Nikon Coolpix L5 review

The Coolpix L5 is at the top of Nikon's range of budget cameras.

The chunky plastic body and use of AA batteries may be short on glamour, but the 7.1-megapixel sensor, 5x optical zoom lens with optical image stabilisation and 2.5" screen are anything but entry level.

The controls and menus are easy to use, with dedicated buttons for the optical image stabilisation and a Face Priority feature that detects faces to focus on. The stabilisation is highly effective at reducing blur from camera shake but Face Priority is less impressive, often struggling to find and keep track of faces in a composition. Most of the other options we'd expect at this price are included, but an ISO speed control is sadly absent. This is particularly unfortunate because the camera regularly set itself to low ISO speeds that resulted in more camera shake than the stabilisation could counteract. The Party/Indoor scene preset went some way to resolving the issue, but not far enough.

Performance is another weak area. The 2.5-second gap between shots is reasonable, but the four-second wait for the camera to switch on and take a picture is too long for a camera that costs almost ?00. The flash recharged reasonably quickly but as our batteries began to run out we had to wait up to 10 seconds between flash photos. Battery life was poor at just 283 shots while most other cameras manage 400 to 500 from the same pair of NiMH AA cells we use for testing. Worst of all, once the batteries were depleted the camera switched off without retracting the lens. This could be a disaster if it happens while you're out and you don't have replacement batteries with you.

The best shots in our image-quality tests were extremely impressive, with stunningly sharp, clean detail and lifelike colours. However, these pictures were the exception rather than the norm. The camera's tendency to use shutter speeds as long as ? a second without bothering to raise the ISO speed meant many photos suffered from unnecessary blur as a result of camera shake. The image stabilisation helped us to produce sharp shots with shutter speeds as long as 1/13th of a second, though. Meanwhile, nudging up the ISO speed in the Party/Indoor scene preset, we found noise to be a problem at ISO 200 and above.

Colours were variable, too. Bright, natural light gave consistently pleasing colours but we had to use the white balance presets to get good results under artificial lighting. In very low light, photos had a weird smoky haze to them.

We've often been impressed by Nikon's no-frills, entry-level cameras, but the L5 is an odd mixture of entry-level design and lots of frills. We'd much prefer a simpler camera that's faster and more reliable, such as Fujifilm's FinePix F20.