Product Listing

Nikon S1000pj - More than a Camera

By Seow Tein Hee - 6 Oct 2009

Features

Shining for You

Needless to say, we'll be paying much attention to the main feature of the S1000pj: the pico projector. For Nikon, and in fact for any other compact cameras, this is a first. Is it practical? Truth is, we found it to be more of a gimmick. The projector is great for sharing an image, or even a video, with your friends and family. But that's the extent of it. With no actual improvement on the imaging quality, the projector won't share the same level of usefulness as, say, a secondary LCD for self-portraits. To top it off, the projector is a power drain and heats the device up significantly after just 10 minutes.

The integrated pico projector is quite a novelty for sharing photos and videos. But beyond that, there's no actual benefits to improve your imaging quality.

Depending on the distance between the projector lens and the surface you're throwing onto, you'll need to adjust the focus accordingly with this slider.

To utilize the projector, a few conditions have to be met. Firstly, a suitably low-lit area to have the projected image visible on the surface. Secondly, a non-glossy and white surface for maximum visibility. And thirdly, a short distance between the surface and the projector to have the image adequately visible. With all these prerequisites, you should have realized by now that it requires quite a bit of effort to view the projected image.

The throw distance is pretty short if you wish to get a decent projection out of the S1000pj. Projecting the image onto a suitable surface with the right lighting conditions is absolutely required to get some visibility.

We've established that the projector isn't going to be of much help with the S1000pj's imaging function. With that, let's take a look at some of the imaging features of the device. Auto mode and Scenes are the staple of all compacts, and that's what you get with the S1000pj. There are other specific features such as a Smart Portrait. This mode includes a Smile Timer that looks out for a smile and automatically takes an image. The Skin Softening function doesn't really lower the glare that much from faces that bounces off the flash. But the Blink Proof function does pay off by giving a lifeline in the form of two successive images to ensure that one of the two images doesn't have the subject blinking.

The Subject Tracking function has some questionable traits to it. When we tested it, the tracking wasn't as accurate as we hoped for. More often than not, the tracking is lost and we had to re-establish a lock.

Scenes are aplenty on the S1000pj. Still, you'll probably spend more time using the Auto or Scene auto selector mode to keep it simple.

Smart Portrait comes with a few facial enhancing features. This includes a Skin Softener to reduce the glare, a Smile Timer to automatically capture a smile, and Blink Proof to prevent any shots taken while someone's blinking.

Besides the Blink Proof feature on the Smart Portrait mode, you can also activate the Blink Warning function to prompt you on whether someone's blinking just before the shot is taken.

Subject tracking will require you to select and lock onto your subject first. However, we noticed that the tracking seems to be off and we had to re-lock onto the subject quite often.

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