Introduction

Ease of Use

Take a glance at the Coolpix L330 and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a bridge camera: something which gives you DSLR levels of camera control, but with the convenience of a single, fixed super-zoom lens. Turns out only the latter is true of the L330, as there’s precious little in the way of manual control here. Fortunately the camera is equipped with a Smart Auto mode which automatically detects the type of scene you’re aiming at and applies the optimal shooting settings.

Alternatively you can switch to a standard automatic mode to gain control over ISO sensitivity and white balance, or opt for one of 18 different scene modes such as ‘Portrait’ and ‘Night landscape’. There’s also a separate mode dedicated to Nikon’s Smart Portrait feature, whereby the camera will automatically select Face-Priority autofocus, delay firing the shutter until your subject is smiling and warn if anyone has blinked. Then the system will fix any red-eye, smooth skin and adjust the overall exposure for optimal highlight and shadow detail. Clever stuff. Switch to standard Auto mode and various colour options are revealed, should you fancy applying vivid, monochrome, sepia or cyanotype effects.

Front	Rear

But the big talking point with the Nikon Coolpix L330 is its 20.2-megapixel 1/2.3-inch CCD sensor, which is a hefty boost from the L320’s 16.1-megapixel device. The theory goes that more megapixels equals better image quality, but all too often that’s just not how things pan out. Cram an extra 4 million pixels onto a sensor as tiny as the L330’s and each pixel has to be smaller to fit, which in turn makes them less light-sensitive and consequently more prone to generating unsightly image noise in your photos. Add in the automatic noise reduction processing incorporated into most compact cameras to counteract such grain and colour speckling, and the camera is likely to smooth away the increased detail those extra megapixels should have provided. Find out later whether this is true of the L330.

There’s no doubting the camera's optical capabilities though. With a 26x zoom range on tap, you’ll be able to fill your frame from most distances, and unlike some super-zoom cameras, the L330 still retains an impressive 22.5mm-equivalent extreme wide angle setting. The lens’ maximum aperture of f/3.1 is also relatively wide considering the huge focal length range and means the camera should cope quite well in low light without having to resort to high sensor sensitivities. Nikon’s lens-shift Vibration Reduction system is implemented to counteract the effect of camera shake and is an essential feature when shooting in low light or at long focal lengths. The only slight bugbear is the camera’s rather dim-witted zooming controls which are slightly sluggish when you want to zoom in or out at speed, yet jerky and imprecise for making fine focal length alterations.

Aside from this, the Nikon Coolpix L330’s controls are well positioned and easy to use. There certainly aren’t many of them, but that means the buttons you do get are pleasingly large and well-spaced, with enough room on the rear panel for a sizable rubberised thumb grip. Team this with the large, ergonomic main hand grip and this is an exceptionally easy camera to hold and shoot one-handed. Despite the large chassis shape, it doesn’t feel overtly heavy either. The large video record button is also well-cited next to your thumb, as are the shooting mode and playback controls. Naturally there’s the usual directional pad incorporating basic settings like exposure compensation, flash and macro modes, plus the self-timer function. Over on the left of the body sits a sole button for ejecting the pop-up flash and just two sockets for connecting a DC mains input and a USB output.

Top	Side

Fire up the L330 and it’s ready for action in a spritely 1.3 seconds. You’re then greeted by a clear shooting interface on the 460k-dot LCD screen. Although not particularly crisp, this is still a big improvement over the resolution of the old L320’s monitor and it’s easy to see when shooting in bright conditions. Colour accuracy is also good – If a tad under-saturated – however the screen’s viewing angles really disappoint. Try composing a high-angle shot and you’re pretty much left squinting at a blackened mess. But to be fair to Nikon, equipping the L330 with LCD screen tech that doesn’t exhibit this trait would push up the price. The screen is also fixed and lacks touch-sensitivity to keep costs down, but the menu system is simple and easy to operate using the button controls.

