Introduction

Design & Appearance

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The Nikon S4300 is designed to appeal to those looking for a compact, stylish camera that still houses a respectable amount of optical zoom. The camera sports a 3-inch touchscreen, which is its primary method of control. The camera only features a few physical controls: the shutter release/zoom toggle, power button, and mode, playback, and video record buttons. Menu navigation and shooting settings are controlled exclusively through the touchscreen.

The camera has a body that's even smaller than the S6300, making it one of the smallest in Nikon's 2012 arsenal. Despite this, it still has a 6x optical zoom with Nikon's vibration reduction optical image stabilization system. The Nikon S6300 comes in a variety of stylish colors, with black, silver, red, plum and (our favorite) a fetching white option.

Tour

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Menu

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The menu on the Nikon S4300 is pretty easy to navigate, but it's done entirely via touchscreen, with the different menu options being represented by symbols indicating their use. This does require a little bit of a learning curve if you're not used to using a Nikon camera, as certain symbols don't accurately reflect what their option actually does.

Still, for the most part the menu is easy to get around, and the app-style layout of symbols doesn't require any scrolling or other nonsense to find out what's inside the menu. The one complaint we have would be the low resolution of the rear LCD, which precludes the menu symbols from being clear, colorful, or from having accompanying text underneath them. A clear comparison would be the touchscreen cameras from Samsung, whose OLED high resolution screens offer the same menu system in a much slicker interface.

Ease of Use

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The Nikon S4300 is pretty easy to use, though its touchscreen interface is different from what you may be used to seeing on other cameras. The on-screen guide has a menu button, along with access to four types of control that you'd normally find on a rear four-way control panel.

The camera comes with a variety of scene modes that you can select from to help the camera get the best shot. If you're unsure what kind of mode to go with, Nikon provides a scene auto selector scene mode, which will let the camera pick whatever it thinks is the right preset scene mode to use.

Size & Handling

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The Nikon S4300 is a very petite camera, and it's one of the thinnest cameras Nikon has for 2012. It rates at just 20.8mm thick (just less than one inch), meaning it can rather easily slot into a pocket by itself. Even with an accompanying case the camera would be able to fit in just about any jacket pocket or small purse, making it a very attractive combination of size and optical zoom power.

The camera itself handles quite well for a small compact, even though most of the real estate on the rear of the camera is taken up by the 3-inch touchscreen interface. There's a small section along the right side of the back of the camera for manual controls, but Nikon has also added a curved plastic section at the top specifically designed to give the thumb maximum leverage when holding the camera with the right hand. There's not much for grip otherwise, but the camera is so small that this little addition is enough to make up for that.

The touchscreen also works quite well for menu navigation, with the option to use it for selective focus, focus/exposure lock, and for subject tracking. Tapping the screen also works to capture an image. Its best use is in menu navigation, and for this it's quite responsive. In playback the touchscreen options aren't as creative as on Nikon's S-series touchscreen models, but there is the ability to write directly on photos.

Modes Overview

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Despite being almost entirely touch-controlled, the Nikon S4300 still retains a mode button, which offers instant access to the camera's variety of shooting modes. These are selected via touch, with options for scene modes, full automatic, smart portrait, and video. There are also a variety of continuous shooting modes, including best shot selector, though the high-speed (60 and 120fps) modes of the S6300 and S9300 are absent.

Auto Mode

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Almost all of the modes on the S4300 let the camera control most of the various shooting settings, with little direct input from the user. The full automatic mode attempts to just provide a scene with even brightness, as the camera doesn't provide any control beyond exposure compensation and ISO. The full automatic mode is accessed via the mode menu, brought up by pressing the physical mode key (labeled scene, with the green camera symbol) on the back of the body.

Movie Mode

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Nikon's made a big push with HD video this year, bringing at least 720p video recording to their entire point-and-shoot lineup. The mid-range S4300 is, of course, no different, though it loses the full HD 1080p recording of the more expensive S6300 and S9300 models. The camera comes with little in the way of video control, though Nikon has provided a couple of different resolution options. The maximum is 720/30p, with the option to choose VGA (640x480) or "small size" which is half the resolution of VGA. All of the video modes only shoot at 30fps.

Drive/Burst Mode

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The S4300 also loses some of the faster continuous burst modes from the higher-end Nikon point-and-shoots from 2012, retaining just single, continuous, multi-shot 16, and best shot selector. The best shot selector is the best of the lot, taking a continuous burst of images and keeping the one that retains the most fine detail and sharpness. The loss of the 60fps and 120fps modes is felt, though, as even at 1 megapixel and VGA resolution, respectively, they were something that set the Nikons apart.

