The Nikon Coolpix S610 is a very small ultra-compact camera with a stabilized wide-angle lens, offering a 4X range from 28 to 112mm, in 35mm-equivalent terms. Up to relatively recently, there was very little competition in terms of wide-angle ultra-compact digital cameras. This is no longer the case, putting the S610 face-to-face with more competitors than ever.

The Coolpix S610 turned in an average performance for a high-resolution ultra-compact. Image quality is decent with relatively low image noise up to ISO 400 but muddy details in shadow areas regardless of the ISO. As ISO is increased things get worse quickly but mid-sized prints should still be possible at ISO 800. Shot-to-shot speeds are slow but performance in other areas is snappy.

A direct and clearly superior competitor to the S610 is the Fuji Finepix F100fd. It features a wide-angle lens starting at 28mm too but that reaches out to 140mm, plus a 12 megapixels sensor which delivers very clean high-ISO images. Another interesting contender is the extremely durable and even waterproof Olympus Stylus 1030SW. This one lags behind the Nikon S610 in terms of image quality, but it is the toughest digital camera to date.

See our full-length review for an in-depth look and images samples at all ISO sensitivities.