I had this camera for about a year....loved it. That was until I got the black screen of death. It is not under waranty, was going to cost me 150 bucks to fix through Nikon...So I have switched to Pentax...the camera people. Don't ever get this camera...unless you get ans extended warranty

Paid about £200 in 2005/6, now can be picked up for about £80.
Fantastic compact camera, small and practle, easy to use, great battery life. Also withstands drops/knocks pretty well although dropping in any liquid is NOT recommended.

I bought this camera and 2 spare batteries second hand. In the 18 months that I've owned it I have not had a problem of any sort. The camera has performed faultlessly and always returned excellent results. I am particularly impressed with the length of recording time available in video mode, and occasionally use the voice recording facility as a dictaphone. The quality of the pictures is very good and the camera is so small and light. Combined with ease of use this is a superb, well made little camera. I have no intention of replacing it and will continue to use it until it ceases to function.

I have owned two of these cameras and the first one lasted me a good amount of time until I got the black screen.
I didnt know other people had the same problem and I thought it was from wear and tear because I did have the camera for about 2 years or so .
I decided to get the same one again since the first one lasted me for awhile but then I got the black screen again for the second one but this time after about 6 months.
And then I started seeing a bunch of other people complain about the black screen.
So just don't bother and get another camera or another brand.

OK I purchased 2 nikons s1 and s3 for my daughters within 6months of each other, with my eldest blaming my youngest for breaking both now realise that both are standard faults what compensation NONE the youngest suffer what i can only assume sand!! which was so say repaired under warranty fo all of 2 months, the eldests i guess jus gold old after 12 months NOT GOOD for a super little quality camera..

nice ..... NOT.

Bought this for my daugher and she experienced black screen of death just outside warranty period.

Will vote in the only way possible by NEVER buying a Nikon again.

I hope someone from the NIKON PR department reads these threads!

The small size of the camera is the only thing I can come up with. I got better results from my old 3.1MP Canon camera. The images were blurry, the camera made lots of extra noise, and to top it off it has decided that it will no longer turn on. I'm told that this is covered under the warranty, but honestly I don't believe I want it fixed, I am off to buy a new camera, I believe I am going back to canon.

I've had my Coolpix S1 for about 18 months now, with mixed results. The obvious pluses are the small size/weight, and the decent quality photos it takes. Slow shutter speed that has cost me countless shots, no matter how I've tried to adapt or approach those conditions. Also totally annoying that you can't get the tech details off the screen when reviewing a newly taken photo, couldn't find any way to eliminate them. Have consistently had terrible results in low light settings, the flash washes out and flattens the subject, very poor images as a result. Have had to photoshop all low light flash photos, and just can't get real quality results. No way to take low-light photos without the flash, as they blur no matter how carefully they're taken. I've set my camera on a stable surface and still have poor results. Had a whole night's worth of shots from a intimate music venue that had to be photoshopped with all manner of "artistic effects" in order to salvage any of the photos, none were useful as taken despite using the scene settings to select low light conditions. Had much better luck previously with an Olympus digital in those circumstances. Ultimately, I experienced what I've now found to be a common problem, an unprovoked "black screen" that essentially signals the death of the camera. Mine happened two months ago, so the camera was only about 16 months old and had never been dropped or abused. Taking photos at my daughter's wedding, suddenly nothing but a black screen appeared. I thought it was battery related, but recharged on the Nikon cradle, also put all settings back to their default setting and swapped out the SD card with no luck at all. It's been two months now of a useless camera that outlived it's one year warranty by four months. That's cutting it too close, and seems like all too common a problem to be ignored. There's now a Yahoo group for Coolpix S1 owners who've had the same "black screen" problem, and there seems to be no solution short of an expensive repair that likely exceeds the value of the camera itself. Better spent on a new and different camera, one that will be well-researched in advance of purchase.

Common theme regarding a majority of Nikon's digitals, after 12 or so months of use, the LCD screen goes black. Would not recommend this camera to anyone

My S1 is approx 1 year old. Purchased because of size, weight, and name. I am probably a C- caliber photographer. Take pics to refresh memory, not build a calendar, etc. Camera has been to Iceland and much of Europe.

Really Like: Size and weight

Really Dislike: Slow shutter or refresh rate.
Really Dislike: Very limited indoor/outdoor flash range (seems to be a issue with many such cameras).