Playback Mode

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Playback on the S4300 is handled through the touchscreen, with a small group of symbols at the bottom letting users retouch their photos, delete, or mark images as a favorite. The user can also apply a number of special effects, stretch a photo, resize an image, crop, apply the skin softening filter, even out brightness with Nikon's "D-lighting" effect, or do a "glamour retouch." The rear LCD doesn't do a great job of showing images quickly in the two-second review, but it's much better at picking out fine details when in playback mode for some reason. This may be a quirk of the model we used at CP+ 2012, though, as it may be a preproduction model.

In playback the touchscreen also comes into play, with the ability to apply a number of fun frames, write directly onto your photos with a pen function, or touch a photo to add a number of small star graphics. It's similar to what Nikon has done on past touchscreen cameras, though there aren't quite as many digital effects that are applied via touchscreen as in past models.

Picture Quality & Size Options

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The Nikon S4300 comes with a 16-megapixel CCD image sensor, though its different from the 16-megapixel sensor found on the Nikon S6300 and S9300. The camera lets you shoot at that maximum resolution, or pare images down to smaller resolutions. The camera also lets you shoot a 12-megapixel cropped shot, that is a 16:9 ratio. The camera records primarily in JPEG (or .MPO for 3D photos), with two quality settings letting you decide image size though image quality degradation comes into play with the more aggressive compression.

Focus

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The S4300 uses a through-the-lens contrast detection autofocus system, though it only draws data from one of nine AF zones. The camera can focus in a number of ways beside the nine-point autofocus, however, with the option to use center point focus, subject tracking, or face priority if the user desires. Focus can be locked via the shutter release button as well as the rear touchscreen, simply by holding down your finger on the screen.

Exposure & Metering

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The S4300 determines exposure with the same 256-segment matrix metering system as on other Nikon point-and-shoots. Exposure control is entirely automatic, with the camera's automatic program selecting a shutter speed, ISO setting, and neutral density value (aperture stays at the maximum value while the ND filter can cut out up to 3.3 EVs worth of light). The camera only includes an automatic exposure mode, though the camera's many built-in scene modes can adjust exposure to favor a particular scene or subject.

ISO

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The sensor in the S4300 is slightly different from the S6300 or S9300, with a lower native ISO range of 80-3200. The camera can automatically determine the appropriate ISO or the user can select any of the whole stop values within that range. The camera also provides a fixed range automatic option, which lets the user dictate a maximum ISO value that the automatic exposure program can choose from, with options to cap it at 400 or 800.

White Balance

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The Nikon S4300 includes just a basic white balance system, with five in-camera white balance presets, an automatic white balance mode, or the option to capture a manual white balance value. When capturing a white balance manually the camera zooms in and provides a bright center window, which the user points at a white or neutral gray subject before tapping the "measure" button. The camera only supports storage for this single white balance measurement, though, in line with what other Nikon point-and-shoots offer.

Image Stabilization

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As with the Nikon S6300 and S9300, the S4300 provides lens-shift optical vibration reduction. This works to correct for camera shake by moving a lens element in an equal and opposite way such that the optical path is as close to correct as possible. Nikon doesn't have any specific claims about the efficacy of the VR on the S4300, but we'll have a full report on the camera once we put it through the ringer back in our labs.

Picture Effects

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The Nikon S4300 includes a variety of in-camera scene modes, but also includes digital filters and effects that can punch up your photos. The camera's scene modes cover the usual gamut with a few Nikon exclusives and include: back light, beach, close up, copy, draw, dusk/dawn, fireworks show, food, landscape, museum, night landscape, night portrait, panorama assist, party/indoor, pet portrait, portrait, scene auto selector, snow, sports, and sunset modes.

During playback users can apply a number of digital effects including skin softening, selective color, miniaturization, and more. Users can also go in during playback and apply a number of effects, such as stretching a photo out or fixing perspective. The touchscreen also comes into play here, letting you write on your photos, apply a number of built-in digital frame graphics, or touch a photo to place a star graphic.

Lens & Sensor

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The Nikon S4300's 6x optical zoom lens is decent, with a standard maximum aperture range of f/3.5-5.6. The aperture isn't controlled much beyond that, as the camera relies on the use of neutral density filter insertion to restrict light by a further 3.3 AVs. The lens provides a 35mm equivalent focal length range of 26-156mm though, which is less than the $199 Nikon S6300, but still in line with the competition.

