Performance

Nikon Coolpix L110 review – Performance

In use the Nikon Coolpix L110 feels good in the hand and the zoom control is smooth. However, some of the buttons can lack responsiveness and needed a slightly firmer or secondary push before producing the desired result on some occasions.

The primary purpose of the L110 is, of course, being a superzoom and utilising that 15x optical zoom which extends smoothly and with a regular pace. At the longest end the 420mm holds fairly steadily and, while optical stabilisation would have been an advantage here to further steady ‘live’ during framing, the sensor-shift stabilisation helps provide further assurance of a sharper image capture.

Low-light situations add the benefit of an AF-assist lamp which includes the option to turn it off should this be undesireable.

The 3in LCD screen to the rear is of good quality, though is overly-bright when compared to viewing images on a computer screen – so much so that the former makes some image areas appear overexposed when they’re not. The jpegs have more highlight detail than is apparent on the LCD screen, which can make for some difficulty in providing accurate exposure. Also there is no viewfinder as per some competitors’ superzoom compacts, so no other way to conceive taking an image when in bright sunlight. The L110 screen does have an anti-reflective coating that helps but isn’t foolproof.

The L110 has a macro mode that works up to 1cm from the camera’s lens, though only at the wide end will it focus correctly as expected.

Power comes in the form of 4xAA batteries – some may love it, others may hate it; in fact it may be the reason to buy or not to buy. One slight whinge is that the SD card is inserted in the same compartment as the batteries, yet the batteries aren’t secured like many li-ion batteries would be. If the camera’s upside down this isn’t an issue, but the batteries can slide around or fall out when open, so the SD would have been better placed in its own area.

Easy Auto mode works as expected and is essentially an advanced automated option that auto-selects the best available settings for the scene at hand. For more control there’s the Auto mode which allows user-defined White Balance and ISO settings. The L110 also has ‘Color Options’ to change shooting styles from Standard to Vivid, B&W, Sepia or Cyanotype too.