Nikon Bows 5-Megapixel Slim Coolpix

By Greg Scoblete On Apr 4 2005 - 6:00am

Nikon announced the addition of its thinnest Coolpix digital camera to date, the 0.75-inch Coolpix S1.

The 5-megapixel S1 features a 3x optical zoom lens; 2.5-inch LCD; and several in-camera editing features, including automatic red-eye removal, D-Lighting to obtain a balanced exposure, and a blur warning to alert users when a saved photo suffers from blur.

The camera also incorporates the recently introduced Face Priority Auto Focus (AF), which Nikon unveiled in its PMA Coolpix introductions. Face Priority AF ensures that faces remain in focus when shooting portraits. It automatically senses the presence of a face within the frame and adjusts accordingly.

The S1 sports 17 scene modes (four of which offer scene assist), continuous shooting at 1.8 frames per second (fps), VGA movie recording at 15 fps, and a start-up time of less than two seconds.

A voice-memo function records up to 20 seconds of sound that can be appended to a still image.

It ships in this month with a Coolstation cradle for image downloading and battery recharging, for a suggested retail price of $379.95.