Budget Camera Grouptest - Nikon S3000

The Nikon S3000's first impressions certainly don't reflect its price as it offers a slim, sleek body and above-average 4x zoom from a 27mm wideangle lens. Looking deeper reveals only an ISO-based image-stabilisation system, but a 12MP sensor and Best Shot Selector, which chooses the best of 10 images, ensure that the features impress.

The feature set may seem slightly lopsided due to the image stabilisation being purely digital, where both the zoom and megapixel count are above average. As many other models in this test offer optical or mechanical versions it seems something of an oversight that Nikon hasn't included it. The Best Shot Selector works in a similar fashion to a best mode, finding the sharpest image and saving it as opposed to filling the card with photos that would be deleted anyway. The Auto Scene mode gives beginners the best opportunity to take a decent shot without too much alteration of settings.          

Image quality is somewhat influenced by the ISO, although image noise doesn't appear as often as is normally expected. Instead the camera aggressively post-processes, giving a muddy look to many of the colours. This also affects the tonal range, as a number of the shades bleed into one another. The focal length is fairly limited though the S3000 does benefit from a 27mm lens - the widest of all the cameras featured in this test, though does limit it to 108mm at full zoom.

PRICE            £100
Megapixels    12MP
LENS    27-108mm (4x Zoom)
APERTURE    F/3.2-5.9
Stabilisation    Digital
SCREEN SIZE        2.7in
ISO    80-3200
MODES    Auto, P, 17 Scene modes
MEMORY CARDS    SD/SDHC
SOCKETS        USB, AV
DIMENSIONS     94.3 x 55.9 x 19mm
WEIGHT        116g

Summary

Another fantastic looking camera which post-processes too aggressively to give the images any decent level of tone or sharpness.