Nikon Coolpix L100

Nikon's first foray into the compact/long zoom arena is a slightly odd beast that sits roughly halfway between compact travel zooms (such as the Panasonic TZ series) and the SLR-style super zooms such as its own P90 (though despite appearances, it doesn't have an eye level viewfinder of any kind). It's certainly very small for a camera with a 15x optical zoom (covering a useful 28-420mm equiv. range), but its mini-SLR styling means it's far from pocketable. Lens aside the L100 is - like all Nikon's L series cameras - a true 'point and shoot' model, with little manual control, but the 3.0" screen, image stabilization and ease of use features (not to mention keen pricing) will undoubtedly appeal to many. (April 2009)