Nikon L6: A compact Versatile Camera.

I have taken 200 pics and 12 videos in one week. A friendly camera, learning and opinion as follows:-

1. Colors: True and natural. Just captures the real colors. This is the best quality. You capture what you see.
2. Buttons and Functions: Simple, heuristic, no need to do a serious reading of the book.
3. Settings: The options are varied, good. Liked the video capture options very much i.e. for options for computer size image, TV size image and TV* image size. Videos on projection up to 5ftX 4 ft look good. For video presentations, Audio capture: has noise while play back on the camera. The noise is much lower when played on computer or projector. A steady background hiss. Mostly, because microphone faces forward, hence the commentary spoken from behind has poor noise to signal ratio. But it is fine.
4. Still Snaps; Good. A 3 MP size image is about 400 KB. Used for presentations. Lower resolution is also available. At high end, 6 MB it is perfect.
5. Body: Sturdy, compact. Impressive and austere, no unnecessary contours, labels, very somber looking.
6. LCD: 2.5 inch, in bright sun, the image is not visible, this is understandable.
7. No standard optical view finder. The LCD and Camera hibernates very quickly after 15 to 20 secs non use. Great on battery
8. Battery: 2 AAs cells. Great. This means one can use the camera right out of the box, no need to carry charger, no need to buy additional battery lithium for 40 to 50 $, when run out, just pop in fresh two AAs. Rechargeable AAs of 2700 mA are very good indeed. Carry 2 spare in office bag.
9. Video Zoom. All new digital compacts either do not have zoom whilst recording or the zoom jumps in multiples of 1x. This is jumpy. I miss the smooth step-less 4x optical to 4 x digital continuous 16x smooth zoom of my Kodak 4 MP. I tested: mostly all new compacts now have a zoom in video capture that goes boom boom 1x 2x 3x ....Can not fault Nikon for this.
10. What did I want? I wanted a compact traveling, high quality work camera, always in my laptop case, which is also great for the family/home pictures. I got that in Nikon L6.

Pros:-
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1- Small and compact, yet not too small to be uncomfortable to hold. (Cameras are going back to being slightly bigger than credit cards to lower the effect of shaky hand and blurry images.

2- Uses AA batteries. Great lifespan with 2100mah NIMH rechargeable.

3- Picture quality especially in well lit surroundings is truly impressive. darker areas are not too bad either.

4- Movie clips upto 1GB in size is quite nice. This translates into about 18mins of recording on the highest setting.

5- Auto shut-off is relatively fast which avoids wasting battery life.

6- has a blur warning, to let u know if u have taken a picture which will be too blurry for printing. Does this immediately after taking the picture, so u can take a second one.

Cons:
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1- Flash is a bit week. Pix taken in very dark places (bar, club,..etc) are a bit grainy, but nothing too excessive however.

2- There is no setting to review the pix taken without having the lens extend on power-up, or when connecting camera to a pc to download images. In other words the lens is always protruding from the camera when it powered up. This shortens the mechanisms life and makes the camera somewhat harder to pass on to other to see pictures. and can be damaged easily.

3- Cannot zoom movie clips when recording has started ( this is the case with most cameras these days).

4- Flash takes too long to recharge between pictures.

5- Becuase of the flash recharge delay, u are not able to review pictures already taken, until the flash has finished re-charging for the next picture.

I wanted to try and cover issues that other reviewers may not point out. I have to say however, except for "Con #5", the other issues aren't major to me. Overall I like the camera and don't regret buying it.

This camera is a very simple model that leaves a lot of controls off, but gets the main part right, that is producing nice prints. It is rather slow for these days ,mainly flash recycle speed and focusing in low light. On the bright side, the use of two AA batteries is great and they last a long time, much better than an expensive lithium rechargeable. The looks are kind of boring but OK after I got used to it. also the LCD is low res ,you don't get all the goodies at a low price. Fits in a pocket, nice and slim without being too tiny. I like mine for when I want to go small and simple.