Dropped! Yep, 2 times. Once about 3 feet to concrete floor. And it did bounce! Thought it was dead. Not yet. Auto focus mechanism chatters sometimes but seems to work ok.

Black Screen of Death: I get it once in a while. Did not have any idea what was going on until I read these reviews. My "Black Screen" does go away with I press zoom or on-off.

Summary: Was going to purchase a S1 (or similar) backup camera for next trip. Wanted similar because of extra battery, mem card, etc. Don't think I will get another Nikon based on general reviews.

i think its a great camera it has always worked great for me (and believe me it has been dropped from many hands!)i never had any trouble with it has held up very good! my only complaint would be its kinda slow,after you take one picture you cant just snap another one real quick you have to wait about five seconds. but i would definitely recommend this camera!

Worst digital camera I ever owned. Casio is much better in all respects and more reliable. Nikon S1 black screen came after just over 1 year. Pictures are not a good as other cameras, very inconsistent. I purchased another Casio. Many Nikon's have the same problems.

I have experienced the "Black Screen of Death" twice within five months and many other problems. Im studying abroad right now and just have this broken nikon camera and no pictures. Worse camera ever. Please dont buy it.

I bought this camera off a coworker because it was nice and small. The picture quality is adequate but not stunning by any means. I recently just experienced the "black screen of death". I didn't drop it, it just stopped working. The screen is black when in camera or video mode but you can still view the menu or play back pictures already taken. What a shame. I'm debating whether to bother sending it back since others have had similar problems repeat after repairs. I no longer have warranty so all costs could go towards a new camera.

This camera is horrible. The pictures always come out blurry and grainy. I've already had to get a fixed a few times.

I have gone through 4 nikon s1 cameras! every time i get it back from being fixed, the screen turns black and once again the camera is broken. Tech sent me a new s1 in the middle of December and it broke again just a few days ago. DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA, you're going to spend more time getting the camera fixed, than actually using it.

i have been using this cam for quite some time now and i am quite satisfied wiht it. it works perfectly in daylight but in the dark you get all blurry pictures
it is good if u r just starting ur photographic venture

I have never dropped the camera. So I haven't had the same breakage problems that some of the others listed. BUT...I am a newbie on digital photography and I'd rather have my old 35mm back! This thing takes the most HIDEOUS pictures! Maybe 8% of the pictures we have taken come out not blurry! The settings suck, and it always seems like either there is too much light or not enough, no matter what setting. And you have to set the camera on a table to get a clear picture! It's horrible!
Not to mention SLOWWWWWWWWW! I've missed out on so many awesome pictures of my 5 year old these past 10 months, and I am not planning on doing that with my twins that are due in 3 months. I'm replacing this camera. I thought about selling it, but I honestly don't have the conscience to do that it's so bad.

Like many of the previous reviewers, I also have a problem with the "black screen of death." The menu options are visible, but the screen only shows a hazy black. Sometimes it shows rapidly moving horizontal lines like a TV w/out reception. I can still view pics I took before it broke, but I can't take new ones.
This was a gift given to me for Christmas from my ex...and I'm certain I won't be able to get the receipt. So I'm up the river with no warranty.
I've been very careful with this camera, I didn't drop it or get it dirty. It just died suddenly.

Hey, my camera just stopped working today...one minute it was taking pics then the next all i can see is a blank screen..I bought the camera cus it looked really good and takes good pictures in comparison to other cameras..but had i realised that these cameras are prone to breaking i definitely would not have bought it..The funny thing is i didn let my camera fall or anything like that ..it was just in my hands when it stopped working...hopefull il get a replacement it s still under waranty...fingers crossed..

The shutter was stuck and returned for factory warrantee, now the camera does nothing but take blurred images, a complete waste of money. I bought because of the Nikon rep. Low end products like this ruin any good reputation.

Carry it everywhere, including camping and Hiking.
Had none of the problems experienced by others, and for its size, the pictures and quality are superb.
One of my better buys.

The camera is great for a small, pocket sized camera. but don't get it if you are AT ALL accident prone! I merely knocked it and the lense stopped working and all of the pictures i took were blank! I sent it back for repair and the comany crushed the camera on the way to the factory so i ended up being sent a brand new one. This brand new one.. has on almost every picture had spots and "ghosts". This totally ruins all of my pictures and none of them can be used. This happend with my old camera as well.
I am really not satisfied with this camera. So i would not recommend you to buy it.