The image sensor on the S4300 is a 16-megapixel CCD, which does pale slightly in comparison to the 16-megapixel CMOS found in the S6300, which is only slightly more expensive at $199. The S4300 has a lower native ISO range, but we wonder if it will be able to produce image quality on the same level as the CMOS sensors in Nikon's better point-and-shoots. We'll have a full image quality report when we have all the Nikons in for a full review later this year.

LCD

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The rear LCD on the Nikon S4300 is a 3-inch touchscreen, with a resolution of 460k dots. It may be because we were using a pre-production model here at CP+ 2012 in Japan, but the screen seemed to have real issues in rendering well on the fly. Anytime we panned with the camera that screen resolution dropped dramatically, with many pixels looking out of place and the image looking pixelated as a whole. This corrected itself rather quickly, but it was noticeable. The 460k dot resolution screen didn't appear any better than the 230k dot resolution screen on the Nikon S6300, though it was fairly bright and the touchscreen functionality was accurate and responsive. As with LCDs on other point-and-shoot cameras, we had glare issues when lights were shined directly on the screen, so we doubt they'll function all that well in bright sunny conditions.

Flash

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The flash built into the S4300 is a compact unit, with an effective range of 1ft 8in. to 14ft when zoomed all the way out. Use the full 6x telephoto range on the lens, however, and the flash's effective range drops to just 7ft 10in. We found the flash to be quite harsh, with a very negative effect on color tone and reproduction. All in all, as with just about every other compact point-and-shoot we have reviewed the, use the flash only as a last resort to brighten up a scene when there's no other way to capture it effectively.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

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The Nikon S4300 includes a basic USB/AV port on the bottom of the camera, located behind a flap next to the battery/memory compartment. The connector is proprietary, and is the same that we saw on the other Nikon 2012 point-and-shoot models (and some older Nikon cameras as well). The USB and AV cables are supplied with the camera, however, so if you don't lose the cable it shouldn't be much of an issue. Unlike the S6300 the Nikon S4300 does not include a HDMI input/output terminal, so viewing the camera's 720p HD video will require loading it onto another device.

Battery

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The Nikon S4300 utilizes a Nikon EN-EL19 battery, which is a removable, rechargeable Lithium-ion battery pack. It has a capacity of just 700mAh, and is rated by CIPA standards to only around 180 shots on the S4300. It's the same battery that Nikon used on their S100, S3100, S3300, and S4100 models, so there are plenty of them out in the wild if you want and extra or need to replace it.

Memory

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The S4300 uses SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, which slot into the same compartment as the EN-EL19 battery pack on the bottom of the camera. The camera should be able to fit around 1300 shots on an 8GB SDHC card with its maximum resolution of 16 megapixels. The S4300 does include a unusual amount of internal memory, but it's still only 74MB, good for a short video or around 20 shots. We'd still highly recommend picking up a memory card if you're in the market for an S4300.

Conclusion

The Nikon S4300 provides an interesting alternative to the rest of Nikon's 2012 point-and-shoot lineup. At a suggested price of just $169.99 it comes in at $30 less than the Nikon S6300, includes a 6x optical zoom, touchscreen operation, and 3-inch rear LCD.

It's an appealing model to be sure, but closer inspection reveals that it might be worth the extra money to step up to the next model in Nikon's line. The S6300 lacks the touchscreen, but its 10x optical zoom lens, CMOS image sensor (the same one found in their $350 S9300 model), and physical controls represent a significant upgrade for just $30.

In our time with the S4300 at CP+ in Japan we liked its simple, intuitive operation, but we're less than enamored with cameras that controlled almost exclusively through touchscreens. We found that in going between the S4300 and S6300 that the touchscreen didn't really speed up navigation, while despite being a nominally higher resolution the rear LCD on the S4300 didn't perform as well in practice. The S6300 is just as easy to use, offers more optical zoom (with Nikon's extra low dispersion coating), and has physical controls that we feel are better for navigating menus and controlling the camera.

The S4300 still provides great value, squeezing a 6x optical zoom and touchscreen operation into a camera that measures just under a single inch thick is an achievement. If you're the type of person that is looking for touchscreen control in a sub-$200 camera, the S4300 might just be what you're looking for. While we'll have to run both cameras through a full testing process before we can confidently state which is better, we'd bet dollars to yen that the S6300 will prove the better overall value.

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Sample Photos

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Specs

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