The Nikon Coolpix L100 sounds like an incredible deal: $249.99 for a 10 megapixel point and shoot with a 15x zoom lens. And you do get a lot of zoom for your money, but that's tempered by the fact that the L100 took poor quality images and is missing features such as manual controls.
This is definitely not a compact camera: when turned off, the body is a chunky 3 inches deep. It gets even deeper when you turn it on, as the lens telescopes out of the camera body as you zoom in. This lens is the reason you would buy this camera, though; it offers an impressive 15x zoom range, going from a 28mm wide angle setting to a 420mm zoomed in. That means it could shoot everything from a wide angle shot of a tree to an individual leaf halfway up the tree. On the back of the camera is a 2-inch LCD screen with a 230k pixel resolution. That's a little small (both in terms of size and resolution), but it is adequate for viewing images. Unlike other similarly designed cameras, the screen does not flip out, and there is no viewfinder.
Although the L100 is not a compact camera, it is smaller than many other long zoom lens models, and we found that this caused some handling problems: the smaller body and grip means that you have to hold on tight to keep a firm grip, which can be uncomfortable when you have to hold on for longer intervals. This camera also has a rather limited set of controls, with a poor macro mode and no manual controls at all; there is no way to set shutter speed or aperture directly,
Performance (read in-depth performance analysis of this camera at Digitalcamerainfo.com)
Our performance tests revealed a number of issues with this camera. The images are somewhat distorted at both the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range, and they were very soft at both the middle and telephoto ends of the zoom range. This was especially true at the long end of the zoom range, where fine details simply weren't captured. Instead, they vanished into a soft haze that turned sharp edges into gray blurs. We did find that the images had pretty low noise and mostly accurate color, though; the L100 did a decent job of capturing the range of colors in our test chart.
Comparisons (read in-depth comparisons at Digitalcamerainfo.com)
The L100 is one of the cheapest cameras around with this length of zoom. However, if you spend a bit more, you get a lot more. If you were to spend the extra $50 to get the Panasonic DMC-ZS3, you would get better image quality in a smaller camera body, albeit with a slightly shorter zoom range. If you want an even longer zoom than this, an ultrazoom like the Sony DSC-HX1 is more expensive (at around $400), but has a 20x zoom and far superior image quality.
For a more in-depth review, visit the Nikon Coolpix L100 review at Digitalcamerainfo.com
For a more in-depth review, visit the Nikon Coolpix L100 Review at our partner DigitalCameraInfo.com