I bought mine a year ago and at first was very impressed - but I took it on holiday and when I started to use the scene settings I found that most of them took blurry pictures and as an example the fireworks setting was not the best setting for fireworks and party/indoors was not best for indoors. I have always taken very good care of the camera and it has never been dropped or damaged. I found that I had to take multiple pictures of the same thing in different settings to try to get a good picture. Not very handy when your on a night out and want to take some quick snaps. Also I found the delay between pressing the button and the exposure was just to long. I got used to it but if you give the camera to someone else to take a pic for you then they click and move the camera - they've missed the shot. The blurriness of the pics got worse over time. I have just had the camera fixed buy Nikon. The scene settings seem to be better but in normal mode with no flash all the pics are still blurry. Going to have a baby next week and just hope that we get some good pics with it but I'm still a bit worried about it. Also I did spend a lot of time at the beginning going through the manual trying all the settings and getting familiar with the camera so I'd get the most out of it. Probably wouldn't buy one again but can't compare it to any other camera.

I agree with the other users of this poor camera, when you turned on its red eye reduction and all other image mode, you gonna miss a lot of shots because of its response is really slow. D-lighting feature doesnt make sense, the shots would still be blurred. This is just a waste of money! Buy something else!

MY Coolpix S1 broke about 15 days after it was bought. The store gave me a new one and now it broke again, same problem. The screen goes blank os that you cannot see anything. The same thing happened to my best frineds S1 I do not recomend this camera.

The first S1 I purchased worked for only 2 pictures and the lens would not open. The camerea was replaced and the 1 gb chip I purchased with it received an error message "this card cannot be used". After purchasing a second card while on vacation, I took nearly 300 pictures and out of the blue the same error message appeared, losing all of my pictures while on a trip to Italy. As of yet I am unable to recover anything from that card.

Over all I was happy with the performance and ease of use, takes great pictures. Short battery life, 30 or so pictures at normal settings.

very cool camera thin .its what people would want

Awesome camera at this price, too light and very portable, easy to use and carry. Only thing, its very-2 delicate. Single drop from anyone's hand will lead to serious consequences. Its has got a light body.

If you set the White Balance to cloudy. The indoor pictures come out great.I like what I see so far. You would figure that they would have put some kind of rubber protective band around the outside shape of the camera to prevent breakage from dropping. Something that you could take off if you wanted to. Would save many headaches for the owner and Sony.

This camera is glass. It fell off a table and onto the floor (carpeted) and the camera lens stopped working. Blank images. The pictures taken before were alright, the auto focus is really bad. The colors are ok, but can be better. Alot of spots and ghosting occurs. My canon was dropped from a moving car and is still operating fine with minimal bodily damage. The s1 has a dent from a carpeted floor! Going to see if I can get it repaired.. if ur prone to dropping ur hand helds, dont get this camera.

this camera is a very good tool for me being away from home i get to snap quick pics and enjoy them in high resolution!

I have now used this camera for a year - for travel and indoor shots of art work. It has performed extremely well - all shots are of high quality. I have been taking indoor shots like this for 25 years with SLR's - Nikon, Pentax, Minolta etc - and this little camera is no different. Fantastic images - amazing!

Initally, this seemed like a great new digital camera. After one month of owning this camera, I started my hesitation. I couldn't seem to take a picture that was not blurred. This was never a problem with my previous much older Sony DSC-50.

My realization that this was a real camera problem came after a trip to Syndey, Australia, when, in broad sunny daylight, my outdoor pictures of the Syndey Opera House, were BLURRY! This is absolutely unacceptable from any setting on any digital camera.

At 6 months old, it slipped off of the car seat and fell to the ground (in a padded case!) and the camera went blank. This seems to be a common problem from other reviews. Granted, Nikon quickly replaced the camera, but this seems like a serious design flaw to happen so easily, and frequently. (My poor old 5 year old Sony DSC was bashed around to no end.)

After 10 months of owning this camera, I'm convinced its of very poor design. The redeye is aweful, yet you'll miss a great shot if you use the redeye flash setting, as the response time of this camera is so incredibly slow. Your subjects have to stand perfectly still indoors for several seconds. Impossible with small children.

In the end, I am looking to replace this camera after a year. I am very, very disappointed from this quality of a camera from Nikon and the Coolpix line.

