Nikon Coolpix S9500

Pros Very sharp lens. 22x zoom range. Short shutter lag. Wi-Fi and GPS. Sharp OLED display.

Cons Detail suffers at high ISO settings. No manual shooting modes. Off-center tripod socket. In-camera battery charging. Bottom Line Nikon's Coolpix S9500 is a fully loaded pocket camera with a huge zoom range and a sharp lens, but it doesn't quite edge out our Editors' Choice.

By Jim Fisher

The Nikon Coolpix S9500 ($349.95 direct) is a pocket-size digital camera that manages to squeeze an 18-megapixel image sensor, a GPS radio, Wi-Fi, and a long 22x lens into a slim form factor. It's a stylish design that can snap sharp photos in automatic mode, but it doesn't offer the level of manual control that some others in this class do. If you don't like to fiddle with settings it's a solid option, but we like the 20x-zoom Canon PowerShot SX280 HS, a bit more. It's our Editors' Choice compact superzoom since it offers many of the same features, is a bit less expensive, and also gives you access to shutter and aperture settings.

Design and Features
The S9500, available in black, red, or silver, is impressively small, especially when you consider that its lens is a 25-500mm (35mm equivalent) f/3.4-6.3 design. It measures 2.4 by 4.4 by 1.3 inches (HWD) and weighs in at 7.3 ounces. It's not out of line for this class of camera, but it's tiny compared with the always-connected, 21x Samsung Galaxy Camera, an Android-powered beast that packs a huge touch screen; it comes in at 2.8 by 5.1 by 0.75 inches and weighs 11 ounces. One quibble about the S9500's design is the placement of the tripod socket; it's located at the edge of the base of the camera, not centered under the lens as you'd expect. This isn't a camera that you'll likely use frequently with a tripod, however.

You get a good number of physical controls, even though shooting modes are limited. There's a mode dial on top, along with the shutter release, zoom rocker, and Power button. The rear panel houses a control dial with push-button directions to set the flash output, exposure compensation, macro focusing mode, and the self-timer. There's also a Record button to start and stop videos, a Menu button, and image playback controls.

The mode dial gives you access to a number of scene modes and image effects. By default, the camera operates in Auto mode. There's a setting to automatically select a scene mode, and also one for manual scene selection; this is accomplished via the menu. Nikon opted to include a few scene modes separately on the dial: Night Landscape, Night Portrait, Backlighting, and Smart Portrait.

The standard program, aperture priority, shutter priority, and manual modes are not included, as they are on the SX280 HS. Depending on your level of photographic expertise, this may or may not bother you; I was attempting to capture a shot with a lot of motion on the street one morning and the camera defaulted to a very low ISO with a 1/40-second shutter speed, resulting in a shot with considerable motion blur. Activating the Sports scene mode would have fixed that, but I would have missed my shot by the time I dove into the menu system to change to that setting. A simple shutter speed control and shutter priority mode on the dial is quicker to access, and would have resulted in a useable photograph.

There's also an Effects mode, which lets you apply artistic filters to your images. These include soft focus, sepia toning, selective color, and a few others. It's not as extensive a library as the Quick Effects that are enabled by default; with these turned on you are prompted to add an art filter to your images after every shot. The filters available through this menu are much more extensive—there are more than 20. You can dismiss this screen by tapping the shutter button. Quick effects can be applied via the playback menu, but only if that feature was enabled when the photo was captured. I found the menu to be a bit of an annoyance, and it's unfortunate that it's not possible to disable the prompt, or to apply the effect to images without having it enabled during capture.

The 3-inch rear display uses OLED technology, and packs a 614k-dot resolution. It's noticeably sharper than the 460k-dot displays found on the Canon SX280 HS and the Samsung WB800F, and there are five brightness settings so you can increase its luminance on sunny days.

Wi-Fi and GPS are integrated, which is fairly common for cameras of this class. GPS automatically adds your geographic location to your photos. And Wi-Fi allows you to transfer images to your iOS or Android device using the free Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility app. The camera acts as a wireless hotspot; you just need to connect to it with your phone to transfer images. Your device can also be used as a remote control for the camera using the app. You'll get a Live View feed on its screen and there are controls available to adjust the zoom and fire the shutter.

