Review: Nikon CoolPix S6900

Introduction and features

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The selfie has become a part of everyday culture these days. Smartphones, with their forward facing cameras, have perhaps facilitated this trend, and it shows no sign of disappearing.

It can be a little more difficult to achieve the same effect with a standard compact camera, as you generally have no way of knowing exactly where you're pointing the lens for framing your best side.

That is, unless you pick up something like the Nikon Coolpix S6900, which has a fully articulating screen which can be flipped round to face forward. What's more, there's also an inbuilt camera stand which means you can prop the camera up to go hands free and banish that pesky arm-in-shot type photo.

Look, no hands! The CoolPix S6900 has a fold-out stand for selfies.

Alternatively, you can use Gesture Control to trigger certain operations, including the shutter release.

Designed specifically with parties in mind, other features for the self-snapper include self-wide mode, which combines a sequence of shots to capture group shots, and self-collage, which enables you to combine nine different faces to combine them into a single photo booth style grid.

There's also inbuilt Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity to hook up the camera to your smartphone for quick sharing on social networks and the like.

Of course, you can also use the S6900 as a normal camera. It features a 16 million pixel backlit CMOS sensor, a 12x optical zoom (which gives you 25-300mm in 35mm terms), 20 different scene modes and the ability to add 33 different post-shot image effects.

Nikon CoolPix S6900

Full HD video recording is also included.

Build Quality and Handling

The overall body size of the S6900 is bulked out a little by the fully articulating screen on the back of the camera. The screen folds out completely from the body to face forward and downwards to accommodate for a variety of awkward angles. It also folds into the body to protect the screen from damage.

Behind the screen you'll find the arm which can be pulled out to act as a stand – you can either use the stand horizontally, or vertically – this is designed to help with selfies and group pictures. To make it easier still, there's a shutter release button on the front of the camera, but you will need to steady the camera with your hand to use it.

The screen itself is touch sensitive, which means you can use it to trigger the shutter release too. There are no buttons on the back of the camera, with the bulk of operation taking place via the screen. Unfortunately, the screen is not as responsive as it could be, sometimes requiring more than one tap to get the desired effect.

Nikon CoolPix S6900

The self-timer mode is useful if you want to take selfies but, annoyingly, you have to activate the self-timer every time you want to use it, meaning if you're taking more than one photo you'll have to keep repeating the process.

On top of the camera you'll find the device's only physical buttons, including an on/off button, a Wi-Fi button, a video record button and the shutter release. Around the shutter release is a rocker switch for zooming the camera's lens. Zooming is pretty quick and fluid, and you can reach the telephoto end pretty quickly.

Nikon CoolPix S6900

To change shooting modes, press the green camera icon on the right hand side of the screen, from here you'll be able to choose between scene auto selector, scene mode, special effects, smart portrait and glamour mode.

On the left hand of the screen you'll see of the most commonly used settings – exposure compensation, macro focusing, self-timer and flash. For more advanced settings, you can press the menu icon just above the camera icon. Here you'll be able to change settings such as white balance, ISO (sensitivity), colour options and so on.

To use the Wi-Fi functionality, first you need to press the dedicated Wi-Fi button on top of the camera. From here you'll be prompted to connect your device – a password will be displayed. Once you've connected your device once, it should remember the password. You will also need to download Nikon's free Wireless Mobile Utility. Alternatively, if you have an NFC enabled device, you simply need to touch the two together to form a connection - the first time you do this, you will be prompted by the Google Play store to download the app; after that, the app should load automatically when the two devices are touched.

From the app, you can view the images on the camera's memory card, or take photos remotely, which is another useful option for group shots and selfies. It's worth noting, however, that control is limited to zooming the lens and firing the shutter release – you can't change any other settings.

Image quality and resolution

As part of our image quality testing for the Canon PowerShot G7 X, we've shot our resolution chart.

Click here to see a full explanation of what our resolution charts mean.

Examining images of the chart taken at each sensitivity setting reveals the following resolution scores in line widths per picture height x100:

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

Full ISO 125 image, see 100% crops below:

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 125, score: 16. Click here for full-resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 200, score: 16. Click here for full-resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 400, score: 14. Click here for full-resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 800, score: 12. Click here for full-resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 1600, score: 12. Click here for full-resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 3200, score: 12. Click here for full-resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 resolution

ISO 6400, score: N/A. Click here for full-resolution image.

Sensitivity and noise images

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

Full ISO 125 image. See 100% crops below.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 125. Click here for full resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 200. Click here for full resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 400. Click here for full resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 800. Click here for full resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 1600. Click here for full resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 3200. Click here for full resolution image.

Nikon CoolPix S6900 noise

ISO 6400. Click here for full resolution image.

Performance and verdict

If the light is great, this camera performs pretty well. Colours are vibrant and punchy, and detail is resolved to a decent enough standard if you're going to be printing or viewing images at A4 or less.

However, as the light drops and you're forced to use higher sensitivities, the performance is less than impressive. ISO 800 is the maximum I would recommend using, unless you're particularly desperate and you can't use flash. At ISO 1600, detail becomes very smudgy, even when looking at the pictures at reasonably small sizes, and it becomes worse still at ISO 3200 or ISO 6400.

On the plus side, the camera's automatic white balance system copes well with different lighting conditions, and doesn't result in images with overly warm tones under artificial lighting. You can change this setting though if its proving particularly problematic, though.

Similarly, the camera's all-purpose metering system does a decent job of producing accurate exposures in the majority of conditions. You might find in particularly bright or high-contrast situations, dialing in some positive or negative exposure compensation helps to produce a more balanced image.

Focusing is a little problematic at times, especially when trying to take close-ups. Even with macro mode activated, the camera can struggle to focus, and what's worse can sometimes produce false positives - suggesting that focus has been acquired when it clearly hasn't. On a more positive note, focusing at longer distances (such as when photographing landscapes) is much better – especially in good light.

At the furthest reach of the telephoto optic, detail is resolved well, and it is perhaps only in this area that the S6900 is a better choice than the average mobile phone. There's also a digital zoom, which although not as good as the optical zoom, isn't too bad – and useful if you're really desperate to get closer to a subject.

Verdict

It seems as if camera manufacturers are intimidated by the onslaught of mobile phones, and are producing cameras like this in a bid to compete.

While this is a good camera if the light is good, or if you need a zoom lens, for the most part, your smartphone is likely to be capable of taking just as good, or probably better, shots.

If you already own a smartphone equipped with a great camera, and there is an abundance of these nowadays, the S6900 only makes sense if you really want a completely separate camera. This can be handy if you're looking for a holiday camera, or something to sling in your bag or pocket on a night out and not have to worry about battery life or similar problems associated with smartphones.

It's a shame though that the camera couldn't be just a little bit better. It's a fun idea having the stand to help with selfies, but the touchscreen is nowhere near as responsive as the average smartphone, which makes it frustrating to use at times. It's nice to see easy to use Wi-Fi/NFC integration, but it could be better by offering you greater control when using the app.

We liked

The stand really does help when shooting hands-free selfies, and it can be used in either a portrait or horizontal orientation for maximum flexibility. The addition of a front facing shutter release button and a touch sensitive screen also helps when using the screen flipped out and facing forward.

We disliked

In low light and higher sensitivity settings, the image performance isn't great, with smudgy, noisy photos at the upper end of the scale. It's not particularly unusual for a compact camera of its kind, but something which most smartphones are dealing with better at the moment.

Final Verdict

The Nikon S6900 is a decent compact for holidays, parties and so on, and the articulating, touch sensitive screen makes it fun to use at times. It's just a shame image quality couldn't be a bit better.