It amazes me that there are such cry baby consumers out there who do not know how to intelligently take care of consumer electronics and then complain that it stopped working because it "only" fell off the table onto the floor. Amazing. Cameras and most consumer electronics, especially something with a super accurate mechanism in a pocket size device like this should be intelligent enough to know that this is NOT a toy, it is NOT a frisbee, it is NOT a bouncing rubber ball. You drop it, it will likely break. Doh. Do these people take a DVD player back crying it does not work because they dropped it off the table onto the kitchen floor? Amazing, amazing, amazing.

For any camera, if it's too slim, it's difficult to hold with one hand and keep it steady, and the end result is blurry picture. Rule of thumb ... keep the camera steady by holding it with both hands, don't move the camera rite after you just press the button (pay more then maybe you can do that). Don't expect any compact camera to work like professional one. Only professional can take perfect pic while running (but only in the movie ;-) ) If you care about the pic that you're going to capture, sure the out come will be great with any camera. For the look, functions, and price, this is 4 stars. My friend has this one. If you're serious about picture then don't buy the camera for its look/slim/price and expect great picture like professional. Pay for the functions/pic quality, but of course don't pay big bucks for the camera that is not convenience to travel with.

Granted, this camera seems to work very well, is comprehensive, and takes high-quality photographs... that is, when it works.
Silly me has owned two S1s in the past six months; the first broke when it was accidentally dropped. The camera seemed 'blinded' after this occurrence; although the screen worked fine, the lens saw only blackness. Even worse, when I called tech support, they had no idea how to fix it. So silly me sent the (then three-day old) camera back in and they sent me another one. The same fate quickly befell the new camera.
The cameras were not slammed against the floor; they simply slipped off of tables. So if you have children in your home or are just the butter-fingers type, you might want to look elsewhere. After all, photo quality is expendable when the camera does not work.

i do like this camera especially the museum feature/mode but my problem is that most of the pictures that i take on indoor/party mode do not look good. more than half are blurred or have "ghosts". is there something wrong with my camera? i'm really having a hard using it on indoor mode.

S1 produce a great picture if you know what scene to use. If you are a bit lazy, Auto shot is enough to produce satisfactory images. If you want to take pictures in a room with light, use white balance fluorescent as it will remove some noise under Auto shot.

Outdoor, it produce excellent images under fine weather. The movie shot is excellent for outdoor and well-lit rooms.

Compared to other digital camera like Exilim and Sony Cybershot, I think Coolpix has sharper images.

Indoors, this camera does not perform. Photos are grainy, blurry and dark. Outdoors, the camera performs well and the small size makes it possible to take pictures when you'd otherwise not carry a larger camera

This is my 4th Nikon digital Coolpix camera (I've also had a Pentax digital) and I can say it is the worst camera (digital or film) that I have ever owned. The outdoor shots are mostly OK but I don't know which scene mode to select so I just use landscape even if I'm shooting a photo of something like a car outdoors.

The indoor shots are HORRIBLE. Maybe 10% of the 400 photos I've taken are acceptable but not great. The rest are pretty poor. Most have ghosting, are totally blurred, lots of noise, etc. I've tried several modes, red-eye, auto flash, AF/no AF, and nothing seems to help. If I use Portrait mode even with large groups, that seems to work the best. Party/Indoor takes the worst photos. I prefer to NOT have all of these scene options. My other cameras didn't have it and they worked great.

I bought this camera because of its small size and because of the luck I've had with my other Nikons (my husband has had 2 Nikon SLRs).

I took it on our vacation to France and Spain and don't have ANY indoor shots that were decent. The outdoor shots were marginal unless they were taken in broad daylight. My friend had a Canon and took photos at the same time as I was taking mine ... his were great and mine were awful.

Almost everyone else seems to rave about the picture quality of the S1 so maybe there is something wrong with my camera. I think I will contact Nikon and see if they will do anything to help me out.

This camera is by far the best compact camera I have ever purchased! Easy to use, great image quality. Fashionably sexy. One fabulous product!

This is an amazing little camera. The picture quality is excellent. The size and shape make it the perfect camera to take anywhere in your pocket. I have found 2 limitations however that are disappointing. First is the delay from the time you press the button to the time the exposure is made. Depending on how long it has been since the last exposure, the next one can take as much as 3 seconds. I have missed many great shots because of this delay. (seems inherent in Nikon digital cameras - I own two others) The other limitation is the fact that there is no way to view your image except the LCD display. It is a great, large, bright display, but when you are outside in bright sun light, it is difficult to see.