Shooting with the Nikon Coolpix L330 is also a somewhat mixed bag. In good light the autofocus system locks on to a subject almost instantly, but it slows considerably in darker conditions, sometimes taking a frustrating couple of seconds to finds its mark. Focus hunting also occurs at longer focal lengths regardless of ambient lighting, whereby the camera sails past the point of focus before backtracking and taking the shot. We also found a couple of our test shots ended up being slightly out of focus, although the camera had apparently focussed successfully during their composition. Another annoyance is the reluctance of the default Smart Auto mode to macro focus. If you want to reliably exploit the cameras 1cm minimum focus distance, you’ll need to change to standard Auto mode and then activate macro mode, which frankly is quite a faff.

At least the exposure metering is more dependable, generally striking a good balance between preserving highlight and shadow detail. High-contrast landscape shots can cause it to moderately underexpose, but that does assure you good sky detail. The L330’s auto white balance also performs well and is rarely fazed by mixed lighting conditions.

Front	Battery Compartment

Video mode is another minor disappointment though. Granted, its 720p recording resolution isn’t Full HD, but the level of detail in videos still falls short of what we’d expect. Audio is captured in mono rather than stereo, so don’t expect any aural amazement there either. You do get an interesting feature called Wind Noise Reduction which does exactly that, albeit negligibly.

Alternatively you can ditch the video mode and switch to continuous stills shooting. No speed figures are publicised for this, but our testing revealed the Nikon Coolpix L330 to capture at approximately 1fps for a 5-shot burst, slowing to around a 2-second shot-to-shot delay once the buffer is filled. This underwhelming processing speed also manifests itself in the time taken to record a normal single shot image, whereby the camera makes you wait a frustrating couple of seconds between firing the shutter and being able to review the image.

Back to the subject of cost-cutting and we get to the issue of power. The L330 relies on 4x AA batteries for its juice, which is nice if you’re away from mains access and need a quick camera refuel. However, it does mean the price of the camera isn’t quite as low as it seems, as realistically you’ll need to shell out an extra £20/$30 for some NiMH rechargeables to get some cost-effective power. Do this and you can expect an impressive 580 shots-per-charge from four 2300mAh-capacity cells. Should you slot in some alkalines instead, then the L330’s CIPA-rated 370-shot lifespan is also very good, but it’s dwarfed by the whopping 960 shots achieved by splashing out on a pack of premium lithium cells.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb.

Remember that theory that more megapixels doesn’t necessarily equal better image quality? Well unfortunately the L330 is a prime example of this. Shoot any landscape where there’s grass or fine foliage in the frame and the effect of image smoothing is profound, smearing away fine detail so the picture resembles more of a watercolour painting than an accurate photograph.

Even at the lowest sensor sensitivity of ISO80 this is a problem, and one which only worsens at higher sensitivities. ISO400 is really the cut-off for acceptable image quality, with ISO800 exhibiting noticeable grain and colour speckling when viewing at 50% image size or larger. The maximum ISO1600 sensitivity is very much a last resort thanks to high levels of image noise.

Of course low-light scenarios expose these shortcomings most clearly, but you’ll also encounter them when shooting at longer focal lengths in any light, as the L330 ramps up the sensor sensitivity to help avoid camera shake. In these situations the camera’s Vibration Reduction system is an essential feature and works wonders.

The sensor’s dynamic range is adequate, if not outstanding. Thanks to the cautious exposure metering you’re unlikely to see any blown highlight detail in your shots, but shadows are often murky as a result of slight underexposure. Of course you can give these a lift in post-production, though expect this to reveal even more image noise.

Thankfully the lens doesn’t detrimentally effect image quality to the extent of the sensor. Chromatic aberration (purple fringing) is present in some high-contrast shots, but is rarely distracting. Lens distortion is also minimised well, with barely a hint of barrel distortion at maximum wide angle and no apparent pincushion distortion at the extreme telephoto end. Corner sharpness is also a close match for centre-frame clarity.

Noise

The Nikon Coolpix L330 has 6 sensitivity settings ranging from ISO 80 to ISO 1600 at full resolution.

ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The L330’s 26x zoom lens achieves a maximum wide-angle focal length equivalent to 22.5mm, and is capable of a telephoto reach of 585mm (in 35mm-camera terms).

22.5mm	585mm

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops - the right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images from the Nikon Coolpix L330 are slightly soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can alternatively change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your tastes.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The L330 records all images at normal quality, with only the maximum image resolution accompanied by a fine quality option, which roughly doubles the file size of each saved image.

