Ratings: 3/5
Price: $87
Website: www.pixmania.co.uk
Nowadays, when mobile phones could take photos quite
beautifully, why do you have to be concerned about a cheap dedicated camera?
There are 2 reasons we can think about. Firstly, a camera has optical zoom, a
feature that camera designers haven’t still installed inside the mobile phone.
Secondly, there are people who don’t own camera phone. They are too young and
not affordable for a smartphone or they don’t want it. However, they still want
the camera.
Nikon Coolpix L25
Nikon L25 serves these groups. It’s cheap, quite simple to
the most people who are not familiar with hi-tech and it has 5x zoom lens.
However, there isn’t optical stabilization system – a rare feature at this
price but it has been heard. In addition, there isn’t direction sensor, so
portrait format photos have to be rotated manually on the PC. Plastic body is
swelled and the use of AA batteries makes its low price isn’t secret, but Nikon
tried to mount 3-inch screen into its slim appearance. It even comes with 2
years of warranty.
Controls are pretty basic compared to other point-and-shoot
cameras. There is no control for ISO spead, autofocus area or light metering.
However, white balance and exposure compensation is included, so you can edit
for difficult lighting conditions.
Hot photos
Nikon Coolpix L25
Its performance makes more expensive cameras to be ashamed.
It opens and takes photos in 2 seconds and next images are apart for 1.4
seconds. Continuous mode runs at 1.4fps and decreases to 0.7fps after 5 images.
In general, the autofocus is quick and reliable, but lacking of light helping
autofocus means that sometimes it has to struggle in low light and take 2
seconds when zoom is fully extended. It also has to fight to take photo with
flash, where using AA batteries means that we have to wait 12 seconds to
recharge flash between taken photos. In terms of advantages, AA batteries last
longer than Li-ion batteries and other cheap cameras. Nikon claimed that a pair
of NiMH 2300mAh batteries can take 370 pictures.
It’s great to see the capability of HD video recording. On
more expensive cameras, we complained about 720p resolution instead of 1080p,
inefficient MJPEG encoding capability and lacking of zoom and focus while
recording. However, at this price, they are reasonable compromises. The image
quality is a bit noisy indoors but details are clear. With a dedicated record
button and 15 minutes of clip, it is not a bad effort for a $90 camera.
Modest 10MP sensor achieves a fair balance between noise
level and detail, but this 1/3-inch sensor is quite small compared to the
normal 1/2.3-inch one. It limits the ability to gather light which increases
the noise level. It is attached behind a fairly light lens, opened up to f/2.7
at the wide angle of zoom. It will bring a small advantage for low-light
photography, but optical stabilization system will offer greater benefits.
In addition to specifications, image quality is not a huge
improvement over what we have seen from cameras of smartphone. Even in clear
light, sublte details have been confused with noise and blurred away by noise
reduction, and sharp lines seems unclear. In the middle of the frame, it is
quite sharp but focus becomes worse at edges, especially in the left of the
frame. It is powerful enough to be recognized even after we resized images to
fill the computer screen. Nevertheless, it is not the problem at telephoto zoom
position.
Noise
Shooting in low light reveals the common noise problem from
a small sensor. Skin tones are freaked out by colorful tracks; simultaneously
there are few beautiful details. We also see that settings are sensitive but
sometimes it takes photos at low ISO speed and low shutter speed at 1/3 second.
It leads to the vibration.
We will kindly forgive L25 of Nikon because of basic image
quality, but bad focus at edges and long shutter speed are a bit complicated
with our hobby. We haven’t considered that kind of cheap cameras for a long
time, but Optio RS1500 of Pentax is available with $90. Two camera is equal
about video recording, but optical stabilization system, larger sensor and
sharper lens of Pentax turns it into more bargaining.
Summary
Evaluation: Simple operation, 5x zoom
and cheap price but image quality of L25 is not worth our humble expectation.
Compact Digital Camera: 10MP (3,648x2,736), 5x
optical zoom (28-140mm), LCD 3 inch (230,000 pixel), SDXC slot (20MB internal),
2 AA batteries, 62x97x29mm, 171g, 2 year RTB warranty.