A pocket camera is not a pocket camera when it will not tolerate the pocket environment. The Nikon Coolpix S1 lens cover jams from sand and corrosion (diagnosis from Nikon's own repair invoice). My S1 is back for a second month-long repair due to this problem (representing about a 60% serviceability rate). My previous pocket camera stood the very same pocket environment for four years with no problems. The new S2 might be more robust with its new lens cover. Skip the S1.

This camera is for people that appreciate good shots but don't like to always carry their SLRs around. I've used the S-1 to shoot two ads for businesses. Normally, I'd would have shot with the D70, but the test pics were so good with the S-1 that there was no need to do more. Remember to use the safety strap around your wrist before you shoot. (Anyone that expects a camera, any camera, to bounce off the cement and be okay is naive.)
Technology is great when it works. Nikon has a winner with the S-1.

Very slim , portable easy to handle. Take great pictures. The best is that you can enhance pictures inside camera.

I had been looking for a great camera that was both a wonderful camera and one that was well, just cute. I thought i had found the perfect camera for me, the sony DSC-P200. It was a wonderful camera, compact, and had great reviews! I went to Best Buy to get the camera when I noticed the Nikon coolpix-S1 displayed right across from me! the camera was very appealing to me and I was soon looking at it and checking out what the camera could do. That day I ended up buying the coolpix camera and even though I have only owned it for less than a week I have grown to love it. I take pictures of anything and everything! I can take it with me everywhere because it is so small!

We initially bought the Nikon Coolpix 5900 but soon traded up as my wife found the S1 much easier to store in her purse and the LCD is huge!
Easiest camera to use and the software is great. So worth the money!!!

I'm not by any means a hardcore photographer. What I really love about this camera is the picture quality and the portability. I thought my CoolPix 3100 was tiny...well, clearly this blows it out of the water. If you're looking for an easy to use camera with great picture quality, and want to be able to take in anywhere without a hassle, this is a good choice. Only thing I don't like is that the camera was announced as coming in silver, white and black. I contacted NikonUSA to see when black would be available, and they said that only silver will be available in the states. Bummer.

I have owned several digital cameras, including the Nikon 2100 CoolPix, Olympus 3020 and a few other cameras. This Nikon s1 is by far the best camera I have owned. If you want a sleek camera that takes great pictures, and can fit in your pocket easily, this is the camera for you. No camera bags needed for this baby, take it everywhere. I took it on my trip to Las Vegas and California over the last 2 weeks, and snapped 300+ photos. It took GREAT photos, with great detail, scenic shots, landscape, with amazing detail. 12 different types of easy to use automatic shots, portrait, landscape, sports, night, party, beach/snow, sunset, dusk/dawn, night portrait, close up, museum, fireworks, backlight, panorama, underwater (underwater casing is extra), movie modes.

I'm on vacation for 4 days in Toronto and I received the S1 just 1 day before leaving Orlando, so I really had no time to play with the S1 before arriving in Toronto. On Saturday I went sightseeing downtown and took many photos of the stunning architecture, the great high-rise buildings, the myriad of different people, etc. Then yesterday I tool lots of pictures of my children and grandchildren.

Last night I view them on the computer. Of 311 pictures, only 3 were blurred and unacceptable. The other 308 are quite incredible. Outdoors the colors and detail are excellent and the ones taken indoors with a flash are quite good. (I have just experienced a terrible 3 months with the Sony T1... what a disaster of a camera. The most pathetic indoor pictures I have ever seen, with and without a flash). So, my first weekend of results with the Nikon S1 has been a wonderful experience. Great pictures from a great-looking camera. And the battery-life appears to be very good. More than 200 pictures on Saturday, with lots of charge still left in the battery. The next day close to 100 shots, many with flash, and lots of life from one overnight charge. I have not experimented with the different automatic settings but if they anywhere near as good as the Nikon D70 which I also own, it'll be great.

Thanks, Nikon for a wonderful, easy to use, great results camera.

It's cool, good looking, very stylish. Images are good enough for a ultra compact camera. LCD is large, large fonts, a little bit bright under the sun but good enough to see through. There is the possibility to make slide show...cool! I would like a better flash. Battery has a long life (150 shots with flash always on and I think it can do more don't using always flash).