Fine (9.45Mb) (100% Crop)	Normal (6.45Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

Given the range of the zoom lens, the Nikon Coolpix L330 shows some purple fringing, with limited effects in areas of high contrast as shown in the examples below.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The L330’s lens will focus as close as 1cm from a subject, however depth of field becomes very shallow at this extremely close distance.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The pop-up flash on the L330 has four settings: Auto, Auto with red-eye reduction, Fill flash & Slow sync. Shooting a white surface from a distance of 1.5m, the flash provides even coverage with the lens zoomed in, though some vignetting is visible in the wide-angle shot.

Whether the flash is set to standard Auto mode – or Auto with red-eye reduction – the camera successfully avoids any trace of red-eye.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (22.5mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (22.5mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (585mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (585mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Fill Flash or the Auto with Red-eye reduction options caused any amount of red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red Eye Reduction	Red Eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Smart Portraits

This gets its own dedicated shooting mode, and deservedly so. Nikon’s automatic face and smile detection features work well, and skin is smoothed after the shot is captured. However, such is the smeared detail of most shots captured in normal Smart Auto mode, you’ll struggle to spot the difference in skin texture.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)

Vibration Reduction

Getting sharp shots at the kind of long focal lengths the L330’s lens is capable of would be near-impossible without Vibration Reduction, as you can see from the shots below. The image taken with VR disabled was shot with elbows well-supported on a table, yet the 585mm-equivalent focal length exaggerates any minute movements so much that blurring is still inevitable. Activating VR makes a huge difference and ensures shots like this stay crisp.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/5th sec / 585mm

Night

One of the L330’s shooting modes is called Night landscape, which produces results such as this. You can expect almost identical results by simply leaving the camera in Smart Auto mode though.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Special Effects

The L330 offers just four colour effects apart from the ‘normal’ setting, all of which are previewed live. It’s perhaps a little disappointing that the Vivid colour mode isn’t more eye-catching.

Normal	Vivid
Monochrome	Sepia
Cyanotype

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Nikon Coolpix L330 camera, which were all taken using the 20.1 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

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

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L330 / Lens Extended

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L330 / Pop-up Flash

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L330 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Nikon Coolpix L330 / Main Menu

Top of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Bottom of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Side of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Front of the Nikon Coolpix L330

Memory Card Slot / Battery Compartment

Conclusion

Recommending the Nikon Coolpix L330 isn’t easy as it doesn’t excel in any one area, except possibly ergonomics; however that’s hardly a must-have feature on most people’s camera wish list.

Sure, it’s got a new 20.2-megapixel sensor which is more pixel-packed than many of its rivals, but so what? Overall image quality is still average at best, with no more detail than many 16-megapixel compact cameras.

The L330’s 26x lens is undeniably a strong aspect of the camera with its useful wide-angle capability, fairly wide maximum aperture and lack of distortion. Yet even it is hardly a match for the 50x focal length range that can be extracted from a camera of this size. It’s also rather let down by iffy autofocus performance and clumsy zoom controls.

Then there’s the issue of cost to consider. Yes, this is a keenly-priced camera, but it’s less easy on the pocket when you factor the extra expense of a set of rechargeable AA batteries. However, the killer blow for the L330 comes from its far smaller yet more feature-packed sibling, the Coolpix S9500. With its 22x zoom range you get almost as much flexibility as the L330, but crucially it’s wrapped up in a svelte, pocketable package and delivers better image quality to boot. But the real bonus is price. If you shop around the S9500 can be had for just a fraction more than the L330, and you won’t have to fork out for any batteries to go with it.

At the end of the day the Nikon Coolpix L330 is a thoroughly average camera without an obvious market. It’s a large bridge camera design but has no more functionality than a basic ultra-compact. It has a decent zoom range, yet not enough to compensate for lugging around its extra bulk over a travel-zoom compact. Finally, it is indeed relatively inexpensive, but it’s also bad value once you factor the battery outlay, woeful lack of features and the falling cost of better-specced, more portable and higher-performing rival cameras.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	3
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	2.5
Value for money	3

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Nikon Coolpix L330.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Nikon Coolpix L330 from around the web.

Specifications

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