Nikon Coolpix L23 review

Photos taken in bright light had their fair share of troubles, too. There was a noisy fuzz hovering around high-contrast lines, which we put down to excessive digital sharpening that accentuated noise as well as details. Noise permeated darker areas of photos too, although the camera’s reluctance to venture beyond ISO 200 meant that noise was rarely disastrous.

Excessive digital sharpnening add a noisy fuzz around high contrast lines, losing some detail in the process

Wide-angle shots exhibited barrel distortion, which is particularly disappointing considering that the camera evidently uses digital processing to remove this distortion (it’s applied for live previews too, but not while zooming). Weirdly, parallel lines looked straighter in videos than in photos. Videos’ picture and sound quality were both up to scratch and the 22-minute clip length is better than usual, but the basic VGA resolution keeps a lid on this camera’s abilities for video.

It’s unfair to be too critical at this price, but the Canon PowerShot A800 costs just a few pounds more and takes much better photos.