We had the camera for a short period of time when my son pulled off the table and onto floor. The screen went black. The screen worked in the play mode but not in camera mode. I am glad, it was under warranty.
I am however hesitant to replace it with another S1. I did not like the lack of viewfinder, I needed my reading glasses to see the object.
The flash was not enough for areas less than fully lit.

This camera is great! I previously owned a Canon Powershot that I purchased 5 years back - only had 2.1MP (was a lot "back in the day") But this camera is amazing - I especially love the preset photo conditions built into this camera - Before, if i wanted to take a good picture in low light, i had to guess at the exposure level and place on tripod to steady camera - This camera does it all for you!! You still need a steady hand, but make shooting pictures a no brainer. As far as the other review concerning the pinkish cast - I did notice that too, but once I went into the setting of the camera and placed on automatic white balance - it corrects this issue and the colors are so true to the actual scene. I can go on and on about this camera - Was hesitant on spending this much for one, but I am so glad I did. I was not sure how i would like not having an optical viewfinder, but do not even miss it now and wonder how I ever "squinted" on eye and looked with another LOL. I hope this review will help others - **Tip - I bought screen protecters for the 2.5" LCD and also placed strip on the front of the camera (not covering lens of course) - the camera is a bit slippery without, and these strips provide a better grip in addition to protecting your camera from scratches... a must have for this one.

The one-star review above is obviously from either an incompetent crank or it's a 'planted' ding review from the competition!

This is my 25th digital camera; I am a longtime pro photographer, and I own Canon, Nikon, and Fuji dslrs, as well as several p/s cameras. This Coolpix S1 Nikon takes pictures of exceptional quality from a tiny point and shoot; no one will confuse it's pics with a dslr's output, but it is flexible, capable, and smoothly free of undue noise even at ISO 400. Colors are great right out of the camera- WB is accurate and consistent, and the flash is reasonably powerful. The lack of chromatic aberrations, lack of purple fringing and the strong edge-to-edge sharpness and detail is fantastic for a p+s digicam- far better than the Canon SD400, et al., and even better in this regard than the Leica-lens equipped Panasonic FX7... the S1's ability to set accurate exposures, even in difficult, high-contrast/saturation situations, is the best in the 'Credit Card' sized digicam class, and superior to many larger and more expensive cams from both Canon and Nikon. Movies are great, considering they are limited to 15 fps, and the anti-glare coated lcd is far superior to the Panasonic FX7's, for example, even in strong outdoor light.

All in all, a well-earned 5 stars- pay no mind to the 'one-star genius' above- I doubt he's even used it!

Best super compact in my book....features and price make it unbeatable!! Definitely a benchmark setter.....

First of all, the opinions "Numero Uno" and "Fantastic camera" were posted before the camera came out (May 1), so they are either accidentally referring to the wrong camera or lying.

I like this camera a lot, the D-lighting function ruins the image (tons of noise, it looks like a comic book) but at least it only makes a copy instead of trashing the original picture. In-camera cropping could help preserve memory card space, at the cost of battery life since you have to crop the image and then erase the original. The internal zoom is good, the camera has a high quality feel (the dock does not, but who cares), the pictures seem pretty good to me. The camera is good in low lighting due to the AF illuminator lamp, which lights up the subject in a dim orange so that the camera can focus. The red eye reduction system is EXCELLENT. There are a lot of photo assist modes, the only one I've used much is the face recognizing portrait mode. The face recognition software seems to be able to target faces, as long as they're turned towards the camera. Glasses don't confuse it, and I've gotten it to identify 2d faces on TV, the mirror or paper. The blur warning is nice, although I've taken some blurry pictures without being warned. The video mode is great for a non-Sony compact digital camera, but it uses the Apple quicktime format, so Windows users must have that downloaded (it's free). Of course at the highest setting, it will eat any video card very quickly. I like the elegant look of the camera, girls seem to think it's cute.

Things oddly missing are a 2 or 3 second timer (the only option is 10sec), which is very helpful for taking non blurry pictures with a tiny camera, and a little target at the center of the LCD screen to tell you what exactly the camera is focusing on. Also, although it's a nice big screen it is a little hard to see in bright sunlight but it's your only option since there's no optical viewfinder. Still, the LCD is recessed a little bit which should help keep it unscratched.

