Nikon Coolpix S570 review

The S570’s metal body looks smart but not particularly striking, although it’s more eye-catching in black, blue, red or pink finishes. The price quoted above is for the red model – the silver finish we were sent for testing costs £150.

Most of the S570’s features are typical for a low-cost compact camera, with a 12-megapixel sensor, VGA video capture, 2.7in screen and Li-ion battery that manages just 220 shots per charge. The lens is more impressive, with a 5x zoom range starting at a wide-angle 28mm focal length. Its f/2.7 maximum aperture for wide-angle shots is bigger than most, capturing more light for better images in gloomy conditions. However, f/6.6 at the telephoto end is a little smaller than usual.

The controls are sparse, with no metering modes, dynamic-range processing or other advanced features to worry about, but this keeps the menu simple and quick to navigate. The ISO speed control is more sophisticated than most, though. A Fixed Range Auto option lets the user specify the maximum ISO speed that’s allowed – 400 or 800 – without having to set the speed manually for each shot.

The Auto ISO mode uses speeds up to 1600, so between these three options there’s a healthy amount of flexibility. Sadly, though, the camera’s choice of ISO speeds within the selected range was often ill advised. It even ignored our wishes completely at times, jumping to ISO 800 when we had selected ISO 400 as the limit.

Otherwise, the S570 put in a solid performance in our image quality tests, but it failed to distinguish itself against similarly priced competitors. Low-light shots were woefully lacking in detail, but at least noise had been largely eradicated at the same time as these details.

The S570 does little wrong, but even at this price it’s reasonable to expect more. Its 5x zoom wide-angle lens is its best feature, but various other cameras at this price match this feature while offering superior image quality, better features or both.