Nikon S9300 First Impressions Review

Introduction

Design & Appearance

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the S9300 is a rather unassuming camera on the surface; its models are wrapped mostly in a rubberized coating, with clean lines and a simple user interface. When you look closer (or turn the camera on) the real kicker is immediately apparent: an 18x optical zoom lens that juts out from the body. Fitting that much zoom into a body that could easily slot into all but the hippest kids' pockets is a feat in and of itself, but the camera also includes a 3-inch, 921k-dot resolution screen with a backside-illuminated 16-megeapixel image sensor as well.

Altogether it's an attractive, utilitarian camera that packs a lot of quality into its compact frame. On the front of the camera is the aforementioned lens, with a small vertical protrusion sticking out from the camera to provide a bit of grip, similar to the company's V1 compact mirrorless camera. The top plate of the camera has the power button, zoom toggle, GPS unit, shutter release, and built-in flash. Also on top is the camera's dedicated mode dial, which can easily be switched to the desired shooting mode.

The right side of the camera has a small plastic flap that gives way to show off the camera's HDMI and USB ports. The backside of the camera has the 3-inch LCD, along with a rear control wheel (which doubles as a four-way directional pad), along with dedicated soft keys for video recording, playback, menu, and image deletion. the playback and video recording buttons are intersected by a diagonal strip of rubber material, which aids gripping and fits nicely with the thumb of your right hand.

On the bottom of the camera you'll find the battery and memory compartments, hidden behind the usual small plastic door. One interesting little design note that is quite nice is Nikon moved the tripod collar all the way to the opposite side of the battery compartment. This won't make a difference to most users, but anyone using a tripod with the camera (especially if they swap cards or the battery often like, say, people who test cameras for a living) will be able to easily access the memory card and battery without taking the camera off the tripod plate.

Tour

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Menu

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The menu on the S9300 is similar to other Nikon compact cameras, with tabs aligned vertically on the left edge of the LCD. The menu changes depending on what shooting mode you are in, but in most modes the first option will be a section of shooting settings, kept under a green tab that can simply say scene (if using a scene mode) or be a green camera icon. This includes most of the camera's shooting parameters.

Beneath the shooting settings are the camera's video, playback, and setup options, each kept under their own tabs. The one thing that's most frustrating about Nikon's menus, from their $6000 D4 down to this $350 point-and-shoot is the insistence in keeping options in long lists. This means that fairly frequently there are options hidden off-screen, that you can't get to unless you scroll through all the options visible on the screen.

It's a small complaint, but one that slows down menu navigation. The loose rear control wheel does assuage this frustration somewhat, but it's still a design flaw that permeates every level of Nikon's menu design.

Ease of Use

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The Nikon S9300 is a pretty simple camera to operate, with a simple (if imperfect) menu system, dedicated easy and automatic modes, physical mode dial, and responsive controls. The biggest aid to usability on the S9300 is the camera's easy mode, which pairs down the menu into more manageable chunks, while also simplifying operation as a whole.

Those looking for a little more control can opt for the automatic or program auto modes, which will take varying degrees of control away from the user, but still let them adjust some options. These are enhanced by the camera's many scene modes, which will let you pick out a specific preset that matches whatever lighting conditions you're currently using the camera in.

For most users, we also feel that Nikon's inclusion of a fixed range auto ISO setting will be a big benefit. It will let you cap the maximum ISO that the automatic mode will go to, letting you leave the ISO on auto without having to worry about getting a group of horribly noisy images back when you load them on your computer.

Size & Handling

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The S9300 is just 1.3 inches thick, excluding the small protrusion for grip and the lens. The lens itself is only a few millimeters thick, however, so it's an altogether pocketable camera. That's a significant statement, given that the camera sports an optical zoom that would've put it firmly amongst the most expansive zooming cameras on the market just a few years ago.

The camera also handles well, largely due to the use of a rubberized coating around the front of the camera. This will let you keep hold of the body of the camera in imperfect conditions or when wearing non-friction clothing like gloves. As a result the camera is easy to shoot and control with a single hand, with most options right within reach.

The controls on the camera are all fairly well designed. We liked the loose control wheel as it aids speedy navigation through the menu system, while the shutter release has just the right level of resistance to let you lock in focus and exposure easily. The one design issue that we felt could have been better is the zoom toggle, which is quite stiff and makes it difficult to get exact framing right.