Pros:
Price
Simplicity
Features
Quality results in normal environments

Cons:
Recycle time in flash modes unacceptable!
If you need to repeat a shot you must wait 6-10 seconds before ready. This will not work in spontaneous shooting or gatherings with restless people especially kids. Nothing beats continuous mode in SLRs.
Consider Canon for speedy digital point and shoot.

This is an excellent little tool for mobile videoblogging and video podcasting. The video image is one of the best I've seen from a point-and-shoot camera and the audio's not half bad, either. It's small enough to fit in your pocket, has long battery life and nice color. Can't beat it for the price!

My girlfriend and I just went on a road trip and used the camera for our day videos (watch them at thepovertyjetset.blip.tv). I was more than thrilled with it's performance.

I bought it for my wife's Christmas present. I compared pictures with ones I took from my CANON A70, which is out of market now. The sharpness is good. No doubt about both Nikon and Canon are good lens makers. But speed of focus and shutter is slow. Too much noise when shots taken under low light. I am doubting Nikon is not good in eletronical industry. If the price is your concern, Nikon Coolpix L6 is a choice. Otherwise, I would recommend CANON any models as a better pick.

The camera is a good product with a great price. It was delivered within the timeframe promised.

i bought this camera based on an older 3mp version a friend of mine has that i liked. the older model is far superior. this camera is slow to focus, slow to shoot, and slow to save. i took 5 pictures in a row of the same thing in the same lighting condition (indoor, medium light) on the automatic setting, all 5 pictures turned out different, only one turned out clear. i returned it the next day and bought a cannon that i am very happy with.

This camera has been a joy to use and lives up to my expectations!
I love the size and ease of use. The pictures are great. I definitely would recommend this camera to anyone.

There's lots to like about this camera. Perhaps #1 is the extremely long battery life of up to l,000 photos on 2 AA Lithium batteries (approx. $5.50 replacement cost), with an indicator right in the LED viewer for how many shots left on the batteries. It has a strong metal case and is very compact. It offers fully automatic photo setting, or flip it to the scene mode for all your manual adjustments. The picture quality is good.

Disappointing. This is my 4th digital camera and I thought this was an upgrade. At 6 megapixels, I expected sharp, crisp photos, but they are not. Writing to the card after each shot is very slow. Look for something else.

easy to use. produce pretty good quality.
it takes pretty long to process between the shots. So you won't be able to take quick continuous shots. But for the price it is pretty good value

Poor and slow Focus and flash. Thought Nikon had a good name.......Wrong
If you like this camera it must be you first digital.

This is my second digital camera; I've been using most recently a Nikon 35mm and though it probably isn't fair to make comparisons, I do find this little digital to be every bit as responsive and easy to use as the 35mm. I haven't noticed any lack of speed in shooting, etc. Maybe that's because this camera is used mostly for pleasure rather than business, so I can take a more relaxed attitude. I think for the price and all the options it does offer, the L6 is a fine choice and I would not hesitate to recommend it. I'm merely a hobbyist when it comes to photography, and again, maybe that's why my attitude is more relaxed. I don't demand anything much other than a good final product, and my new L6 delivers that!

I bought this camera for my girlfriend and she loves it. It has all the basic functions her older Coolpix had abut more and they're a bit more user friendly.
Pros: Compact and easy to Hold. I've had a few other Point and Shoots and they feel like they are going to jump out of my hand. This one feels pretty good.
Cons: Before buying I read the reviews and a few were stating that the focus was not everything it should be. I will agree. That is the cameras only real big down fall. Though my girlfriend may not notice it so much, to me it's a little more aparant.
For the most part, overall I really like this little guy...

It takes too long to focus and shoot! This, coupled with the very long time it takes to write to the memory card, well, it is horrible. People who write in saying they didn't notice the the slow focus and writing, must be either paid by Nikon or total nubs.

Do not buy this camera.

It did take decent movies, and the size is nice.

