Nikon coolpix S8100 camera review

Warning: This post has nothing to do with Spartans, training, or Spartan training.     Sorry

Uh oh.  Things are getting serious, I just bought new digital camera because I'm sick of taking pictures with my camera phone.  This blogging thing is pretty fun and my page isn't going to look very good with camera phone pictures and videos.  I even spent all morning creating my new banner on the top of my page.  I really don't like the default title banner, and I tried a website where you can create your own banner but I didn't like that either so I ended up making it from scratch.  I used an open-source vector graphics editor, "Inkscape", but I'm pretty new at it so if you have any ideas I'm all ears. 

(If you don't know, there's two kinds of graphics: Raster graphics and Vector graphics.  Raster graphics, or bitmap graphics are basically images that are pixelated.  So most photographs are raster images.  On the other hand, vector images are resolution independent and are not based off of pixels.  For this reason they're great for designs, logos, etc.) 

You can download Inkscape for free here:

Download: Inkscape

Back to the camera:

I bought it from Best Buy for $260.  Basically I was looking for a decent camera 
that wasn't too bulky and looked nice.  All the Sony cameras look really nice and 

I was considering one of those at first.  The first one I saw was the Sony DSC H70.

SONY DSC H70

Nikon Coolpix S8100

 I had narrowed it down to those two cameras.  For $250, the Sony DSC H70

looked really nice and seemed like it had more features, including the Panorama

picture option.  The Nikon has full 1080HD though, while the Sony only has 720

and plus, Nikon's have a reputation for making great cameras.  I probably 

wouldn't have noticed much of a difference between the two in terms of picture

quality, so it came down to whether or not I wanted the full HD.  1080HD seems

to be the new standard now, so ultimately, the Nikon wins.

My latest toy

 The software that it comes with has a Panorama picture program, so you can

actually take continuous pictures of a wide view and put them together using

this program.  Who needs the Sony panorama feature!  The body of the camera

feels solid, and a nice feature is the pop out flash.  It gives it a SLR type feel.

Response time is fairly quick, thanks to the high-speed backside-illuminated 

(BSI) CMOS sensor.  (The previous model, the S8000 lacked this sensor).  Also,

it's nice that there's the option to connect your camera directly to a HDTV, but

the HDMI cord isn't provided.  They just give you the standard audio/video cables.

If you're looking for a decent compact megazoom camera and you aren't doing

anything fancy (in my case I'm just using it for everyday use and blogging) then

I'd choose this camera over any of the Sonys.  As much as I love Sonys, they're

over priced and when it comes to cameras they're not my number one choice.