Modes Overview

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The top plate of the camera contains the physical mode dial, letting the user quickly switch through a variety of modes. Turning the dial brings up an on-screen indicator on the rear LCD, showing which mode has just been selected. The mode dial includes the automatic, easy scene, effects, scene, night scene, continuous shooting, face detection, and backlit subject modes.

Auto Mode

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All the modes on the camera involve some sort of automatic exposure selection, although exposure compensation is available. The dedicated green auto mode attempts to produce a subject with even brightness across the scene, while several of the other scene modes will factor in the particular type of scene you're trying to photograph. The easy scene mode is the simplest of all, as it will try to apply one of the camera's many scene modes automatically based on what it detects.

Movie Mode

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The Nikon S9300 has decent video chops for a compact camera, with the ability to shoot 1080/30p video. The camera also has options for shooting at 720/30p, iFrame/30p, as well as VGA at 30fps. You can also opt for one of the high speed modes, which have options for VGA video at 120fps, 1280x720 video at 60 fps, or 1920x1080 video at 15fps. The camera utilizes AVC/H.264 video compression with AAC audio in a .MOV container. The video is decent, with the ability to autofocus while recording.

Drive/Burst Mode

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Shots can be taken one at a time on the S9300 or in bursts, with the camera featuring a dedicated continuous shooting mode right on the mode dial. The camera did not appear to be able to to do much continuous shooting in the other modes, but while in the dedicated mode the camera allows for the use of its best shot selector function, as well as continuous shooting of up to seven frames at around 6.9fps. The camera also has 60fps and 120fp reduced resolution shooting options, along with a multi-shot 16 index shot and a pre-shooting cache buildup to capture an instant of action more easily.

Playback Mode

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In playback the S9300 allows users to review images as well as crop, rotate, retouch, and resize shots. Users can also apply any of the camera's built in digital effects, soften skin tones, alter the shot's d-lighting, or do a quick retouch of a shot to make brightness more even. Users can also delete images, protect them, or order a group of prints.

Picture Quality & Size Options

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The S9300 takes images with a maximum resolution of 16 megapixels at a resolution of 4608 x 3456. The camera also has options for 13-, 4-, and 2-megapixel images along with VGA shots and cropped 12-megapixel 16:9 images. The S9300 captures images in JPEG, with two quality settings in case you wish to capture slightly more compressed images.

Focus

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The Nikon S9300 uses a contrast-detection autofocus system with through-the-lens focus detection. The camera has a large variety of focus modes to choose from, including nine-point automatic, center, face-priority, manual (with up to 99 selectable points), and subject tracking. The 18x optical zoom lens can select as close as 50mm away normally at the widest point, though only as close as five feet when zoomed all the way in. When using the camera's macro mode, the camera can focus as close as 4cm away from the lens at the widest point.

Exposure & Metering

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Nikon has included a 256 matrix metering detection system on the S9300, with the camera automatically detecting the optimal exposure depending on the scene. The camera's program auto mode is flexible, and incorporates subject tracking in order to increase shutter speed when necessary. If the camera's exposure isn't initially to your liking, the camera has exposure compensation of +/-2 stops in 1/3-stop increments.

ISO

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The S9300 comes with a native ISO range of 125 to 3200, with manual, automatic (125-800), and fixed range automatic (capped at 400 or 800) modes selectable. The camera uses a backside-illuminated CMOS image sensor, which is designed to allow more light to reach the camera's photodiodes. We'll have to get the camera into our labs to see if it bears any improvement over previous Nikons at high ISOs, however.

White Balance

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There are a total of six white balance presets available on the S9300, including the automatic mode. The other presets include the typical cloudy, shade, fluorescent, incandescent, daylight, and flash modes. The camera also includes a manual white balance preset, which is easy to set, requiring just a trip to the menu and a quick press while aiming at a neutral gray or white card.

Image Stabilization

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The Nikon S9300 has an optical vibration reduction system, using a shifting lens element that adjusts for camera shake. Nikon hasn't specified the efficacy (by their tests) of the stabilization system, but we found it to be fairly effective even when using the full telephoto capabilities of the 18x optical zoom lens. Some shots still came out blurry, but that was in a somewhat poorly lit convention hall (well, more like an airplane hangar), without bracing ourselves against anything. We did have some success, and in better conditions you'd likely have more, but we'll have to test the system for ourselves in our labs to be confident.