My wife got me this camera for christmas and the greatest feature it has is that I did not have to charge the batteries once since I got it (4 months now). During that time I took approximately 600 pictures and made about 20 videos. It is perfect for the non-professional photographer. Makes it easy to choose the setting for various occassions (party, indoor, night, panorama, etc.) and it takes great overal pictures. I think this camera is great for people who like to take occassional pictures of friends, at partys or on vacation. Good buy for the price. I would definately recommend it.

P.S. Get at least a 512 MB memory card!

I was expecting a better product from Nikon.
The quality of the images is not the problem, in fact is quite good. I think that the first problem of the camera is that it doesn't have image stabilization, this makes virtually imposible to take pictures without flash or a tripod couse it will allways be blured.
Movies are also shaking a lot because of the same problem.
I've read about the time it takes to turn on and that it takes a lot of time to recharge the flash between shots and I bought it knowing that, but using the camera you notice that after every picture you take.

1. Easily accessible menus to change camera settings. Less used settings are deeper in the menus. One touch flash control is nice.
2. LCD is a good size for framing shots and reviewing.
3. Accessing and downloading images does not require the use of the included CD software. Just plug into USB slot [either Win2K or XP] and the PC enumerates the camera as a drive. This is good for those of us who have other imaging and editing software and don't want to install the basic Nikon package.
4. Must have taken over a hundred shots on a charged pair of NiMH batteries.
5. Image pixel resolution is programmable. 3Mp is very clear for viewing and printing.
6. Works fine with 1GB SD card; max spec'ed in user guide.
7. As others have mentioned, the fact that the lens extends anytime the camera is turned on is a problem. I originally bought a soft case for it and found the lens extended one time when I went to take it out. An error message was on the screen. Power button must have gotten pressed. Got a hard case after that.

Over all a good size, feature set, and battery life.

Just a few notes from using this camera after having owned an HP, Olympus, and Sony digital camera.

1. The Nikon has no manual focus mode but the autofocus is not bad. If you do a lot of low light work, a camera with an infrared focus beam like the Sony is better. With the the infrared beam, the camera can focus in total darkness.

2. The manual only mentions SD memory cards to 1 GB but a store let me try a 2 GB, X60 card and it worked almost doubling the number of photos and increasing the movie record time to about 30 minutes in the highest quality, 640x480 resolution, 30 frames/sec mode. My camera has firmware version 1.0 so it is likely all L6's can use a larger memory. One person has reported it will take a 4 GB memory ( not the SDHC type but plain SD ). I cannot verify that however.

3. Some reviewers here have noted slow writing times to memory but remember that speed depends not only on the camera but the speed of the memory. Most SD cards with no speed indicator write at about 1.5 MB/sec. The high speed cards mentioned in the manual are X66 ( means 66 times 150KB/sec ) which achieve write speeds of 10 MB/sec.

4. The L6 can zoom during movie mode but the zoom is digital not optical. Also, you can hear the focusing mechanism noise on the soundtrack in movie mode.

5. Having had batteries go dead at the most inopportune times, a camera that uses common AA's is a plus.

6. The L6 only has one metering mode unlike some cameras that can switch between spot and center weighted average. The many scene modes make up for this but one caveat. The blur warning available in non-scene mode does not work in scene mode.

7. Macro Mode was a pleasant surprise. Both my Sony and the Nikon focus to about the same distance in macro mode but there is a big difference in the results. The Sony achieves the close distance in wide angle mode. At maximum zoom, the Sony requires moving the camera back from the object. The Nikon is the opposite. It requires moving back ( not as much as the Sony ) at wide angle and it meets its close focusing distance specification at maximum optical zoom.

8. The battery compartment. The L6 has a locking latch on the battery compartment door and the door opens by being pulled out towards the front of the camera. It may not seem like much unless you have owned an Olympus which had a battery compartment door on the bottom with no latch and that opened by sliding along the long dimension of the camera. Many times I would reach in my pocket to find the door open and the batteries having fallen out of the camera.

