Perhaps more important is the clarity and sharpness of the images taken with the S70. They are impressively sharp and clear under magnification. The menus are intuitive and easy to navigate. The touch screen focus and shutter release function is a nice touch. The simplified and enhanced in-camera cropping and retouch functions are well done and welcome additions. The Easy Auto mode handles very well all of the major camera settings and functions required for a good picture when a quick “point & shoot” situation arises. I would have preferred however an out-of-camera battery recharging system as I usually charge and carry a spare battery. I will be purchasing an external charger.

I have owned Nikon film and digital cameras for the last 25 years and I consider my new S70 to be a very worthwhile addition. It is stylish, functional, fun to use, and takes great photos. When you need a high quality pocket sized camera, you should take a close look at this one. I would highly recommend the S70.

The good:
The form factor is great
I like the way you slide the cover to open the lens and turn the camera on. Makes turning on fast and easy.
The touch screen is great. Very easy to change settings. Screen is responsive. You can touch where you want to focus, which is really cool.
The ability to shoot in 16:9 ratio is nice, but you’re limited to 8MP in that mode.

The Bad
This camera just wouldn’t take a good picture. Outside in daylight I could get a pretty good photo, but anything indoors was poor at best. Even indoors during the day when there’s decent light. After taking my first set of shots I assumed I must be doing something wrong, so I read the manual, tried all the different “scenes”, I tried adjusting ISO, resolution, etc.

Granted, I’m a fairly novice user, so perhaps a more experienced pro could get a better picture out of this camera. I finally pulled out my old Canon SD200 3.2MP camera that I was looking to replace. I took many photos side by side. I never took the Canon off “auto” mode and I tweaked the Nikon a million ways. Virtually every time the Canon was sharper, and more color accurate.

So, I thouht maybe I got a bad camera. I went to Best Buy and tried their display model. You could see on the camera screen that the images just weren’t that great. Maybe if I didn’t have a side by side comparison it wouldn’t have been so noticable, but I really expected this Nikon to be better than my very old Canon.

If anyone believes it’s the operator and not the camera I’m more than open to advice, because I loved everything else about this camera. I did return it, but would buy it again if I found out it was just operator error, however, I really don’t think it was my error.