Nikon Coolpix S6300 review

Introduced in February alongside the Nikon Coolpix S9300, as part of a duo of slim superzoom compact cameras, the Nikon Coolpix S6300's headline feature is its 10x optical zoom lens.

In 35mm equivalent terms, that sees the optic starting at 25mm at its widest point, rising all the way up to 250mm. That's quite a lot of bang for your buck, and should make this an ideal travelling companion for the casual photographer.

There's also a 4x digital zoom option available, which theoretically boosts its capability up to 1000mm in 35mm equivalent terms.

Along with that lens, there's a back illuminated 16 million pixel, 1/2.3 inch CMOS sensor, which promises to deliver a lot of detail. Full HD video recording is available, along with sensitivity up to ISO 3200, both delivered by the EXPEED C2 processing engine housed inside the camera.

By default, the camera shoots in fully automatic mode. But there's also the option to select from 19 different scene modes, which includes panoramic mode and Auto HDR (high dynamic range) mode.

Creative photographers have also been catered for, with a selection of digital filters, including High Contrast Monochrome, Low Key and Nostalgic Sepia. Images can also be altered after the shot has been taken via the Playback menu. That includes retouching, adding another digital filter, cropping and rotating them.

A number of continuous shooting options are available, all designed to help capture difficult moments. You can choose to shoot at full resolution at up to 6fps in Continuous H mode, or for really difficult subjects, you can shoot at Continuous 120fps. Be aware that this reduces image resolution right down to VGA size, so it's not recommended for the majority of shooting scenarios.

Finally, you can shoot with Best Shot Selector mode enabled, which fires off a burst of images and saves what the camera considers to be the best. This feature keeps images at whichever resolution you wish to shoot at, all the way up to the highest 16 million pixels.

There's a 99-point autofocus system included on the camera. You can leave the camera to decide which to use for you, or unusually for a compact camera in this price bracket, you can manually choose a focus point for yourself.

In standard focusing mode, the lens can focus from as close as 50cm at the widest angle, rising up to around 1 metre at the telephoto at the lens. Using macro mode enables focusing as close as approximately 10cm at the wide-angle position.

The Nikon Coolpix S6300 has a full price of £169.99 in the UK and $199.95 in the US. With its 10x optical zoom, that puts it in competition with the Sony W690 and the Panasonic SZ1.