I bought this camera on clearance at a local Target for $100 and even at that price think I paid too much for it. Outdoor shots with plenty of light are great, however anything indoors where the flash needs to be used are not. The flash takes an incredibly long time to recharge, and gives an unnatural illumination - deer in the head lights look. If you turn the flash off, there is no no image steady option besides bss (shoots multiple shots and picks the sharpest one). Also low light images have a tremendous amount of noise. The video recorder feature is great as long as you don't want sound. You hear the noise of the focusing motor over anyone talking, which is annoying and makes any audio unusable. The only plus to this camera is it's size, but even that can't compensate for it's quality issues. I would not buy this camera again.

Camera gets 3 stars, but Nikon customer service gets 5.

Camera has a tendency to turn itself on when in the case. The lens kept trying to open against resistance and eventually failed. I think it was because holding down the Play button, which is prominent on the back side, turns the camera on and needlessly opens the lens. So forget about slipping it into a pocket or backpack or anything else you'd like to be able to do with a compact.

However, even though I didn't have the receipt, I sent it back to Nikon and it was repaired quickly free of charge. I mailed it to them on a Friday, and had it back 10 days later, 4 of which were weekends, and 4 of which were in transit. I was pleased.

This is actually our second time buying this camera. My 15 year old bought this camera once with her own money and loved it, so we were very sad when it met an untimely end after falling out of her sweatshirt pocket, over a balcony, down 3 stories into a parking lot of a hotel we were at on vacation. Miraculously, the memory card was spared and she was able to pull all her pics from there. When it came time for her to get a new camera she and I both spent alot of time searching different cameras but she ultimately bought this one again. It does everything she needs and she uses pretty much all the features on it. It's very easy to understand all the features and access them. Its a great camera, takes good pics, has decent video for what she needs with her friends and aside from the crash landing we've had no problems with either one.

Do not buy if you are taking pictures of anything alive!! If you like to wait for 10 secs of smiling before the picture snaps this camera is for you. What a great camera for still shots, but the shutter speed is the slowest I have ever seen. I cannot express enough how slow it is.

Hi, for those who want to buy this camera, it's great, but I have to correct some of the things said in the previews review.

- You can watch pictures withouth the lens opened. If the camera is tured off, just press the "play" button for 3 seconds and the camera turns on without the lens out.
- Also when recording videos, you can zoom while recording, not wile playing it which is different. While you're recording a video you can zoom + or - whatever you desire, and then you see the playback as you record it, but not zooming it because it's a video file...

In other words, great camera for the value, Nikor lenses gives great definition of picture, the red eye fixed works great, and with easy menu manageability (which doesn't work with Sony and others)...

to the 3 weeks of bought the optica mechanism big step, without to have received blow some. Showing the message of error in optica.

I've had this since February of 2007, so after 20 months of heavy usage, I'm commenting on it.

Few cons: Low maximum ISO setting, flash takes a bit long to recharge ONLY when the batteries get to around or below 1/2 life. And the flash can come off as somewhat weak, but it's not an advanced point and shoot or an SLR, so it's somewhat acceptable for a much less expensive model.

Pros: Everything else! All the shooting modes work great for just about any situation you may find yourself in. The different color modes work flawlessly when in AUTO (only available in AUTO). Videos are pretty fantastic for such a budget minded camera. I've taken many videos from vacations, in the shop at work, at car shows... and all were great. The visuals are sharp as well as the surprisingly good audio quality.

-Outperforms Kodak Z1275/Z1285(twice the MP's of this L6) and is just as good if not better than the Olympus FE-340(which is another great little camera, by the way). All of which I have used, and this Little L6 constantly takes better shots.

I've gotten used to it's capabilities now, so any bad shots are usually my fault.

Great buy! Never had an actual problem. I would highly recommend the L6 as either a first camera or a carry along/back up for just about anyone. No disappointments here.

I've had this Coolpix for a couple of years and am ready to upgrade. The flash just takes way too long to recharge, and indoor shots are nowhere near as good as those taken outside in natural lighting. All of the special settings don't seem to make a significant difference in the quality of the photos, and I feel like this was a bit pricey for such a basic camera. Despite what others have written, the battery life for this model has been really bad -- and I've used both regular AA and rechargeable batteries.