Nikon Coolpix AW100 Review
Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 16 megapixel High JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6.5Mb.
The Nikon Coolpix AW100 produced images of above average quality during the review period. The 16 megapixel sensor used in the AW100 suffers from noisy images even at the relatively slow speed of ISO 200. ISO 400 exhibits quite visible noise and colour desaturation, and ISO 800 and 1600 are even noisier, although still usable for small prints. The fastest seting of ISO 3200 is best avoided altogether.
The Coolpix AW100 dealt well with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple fringing effects appearing mostly in high contrast situations. The flash worked fairly well indoors, with a little red-eye and adequate exposure, except in the corners of the frame at the wide-angle setting. The night photograph was poor, with the maximum shutter speed of 4 seconds not allowing you to capture enough light.
Macro performance is very good, allowing you to focus as close as 1cms away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting and ideally require further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, as you can't change the in-camera setting if you don't like the default results. Anti-shake is a feature that works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range, while the new range of special effects and the Easy Panorama mode allow you to add a little in-camera creativity to your photos.
Noise
There are 6 ISO settings available on the Nikon Coolpix AW100. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.
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ISO 125 (100% Crop) |
ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
ISO 3200 (100% Crop) |
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Focal Range
The Nikon Coolpix AW100's 5x zoom lens offers a fairly versatile focal range, as illustrated by these examples:
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28mm |
140mm |
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Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are a little soft at the default sharpening setting. You can't change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.
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Original (100% Crop) |
Sharpened (100% Crop) |
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File Quality
There are two JPEG quality settings available at full resolution, Normal and High. On the camera, the latter is denoted with an asterisk next to the megapixel count. The Coolpix AW100 doesn't shoot RAW. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options.
| 16M High (6.81Mb) (100% Crop) | 16M Normal (3.21Mb) (100% Crop) |
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Chromatic Aberrations
For a camera with an internally stacked zoom, the Nikon Coolpix AW100 handled chromatic aberrations well. Here are a couple of 100% crops that show what you can expect in the worst case.
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Example 1 (100% Crop) |
Example 2 (100% Crop) |
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Macro
The Nikon Coolpix AW100 has a very good macro mode. The minimum focus distance is 1cm. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject. The second image is a 100% crop.
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Macro Shot |
100% Crop |
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Flash
The flash settings on the Nikon Coolpix AW100 are Auto, Flash On, Red-eye Reduction, Slow Synchro and Off. These shots of a white wall were taken at a subject distance of 1.5m. It is obvious that the flash struggles to evenly illuminate the entire subject at the wide end of the zoom range, but the flash coverage issue is much less severe at the maximum telephoto setting. In the photos taken without flash, we can also see a bit of light fall-off in the corners.
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Flash Off - Wide Angle (28mm) |
Flash On - Wide Angle (28mm) |
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Flash Off - Telephoto (140mm) |
Flash On - Telephoto (140mm) |
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And here are some portrait shots. The flash has a red-eye reduction setting, though in this test there was not much of a redeye effect to begin with.
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Flash On |
Flash On (100% Crop) |
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Red-eye Reduction |
Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop) |
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Night
The Nikon Coolpix AW100's maximum shutter speed is 4 seconds in the Fireworks scene mode, which is not great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 4 seconds at ISO 125. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.
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Night Shot |
Night Shot (100% Crop) |
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Night Landscape
The Nikon AW100 has a Night Landscape mode that increases the ISO to produce sharper results, although at the expense of greater noise.
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Night Landscape |
Night Landscape (100% Crop) |
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Vibration Reduction
Vibration Reduction is Nikon's name for anti-shake, which in the Coolpix AW100 works via a sensor-shift mechanism. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.
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Shutter Speed / Focal Length |
Anti Shake Off (100% Crop) |
Anti Shake On (100% Crop) |
| 1/10th / 28mm | |
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| 0.5 sec / 140mm | |
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Special Effects
The new Effects mode offers a variety of creative options.
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Off |
Soft |
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Nostalgic Sepia |
High-contrast Monochrome |
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High Key |
Low Key |
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Selective Color (red) |
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Easy Panorama
The Easy Panorama shooting mode lets you pan the AW100 either vertically or horizontally to create an auto-stitched panorama.
| Normal (180 degrees) |
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| Wide (360 degrees) |
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Sample Images
This is a selection of sample images from the Nikon Coolpix AW100 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel High JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.
Sample Movie & Video
This is a sample movie at the highest quality setting of 1920x1280 pixels at 30 frames per second. Please note that this 16 second movie is 28Mb in size.
As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.
Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.
