Nikon Coolpix S3

When I bought the Nikon S3, I bought it to replace a disposable camera that I was using. The longer I have had the camera, the more uses I find for it. First, it takes decent wide angle photos. My Nikon 35mm digital camera has difficulty taking wide angle photos and I use the Nikon S3 instead. On the other hand, the x10 optical zoom feature of the S3 is almost no use to me because the quality of the photos are not very good. The movie feature is great for taking movies of kids and for scenery type movies. The TV video mode seems to deliver fine video quality to me. Lastly, I am using the S3 to replace my computer scanner. I use the S3 to take photos of things that I used to scan because you can do it faster without needing to start a computer. It can also take photos of the entire page of a newspaper that a scanner could not. There are many of the smaller cameras have similar features to the Nikon S3. The one thing that I like about it is that it is sealed better than the small cameras that have lenses that extend out of the camera body. The sealing is important to me because it is carried around anywhere and having a digital camera that is sealed from dust would be a priority for me. I think that a camera that has a lens that extends from the camera body would, over a period of time, be more likely to draw dust into the camera body as the lens is extended from the camera body. Dust is more of an enemy to the digital camera because once it gets onto the camera's CCD, it should be removed. The low battery indicator has appeared several times during usage but the battery has been able the tasks that I have been using it for. I use a 1GB memory card and have used about 50% when taking movies without problems.

Decent photos with x3 optical zoom, zoom lens enclosed in camera body for better dust seal, TV movie feature. Easy to use, easy to carry around because of its weight and size. Lots of capability for its size. Camera doesn't look like a camera which is advantage when taking photos of camera shy people.

Records movies in .mov format but Nikon does not provide a converting software for more compression and for more compatibility. Unable to adequately control focusing and the camera sometimes focuses on objects leaving objects that should be in focus, out of focus.

None.

None required.