Nikon L22 Digital Camera - Red (12MP, 3.6x Optical Zoom) 3 inch LCD

I just wanted a good quality, compact high mega pixel camera with no frills. The L22 is exactly that - it has basic functionality and none of the stuff ive never used on previous cameras, but picture quality is superb. On an 8GB SHDC card, i can take 2111 pictures at 12MP (there was some debate before buying about the camera accepting SHDC but it definately does). The autofocus should really belong on a camera twice the price, its that good.

Construction is high quality. I thought i would not be able to get on with AA batteries having being used to internally recharged batteries on previous cameras, but i am now a convert to AA simply on the fact that no matter where you are you can easily change batteries.

For the money, if all you need is a simple camera that takes great pictures, you could do alot worse than this.

I purchased this camera just over a month ago, I thought I'd wait a bit before writing a review so I could fully test this camera. I bought this camera for my mother who is of pensionable age to replace her Samsung D1070 which she had dropped and broken; which even before she dropped it was a truly awful camera. This Nikon L22 was about the same price that my mother had bought the Samsung for a couple of years ago and it is a far superior camera in every way.
I had looked at various cameras around the same price point and had gone to my local Jessops to try a few out. I had initially ordered a camera from them, but was told it could take up to a month to arrive because they were waiting for an order from China! Woeful customer service in my opinion so I ordered from Amazon instead.
I opted for this camera because it's functions seemed relativly simple and would be easy for my mother to use. I opted for this Nikon because it took AA batteries and I thought this would be simpler for my mother rather than messing around with a recharger. The latch that covered the battery compartment on the Samsung was rubbish and not man enough for the job; the one on this camera is excellent. There is a small latch that keeps the batteries firmly in place. You'll get a decent amount of photos taken on bog standard AA's alone, but you'll get even more if you use some Lithium AA's.
The memory card slot is situated in the battery compartment also, keeping things simple and this camera takes SD and SDHC memory cards. I bought a 4GB SDHC at the same time as purchasing this and this is more than adequete for holding hundreds of photographs before you transfer them to your computer.
The camera is a little light-weight without the batteries inserted and a little plasticy, but that is only to be expected from a camera at this price-point. It does feel and look well manufactured though, significantly more than the afformentioned Samsung of shame!
The settings are simple and there aren't too many buttons to confuse my mother! The zoom switch is integrated into the shutter button which is common on most compact digital cameras these days. You can shoot at 12MP or at lower resolutions if you prefer and take short movies if you like. The zoom function is good and the camera focuses well. I was particularly impressed with the digital zoom after the maximum optical zoom. Some digital cameras produce very fuzzy and blurry pictures once you get into digital zoom territory but pictures were very clear with this camera. In no small part thanks to the digital stabilisation feature as well, which is very good on this camera for people with shaky hands.
There is an automatic scene selection feature on this camera which means the camera will automatically attempt to adjust it's settings depending on the environment you're in. I wasn't terribly convinced by this feature as sometimes the camera took a while to focus and decide on what kind of shot it should be taking. I should imagine this feature is more useful for taking shots indoors rather than outdoors, and for taking low-light pictures. I found that I could take some very good pictures in low-light twilight conditions outdoors.
I wasn't convinced by the face-detection abilites on this camera either, it sometimes took a while to recognise a face even when you had it centred. I have found this feature to be better on a Casio Exilim I've used. Having said that I'm not convinced by the usefulness of face detection on any camera as it doesn't seem to enhance or improve pictures much and you've got to be pretty rubbish at taking photgraphs not to be able to focus on peoples faces anyway.
You can of course just leave the camera on simple-auto mode which is more than adequete for taking day to day photographs. ISO settings can be adjusted, but I found no need to do this and the camera took good shots in all conditions. I also found it quite good for taking close up macro shots as well. The flash is good also and can be adjusted for red-eye reduction.
Overall I would thoroughly recommend this camera to anyone who wants a good day to day compact camera that's reasonably priced and takes good quality photos in most conditions.

Having had a Kodak ls443 for ages i was ready to upgrade anyway. However the fact i broke it meant i needed to.
I read review after review, looked at sample pics and finally came to this camera. It was at the price i wanted (below £100) and was a higher mp rating.

Its small, compact and so easy to use, the quality of the pictures is great,colours look so bright and images sharp.
Night time shots are great too, colours still looking crystal clear and bright.

Absolutley cracking camera would reccomend to anyone.