I bought the S1 for my wife for Mothers' Day, and she couldn't be more pleased. It is remarkably small and light, and easily carried in a pocket, let alone a purse. My wife is not about to become involved with f-stops and depth-of-field considerations, so the ability to simply match a "Scene" setting with the subject, and to use the "Assist" functions, makes it easy for her to take photos that rival my D70. The one-button upload feature (for us, with Mac's iPhoto) eliminates any computer issues.

I understand that a hyper-technical analyst might appropriately find shortcomings in this little camera compared to much more expensive and bulky products, but for anyone looking for effortless portability as well as high-quality, enlargeable photos, I can't imagine anything better.

P.S. It is very worthwhile to spend an hour getting familiar with the various Scene and Assist settings--they are remarkably well thought-out.

It took me a lot of time and research to find that this small beauty was coming before the new sony T-7, besides the price (less expensive) it is smaller but not thinner than the new sony, but a lot easier to handle, great pictures with easy settings, great camera.

I'm into film myself, so I only chose a digital because I needed a point and shoot that was slightly more convenient than a bulky SLR. I was really familiar with the Nikon brand (I own a Nikon N75) and have been pleased with the feel of their cameras in the past. This camera is well priced and has great features. The 2.5" LCD is very helpful, and the internal zoom (not digital) is very high quality. The balance is great and the picture quality is excellent. The only problems I have with this camera are that the BSS (Best Shot Selector) is hard to work with and always wants to use a flash, but when I turn that feature and the flash off it selects a very slow shutter speed which, with such a small camera, can lead to some bad blur in the pictures. I also wish that there was a completely manual mode for the camera, but the ISO selector in the camera is very nice. I would recommend this camera to anyone looking for a good digital point-and-shoot camera or anyone that is wanting to get into digital photography and/or digital image editing.

I am very disappointed. I am not after perfection, but I have compared the S1 with my two Minolta Dimages - a battered old 3MP Xt and the 5MP X50. I assumed that the Nikon, with it's ED glass and its reputation would win hands down. How wrong can you be?

I have taken a limited set of side-by-side pictures: my study bookshelf in natural low light (a good test of colour, noise, detail, and corner-to-corner sharpness); high contrast, bright, naturally lit objects indoors; indoor objects under bright incandescent lights; and the garden, trees, telephone cables, etc in bright daylight. In each case I took two pictures with each of the three cameras using Auto White Balance for all and both ISO50 and AutoISO settings. If there was any danger of camera shake then I used a tripod and/or the self-timer.

Results/p>

Colour: this was the first surprise: the Nikon has a distinct greenish cast in (almost) all situations. Even the lawn looks too green. Despite a pinkish cast under some circumstances, the X50 is quite clearly the closest to neutral/natural colours in most situations. The Xt has a washed-out blueish cast.

Colour aberration (purple fringing): the S1 is better than the X50, but nevertheless suffers in the corners.

Detail: even my old 3MP Xt beats the S1 hands down. The X50 is better still. Now maybe the Xt has a lot of in-camera sharpening and noise reduction – maybe too much for some tastes – but the end result is clearly superior. I guess the X50 has in-camera sharpening as well, but they've struck a good compromise, in my opinion. On the basis that there is less in-camera treatment in the Nikon, I have tried to level the playing field by sharpening the Nikon's pictures in Photoshop with various USM settings, and also tried Focus Magic, but try as I may, I could not squeeze much more out of the originals.

Corner-to-corner detail: the Nikon is simply terrible in the corners - quite astonishingly blurred. The Xt is good by comparison: the X50 is even better.

Noise: Regardless of ISO50 or AutoISO, the Nikon is VERY noisy. I know that reviewers say that it has low in-camera noise-reduction and that is a good thing, but I found it offensive. Said reviewers say that noise reduction blurs detail. You don't need to worry about that with the Nikon – it doesn't have the detail to begin with (see above). (The X50 is also noisy – possibly noisier than the Xt – but the compromise on detail is acceptable.)

Add to that the lack of an optical viewfinder (meaning that we long-sighted folk of a certain age have to rummage for our specs to see the screen) and I will not be keeping it.

I am most surprised that Nikon allowed the S1 to be launched, given their previous reputation-knocking experience with the SQ.

Hello Everyone. Nikon Coolpix 1 is really a great camera. It is very attractive and unique and functions are excellent. I recommend it to everyone. Thanks.

Really great camera. Especially at 5.1 mb pixels. Hard to destroy.