the first review, I purchased it on Black Friday. I actually purchased two different cameras and I am in the process of determining which one is better...I decided to "up" the stakes on the comments about photo quality. My old camera is a Samsung L60. Great little camera, but it's getting beat up and old. So I thought I would take advantage of the sales yesterday.So, what I did was take a series of photos from sitting on the sofa with each camera so I had true, side by side comparisons.This is what I learned...Out the window shot of leafless tress at max zoom... Nikon hands down had the better photo. Put my beloved Samsung to sham. Better Color, Better Clarity, Better everything across the board and this was at Max Zoom (Optical and Digital on both cameras).Next was an indoor photo of my computer. No zoom, about 3' away on generic auto program modes. Samsung's photo dominated this round. The Nikon photo was completely washed out, our tan sofa looked cream and my black computer looked gray.Next was a shot across our family room at our fireplace, 12' away, flash on and optical zoom max. Samsung won by slight lead only because of the color saturation, photo was soft. The Nikon's shot was sharper, but considerable darker, the flash did not carry.Last Shot was the same fireplace shot without flash. Nikon won this due to it's clarity. The Samsung was very blurry. Both had poor color saturation.MP comparison... My Samsung was a 6 and the Nikon was a 12. The Nikon was slightly improved over the Samsung in actual photo quality. I thought it would be a bit more of a visual difference, but it wasn't.Flash... The Nikon Flash didn't seem to travel pass about 8 feet. It only seemed to have one level of power on the flash regardless of how far away the subject matter is. The Samsung made it across the room without issue.Lag Time... Nikon much much better. The Samsung was about a 2 sec lag time compared to the Nikon which I didn't even notice.Flash Cycling... About the same. Takes a few seconds.Final thoughts... It's a good average camera. I paid $300 for the Samsung 4 years ago and the Nikon is $70 for pretty much the same camera with better lag time. So, it is worth it? If you are looking for a generic camera to take mainly non-flash pictures I think this would suit you very well. If you are taking a lot of indoor photos in need of a flash I would shift your attention elsewhere.Hope this helps...