Product Images
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Front of the Camera |
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Front of the Camera / Lens Opened |
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Isometric View |
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Isometric View |
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Rear of the Camera |
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Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed |
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Rear of the Camera / Turned On |
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Rear of the Camera / Main Menu |
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Rear of the Camera / Scene Menu |
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Top of the Camera |
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| Bottom of the Camera |
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| Side of the Camera |
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| Side of the Camera |
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| Front of the Camera |
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| Front of the Camera |
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| Memory Card Slot |
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| Battery Compartment |
Conclusion
Looking much like a regular digital camera, the new Nikon Coolpix AW100 can withstand almost everything that life can throw at it, underwater, in the cold, from a moderate height, although it's not dust- or crush-proof like some rivals. The inclusion of a suite of sophisticated GPS features, which doesn't affect battery-life too adversely, and the innovative Action Control feature makes the AW100 a great travel companion. Sure, just like a regular digital camera, it may not produce the best images and it does cost substantially more than most compacts, but the AW100 is still an assured first stab at an all-action model.
The camera element of the AW100 only produces so-so image quality, being geared more towards point-and-shoot users who will mainly use it in good lighting conditions. Noise at slow ISO speeds, light fall-off and inconsistent sharpness at the edge of the frame, and a poor night mode contribute to merely adequate photographs from the AW100. Video performance is much better thanks to the full HD 1080p mode with stereo sound, slow- and fast-motion options, the ability to use the optical zoom during recording and the economical MOV format, although the video features on offer are still somewhat basic.
An asking price of £329.99 / $379.95 is a lot to ask for a 16 megapixel camera, but it is comparable with the AW100's main action rivals, so as ever with such a specialized camera, you really need to decide exactly how much mileage you'll get out of the extra weather-proof and GPS features. If they fit your particular bill, then we can definitely recommend the new Nikon Coolpix AW100.
| Ratings (out of 5) | |
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| Design | 4 |
| Features | 4 |
| Ease-of-use | 4.5 |
| Image quality | 3.5 |
| Value for money | 3.5 |
Review Roundup
Reviews of the Nikon Coolpix AW100 from around the web.
ephotozine.com »
We recently published our round-up of Top 7 Cameras For Active Photographers, these cameras are all waterproof, shockproof and freezeproof. Nikon didn't feature on the list as they had not released a suitable camera until they announced the Coolpix AW100 in August 2011. We take a look at this new addition to the Coolpix range to see if it's worthy of a place in the Top 7.
Read the full review »
techradar.com »
The Nikon Coolpix AW100 is the first camera in the new Coolpix All Weather line. It's a rugged compact that's waterproof down to 10 metres for up to one hour, shockproof to a drop of 1.5 metres and freeze-proof for temperatures as low as -10C.
Read the full review »
Specifications
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*1 Not compatible with Multi Media Card (MMC) |
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| Effective pixels | 16.0 megapixels |
| Image sensor | 1/2.3 type RGB CMOS sensor |
| Lens | Optical 5x zoom, NIKKOR lens; Focal length: 5.0-25.0mm; View angle: 35mm [135] format equivalent to 28-140 mm; Aperture: f/3.9-4.8; Lens construction: 11 elements in 9 groups (2 ED glass elements) |
| Digital zoom | Maximum 4x (35mm [135] format equivalent to approx. 560 mm) |
| Focus range (from lens) | Approx. 50 cm (1 ft. 8 in.) to infinity (at wide-angle setting), approx. 1 m (3 ft. 3 in.) to infinity (at telephoto setting), Macro mode: approx. 1 cm (0.4 in.) to infinity (at wide-angle setting) |
| Vibration Reduction (VR) | Lens-shift type + electronic type (for still images), Lens-shift type (for movies) |
| ISO sensitivity (Standard output sensitivity) | ISO 125, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 (4608 x 3456), Auto (ISO 125 to 800), Fix range auto (ISO 125 to 400, 125 to 800) |
| LCD monitor | 7.5 cm (3-in.), approx. 460k-dot, wide-viewing angle TFT LCD monitor (HVGA), clear color panel, anti- reflection coating, brightness adjustment |
| Storage media | Internal memory (approx. 83 MB) SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card1 |
| Movie | FullHD 1080p: 1920 x 1080 (30 fps), HD 720p: 1280 x 720 (30 fps), TV movie 640: 640 x 480 (30 fps), Small size 320: 320 x 240 (30 fps) |
| Interface/Direct print compatibility | Hi-Speed USB/PictBridge, mini HDMI |
| Power sources | Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL12 (1050 mAh), AC Adapter EH-62F (option) |
| Number of shots per charge2 (battery life) | Approx. 250 frames with EN-EL12 |
| Dimensions (width × height × depth) | Approx. 110.1 x 64.9 x 22.8 mm / 4.4 x 2.6 x 0.9 in. |
| Weight3 | Approx. 178g / 6.3 oz. |
| Supplied accessories | Camera Strap AN-CP19 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL12 MH-65P, UC-E6, EG-CP16 and UR-E23 |
| Optional accessories | Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL12, Battery Charger MH-65 and AC Adapter EH-62F |
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