Nikon COOLPIX S9100 Compact Digital Camera - Black (12.1MP, 18x Optical Zoom) 3 inch LCD

The Nikon S9100 is a perfect half-way house for those looking for a bit more from their compact camera without making the jump to a bulky DSLR.

It combines an excellent 18x optical zoom with a large, crisp and bright LCD. The camera is fast to respond to most commands, and the vast range of different pre-set shooting scenes will enable you to ensure the camera is making the most of whatever you are photographing. It is of average thickness and somewhat unremarkable build, but feels solid and weighty in the hand. It comes with a bespoke lithium battery which holds its charge brilliantly - I used it frequently over a long bank holiday and the charge still showed as full! There is also a wrist strap included, though no case, which is standard but would have been nice at this price.

Now for the weaknesses. My biggest gripe is with the flash. Most digitial cameras have a built in flash which you can turn on or off using the little directional pad. The S9100 features this too, but even if you have the flash turned on you need to MANUALLY pop up the little flash. The camera tells you to do so in big letters, but if you are trying to take a picture in a hurry this is an annoyance, especially as the button to pop it up is quite small and fiddly. I don't understand why there isn't an automatic release for the flash when surely most people will be taking pictures in the dark WITH a flash, not without. The flash can also be quite slow to fire, as it fires off some smaller flashes to avoid red eye before the picture is taken - though I haven't fiddled with it enough yet to find out if you can remedy this using the settings. Luckily the S9100 performs excellently under low-light conditions, meaning these issues are only a problem when in proper darkness.

The zoom can be a little slow and is a bit jerkier than I'd like, making it difficult to frame a picture in the way you'd like sometimes. It's also quite loud on video capture.

Finally, the 'D' pad also doubles as a wheel for scrolling through settings, pictures etc. This is a great feature and is preferable to having to click through, but it is a little loose and too easily turned. It needs to be stiffened up a bit.

Those issues are insignificant when you consider the great quality pictures this camera can produce. I particularly enjoy using the panoramic function, which is excellent and can be used over 180 or 360 degrees (or in any direction you wish to get some really cool effects!). The camera also comes with software to create panoramas from individual photos - I used it to create a panorama from some pictures I took on a different camera and it did it quickly and flawlessly.

In short, a slightly flawed but generally excellent camera.

My usual pocket digital camera is a Panasonic Lumix, a fairly basic model available for half the price of this camera. For the purposes of this review this is my base to compare it to.

I've had a pocket camera with a similar size zoom about 2 years ago, and the first thing that strikes me with this one is how light it is. The camera is also fairly slimline. While I wouldn't comfortably put it in my pocket, it's small enough to keep in a handbag or beach bag. The zoom adds little to the bulk of the camera, but is quite easy to use. Unfortunately it's not very sensitive and I did find it quite hard to get it as I wanted, always going too far or not far enough. I also found it a lot harder to zoom in close to take photos for example nature photos. I did feel this was something of a let down for this camera, as it can not find the focus with a depth range of less than about 20cm.

The big plus point is the images are sharp, very sharp. The camera also automatically adjusts the light levels, which creates nicely balanced photos, but zooming in and out can create a completely different balance of colours and tone. I do think the picture quality on this is superb.

The screen is huge, and you can zoom clearly into elements of the photo. There are a lot of nice features on this camera, the ability to take 360 panoramic photos for example (but where do you get them printed?!) and taking full videos as you would with a camcorder.

Overall while this is a very impressive little camera, and if you want the long zoom I would thoroughly recommend it, for an every day pocket camera I don't think it justifies the price tag.

I am a DSLRs user and decided I needed a proper pocket camera (i.e.: no more flimsy mobile phone cameras) for those cases where is not practical having a DSLR and still be able to get decent quality pictures; and this camera delivers dutifully.

If you have a similar profile then chances are you already looked at all the plethora of cameras available today and may have narrowed your list down to: Canon SX220 HD, Panasonic DMC-TZ20, Sony DSC-HX9V and obviously this Nikon Coolpix S9100.

Give or take some figures all these cameras have very similar specs. I tried them hands-on at the local shop and the final decision for me was between Canon and Nikon. The Canon is better looking, more ergonomic, has manual functions and slips nicely in your pocket; the Nikon is a bit bulkier but still fits in your pocket. I really wanted to buy the Canon, but: a) it has an awkward wide-screen 3inch display, which means normal pictures look smaller than on the Nikon 3inch display. b) menus and commands are much simpler and intuitive on the Nikon, by miles! and c) The Nikon features a very clever Easy Panoramic stitching function which I tend to use often when hiking or cycling to scenic places (Canon's panoramic version is very poor, almost unusable.

So, two weeks on and I am very happy with my purchase. Images are coming out very sharp, very low noise, well illuminated and with good white balance. True, auto-focus in macro can be improved but there are easy ways around it, the same way that you have to learn setting Scenes to shoot what you are imagining, which I find good fun.

I would have given it 5 stars had it included an external battery charger (not the USB in-camera charging which is rather restricting).