Digicam Pics: Around SoBro with the Nikon Coolpix S6500

Released in January of 2013, the Nikon Coolpix S6500 is right at the cutoff date for what is considered a "fossil" on this blog.

There are only six years separating it from the Panasonic DMC-TZ3 from the earlier post, yet the technological gulf between them feels far more vast than that.

The 2007-vintage Panasonic has a 28-200mm equivalent lens in front of a 7MP CCD sensor, while the 2013 Nikon packs a 25-300mm equivalent lens and a 16MP Backside Illuminated CMOS sensor into a package that is slimmer, lighter, and altogether more pocketable. It also has built-in WiFi & GPS, a host of optional automated portrait features to remove dark circles under eyes, add color to cheeks, and even whiten teeth.

Further, where the Panasonic had a $330 MSRP, suggested retail on the Nikon was only $220, and I picked up this one as an open box sample at Best Buy in 2014 for only eighty bucks.

This is because by 2013, the pocket camera market had entered freefall following the introduction of smartphones with truly usable cameras. With a Samsung Galaxy SII or an iPhone 4 in their pocket, most folks had their snapshot needs covered. Digital camera sales had peaked in 2010, with CIPA reporting over 120 million cameras sold, while just three years later had plummeted almost by half, to 62.8 million.

Here's the SoBrosaurus at the widest angle:

And here we are zoomed in on just his noggin:

Even at an equivalent focal length of  257mm, the Nikon vibration reduction in the lens works pretty darn good. That's 1/40th of a second at f/6.1, ISO 400.

It's pretty crisp and detailed in Photoshop. Of course, there's no shooting in RAW and no manual modes of any kind. You can futz with the white balance, the ISO, and the metering, but that's about it. There's no driving stick shift with this camera; you have a dizzying array of presets and special effects, but everything's processed to JPEGs right there in the machine.

"Look, Ma! I can shoot in old-timey sepia!"

This is a handy little camera if all you need is a fast 'n' friendly pocketable superzoom. That 300mm lens lets you do things you can't do with a cell phone, and the camera's smaller than a deck of cards, so it's not any real hassle to carry in pocket or purse.

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