Nikon Coolpix L4 review

At just £74, Nikon's Coolpix L4 is one of the lowest-priced digital cameras available.

Its 4-megapixel sensor may seem basic, but it's enough for sharp prints up to 5x7". Otherwise, the camera is well specified, with a 3x zoom lens and 2" 115,000-pixel screen. It's impressively light and compact, weighing just 115g, although inserting a couple of rechargeable batteries (bought separately) brings it closer to 200g.

The controls are typical for a compact camera, with buttons for flash, self-timer and macro settings that are used as a navigation pad once you've accessed the menu screens. There's an exposure compensation option and a selection of scene presets rather than direct control over shutter and aperture settings, but the lack of ISO and metering options is disappointing. A white balance control is included, though, with a custom mode that's calibrated simply by pointing the camera at a white object. Video is captured in QuickTime format using Motion JPEG compression. The 640x480 resolution is impressive at this price, but the 15fps frame rate looks jerky compared to the 30fps offered by most cameras.

Performance is pedestrian, capturing a photo every three seconds. This increases to over four seconds with the flash enabled and almost eight when shooting in low light without flash. There's a six-second wait between turning on the camera and taking a picture, although disabling the welcome screen shaves a couple of seconds off this time. Browsing pictures stored on SD card is annoyingly slow. The only continuous mode available captures a picture every second to create a four-by-four collage of 16 shots. This can be fun, but it means each picture is just 568 by 426 pixels.

Image quality is the highlight, comparing well with cameras costing three times as much. The 4-megapixel sensor is the most obvious limitation, but the L4's images are incredibly sharp. Colour accuracy was excellent across a range of tests, with vivid colours and pleasing skin tones in natural light and under the flash. Artificial light gave pictures a strong yellow cast, though, so we were grateful for those white balance presets. An ISO control would have been welcome, too. Examining the EXIF data in photos taken with the camera revealed its automatic ISO values ranged from 50 to 200. However, the camera often chose to use ISO 50 in low light, leading to blur-inducing long shutter times.

The L4 has much in common with Canon's Powershot A430, a 4-megapixel camera that won a Budget Buy award in Shopper September 2006. The Powershot is a bit more expensive at around £95, slightly bulkier and heavier, and has a smaller screen. However, its 4x zoom, ISO and metering options, 1cm macro focus, proper continuous mode and faster performance are compelling reasons to stump up the extra £20.