Nikon Coolpix L25 review

The modestly rated 10-megapixel sensor strikes a sensible balance between details and noise levels, but this 1/3in sensor is quite a bit smaller than the usual 1/2.3in chips. That limits its light-gathering abilities, which in turn raises noise levels. It’s mounted behind a relatively bright lens though, opening up to f/2.7 at the wide-angle end of the zoom. This gives a small benefit to low-light photography, but optical stabilisation would have brought a much bigger benefit.

Noise isn’t too intrusive here, but we’re lucky to have achieved a sharp picture at a shutter speed as slow as 1/8s. Many others in this set were blurred – click to enlarge

When the camera chose faster shutter and ISO speeds, blur was less of a problem but noise was quite intrusive – click to enlarge

Specs aside, image quality isn’t much of an improvement on what we see from smartphone cameras. Even in bright conditions, subtle details were mistaken for noise and smudged away by noise reduction, and sharp lines looked a little spidery. The centre of frames were reasonably sharp but focus deteriorated towards the edges, particularly on left side of the frame. This was strong enough to be visible even after we’d resized photos to fit on a computer screen. It wasn’t such a problem at telephoto zoom positions, though.

This detail shot shows the extent of the L25’s focus problems, with a significant deterioration towards the left – click to enlarge

Low-light photography revealed the usual noise problems that come from a small sensor. Skin tones were grainy and flecked with multi-coloured blotches, and there was very little in the way of fine details. We also found that the automatic exposure settings were unpredictable, sometimes picking sensible settings but at other times shooting at slow ISO speeds and shutter speeds as slow as 1/3s. This inevitably lead to camera shake.

We’d be happy to forgive the L25 for having basic image quality, but the poor edge focus and excessively long shutter speeds are a little too troublesome for our liking. We haven’t reviewed a camera this cheap in a while, but the Pentax Optio RS1500 is now available for around £60. The two cameras are on a par for video capture, but the Pentax’s optical stabilisation, larger sensor and sharper lens make it the better buy.