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Nikon Coolpix AW110

Pros Sharp OLED display. Built-in Wi-Fi with remote viewfinder support. Integrated GPS. Waterproof to 59 feet. Action button. 5x zoom range.

Cons Not the best performance in low light. Narrow aperture compared with the competition. Image sharpness suffers at edges of frame. So-so high ISO image quality. Bottom Line The rugged Nikon Coolpix AW110 is a modest update to its predecessor, the AW100. It can go deeper under water and adds Wi-Fi, but still suffers at high ISO settings.

By Jim Fisher

The Nikon Coolpix AW110 ($349.95 direct) is the follow-up to the AW100, a tough compact that won our Editors' Choice award when we reviewed it back in late 2011. The 16-megapixel AW110 improves upon the earlier model in small ways, including an improved underwater depth rating and built-in Wi-Fi, but it's not a drastically different camera. Other tough cams have added wider-aperture lenses, macro LED lights, and other features that make the category a bit more competitive. Our Editors' Choice rugged compact is one of those, the Olympus Tough TG-2 iHS; it's only $30 more than the Nikon, and packs an f/2 lens that makes it a more versatile low-light shooter.

Design and Features
The AW110 follows the traditional tough camera design scheme. The lens is an internal zoom design, located in the top corner of the body. The camera itself measures 2.6 by 4.4 by 1 inch and weighs 6.9 ounces. Its tough exterior can survive drops from a 6.6-foot height, can operate in temperatures as low as 14°F, and is rated for use in depths of water up to 59 feet. It's not as stylized as the Canon PowerShot  D20, a tough camera with rounded corners and a wavy two-tone color scheme. The Canon is a bit bigger at 2.8 by 4.4 by 1.1 inches, and heavier at 8 ounces. Our AW110 review unit was orange, but the camera is also available in black, blue, and camouflage color schemes.

The lens is a 5x design that covers a 28-140mm (35mm equivalent) focal range. The aperture starts at f/3.3 and narrows to f/4.8 when zoomed all the way in, but Nikon does include optical image stabilization to help steady shots in lower light. It's no match in terms of light gathering when compared with faster lenses like the 25-100mm f/2-4.9 lens found on the Pentax WG-3 GPS. The 28mm design is plenty wide when you're shooting on dry land, but underwater photographers understand that shooting through water narrows the field of view of a lens. What the AW110 is missing in wide-angle coverage it makes up for in its macro capability; it can focus on objects a centimeter away at the 28mm zoom setting; the Pentax requires the lens to be zoomed to its midpoint in order to focus that close.

The rear 3-inch OLED display is quite sharp at 610k dots, and it has an adjustable brightness setting so you can more easily use it in sunny conditions. It's an upgrade over the 460k-dot display found in the AW100 and the Olympus TG-830.

To the right of the display you'll find the majority of the camera's controls. There's a zoom rocker, a movie button, and controls to adjust the flash output, set the self-timer, adjust exposure compensation, and enable macro shooting. A Scene button lets you change the shooting mode; but you're limited to a few different automatic modes. Experienced photographers will likely be turned off by the lack of manual shooting controls. This is pretty standard for rugged cameras; of the models we've tested, the Olympus TG-2 is the only one with an aperture priority setting.

The Action button, which first appeared on the AW100, carries over to the AW110. It's located on the left side of the camera and lets you change shooting modes quickly. Giving it a tap brings up an overlay menu that allows you to change the current scene mode, start movie recording, play images, or view your location on the built-in world map. You can shake the camera to move from option to option, and a full press of the Action button confirms your choice. It's a unique feature that will appeal to rock climbers and hikers who aren't able to use two hands to change settings before taking a photo.

Both GPS and Wi-Fi are integrated here. The GPS module adds your location information to photos; it took a couple minutes to lock onto a signal, but updated pretty quickly after that in my tests. You can transfer photos from the AW110 to an iOS or Android device using the free Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility app. The camera acts as a hotspot which you can connect to using your device. Transferring images is easy, and you have the option of moving full-size, 1.5-megapixel, or 0.3-megapixel photos. Transferring a 1.5-megapixel image takes about 5 seconds. The app also lets you use your phone or tablet as a remote viewfinder where you can adjust the zoom settings and take photos, which are automatically transferred over.

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