Picture Effects

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There are a boatload of effects included on the S9300, including a dedicated "effects" mode on the mode dial itself. These include soft, nostalgia sepia, high contrast monochrome, high key, low key, and selective color. These all apply a fairly drastic effect to your images at capture, but can be applied less destructively during playback if you desire.

The camera also comes with a dedicated scene mode setting, with a variety of options that can fill almost any need. As you'd expect, the scene modes are fairly typical and include: beach, close up, copy, dusk/dawn, fireworks, food, landscape, museum, night portrait, panorama assist, party/indoor, pet portrait, portrait, snow, sports, sunset, and 3D photography (saved as a standard .MPO file).

Lens & Sensor

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The sensor on the Nikon S9300 is a 16-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS imager. It is a standard 1/2.3-inch size, which is expected given the massive telephoto range of the camera's lens. The sensor has a native ISO readout range of 125-3200, though we're excited to see what how Nikon has developed their high ISO performance with a backside-illuminated sensor. We'll have to get the camera into our testing rig soon to know for sure.

LCD

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The LCD on the S9300 is a 3-inch TFT LCD with a resolution of 921,000 dots. It's a very bright and clear LCD, though it did have glare issues when in direct sunlight. It's not touch capable, but it's great for establishing focus, exposure, and other critical aspects of image quality. The LCD has five levels of brightness adjustment available as well, so even in bright conditions you can somewhat see what you're doing.

Flash

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The built-in flash on the S9300 pops up from the body, laying flush with the top plate of the camera when not in use. The flash is automatically raised when needed by the camera, and there's no manual release on the body that will pop it up otherwise. With ISO set to automatic the flash has an effective range of 0.5 to 5.1 meters when pulled all the way out, though this range shrinks to 1.5-3meters when using the full telephoto range of the lens.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

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The S9300 includes a variety of connectivity options, including a proprietary USB port as well as a mini-HDMI port. The connectivity ports are all placed behind a small plastic flap on the top of the right side of the camera, just above the wrist strap anchor. The USB port also functions as an A/V input/output terminal, the cable for which is supplied with the camera.

Battery

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The Nikon EN-EL12 battery supplies power for the Nikon S9300, with a capacity for around 200 shots on a single charge (by CIPA standards, which incorporate a variety of conditions that aren't necessarily normal use). The battery is removable and rechargeable and slots into a battery compartment on the bottom of the camera. The battery is charged in an external AC adapter charging cradle, and takes more than three hours to fully charge when completely depleted.

Memory

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Images taken with the S9300 can be stored on SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, which slot into a compartment on the bottom of the camera. This is the same compartment that the battery slots into, which is opened by sliding a small catch outward, unlocking the plastic door.

Conclusion

The travel-zoom category has seen increasingly tough competition in the last two years. What was once the province of kind-of-compact 10x zoom cameras is increasingly featuring ridiculous zoom ranges, and the 18x optical zoom S9300 may just be king of them all.

With a body that could almost hide behind a deck of cards, the 9300 crams an incredible amount of hardware into what is essentially a pocketable camera. That it also sports a backside-illuminated 16-megapixel image sensor, optical image stabilization, up to 6.9fps burst shooting, and built-in GPS is simply icing on the cake.

But all that would be for naught if the camera didn't control well, and we can report that the camera features the same kind of rubberized coating that we loved on the V1, their high-end compact system camera. The camera features excellent balance, with responsive controls that have just the right amount of resistance to them. The rear 3-inch LCD is also a big highlight, with a crystal clear 921k-dot resolution that makes establishing critical focus as easy as ever.

One thing that is not in the offering is a high degree of manual control, as the S9300 is almost purely an automatic affair. That's not exactly a bad thing, as the S9300 is sure to appeal to the well-traveled person who simply wants a camera that can just about do it all anywhere they go. If you want full control over your images, you'll have to look elsewhere such as to Nikon's P-series models.

Add it all up and you have a very convincing model that sits confidently at its $350 price point. We can't yet speak to the image quality or performance of the camera, but we were impressed in our short time with it here in Japan. We're excited to get the S9300 back into our labs for a full breakdown, if only to see what wizardry (or sacrifice) was required to fit so much zoom into so small a body.

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Sample Photos

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Specs

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