NikonCoolpix L22 12.0MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Optical Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Red-primary)

This is a great camera for everyday use, vacation shots, sports photos, and more. We take low-light, no flash photos with this on the "sports" setting for dance recitals and plays. The photos turn out terrific, and people always ask what camera we use because they are so impressed with the clarity of the shots.This camera has numerous features and settings. The navigation between settings is pretty intuitive, and the instruction manual has lots more ideas too. It has good video capability for capturing something in a video file when you don't have a camcorder handy. You don't need special software to upload photos from this camera - I have a card reader in my computer to do all that.The camera does a good job conserving battery life. We use rechargeable AA batteries without any problems for hundreds of photos per charge. It's compact and fairly lightweight, and it fits into a shirt pocket with ease.The large screen makes reviewing photos easy, and deleting ones from the camera is simple with just a touch of a button plus an "are you sure?" question to keep you from potentially erasing something in error.The 3.6x optical zoom is an improvement over the previous Nikon Coolpix we had, so this is now the favorite camera in my home! If you've had a Coolpix in the past and are thinking about getting a newer version, definitely do it! You'll find the operations and menu choices very similar to what you're used to, but with added improvements that you'll appreciate.We've not had any problems with the battery cover on this camera or the previous Coolpix cameras we still own. If you break the battery cover, it's time for a new camera, unfortunately. But it's very sturdy and reliable, so we've never worried about it much.

We originally purchased the Nikon Coolpix L22 for our son's birthday present. I purchased it over the Thanksgiving day weekend, even though his birthday isn't until February. Amazon did a great job. The camera arrived in just a couple days. Love that super saver shipping. I just packed the box up into our closet to wait until the birthday party.Fast Forward 3 months. We're in the middle of a 12 year old's birthday party... and he wants to try out his new camera. We took it out of the box and... the battery latch is defective and completely broken off.. It won't hold the batteries in no matter what we try. I then called support, explained my issue and pay to send it to them. About 2 weeks later I get an invoice in the mail telling me if I want my camera fixed I have to pay 70$ That was almost what we paid for the camera NEW!I had them send the camera back to us. I was very disappointed. After doing many more web searches I have found that this issue is very common in the "Coolpix" line of cameras.(In fact google "battery door latch" and the first result is about a Nikon Coolpix... many of the following results are as well)Now on to the technical side. Once I got the camera back I used some electrical tape and taped the battery latch door shut so that I could do some side by side comparison's.Compared to my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 8.1 Megapixel it fell short in every test I made with it. Low light shots where blurry, there was a significant amount of noise in the images, and the colors appeared dull in comparison. The video was dull and quite grainy. The sound quality on the video was low and tinny. The only bright spot on the camera was the menu's were easy to navigate and simple to operate. On the Nikon the on/off was a push button and took over 2 seconds to power up, and to actually focus and take a "good" picture in "easy mode" it was more like 5 - 7 seconds.(fastest = 5, slowest = 10) The Panasonic on the other hand has an on/off slider and was taking 3 - 4 seconds for a power-up shot. In the size department the L22 is pretty large for a "point and shoot" it was much larger than the Panasonic. For Menu's between the two. I liked the layout of the Nikon. At first glance it was easy to setup "favorite modes" so you could easily switch your camera between Auto, Easy Auto, Video, and 1 preset mode. But in function it was very slow. You'd push the button and nothing would happen. Press it a second time and watch the menu's flash up, then down again. It just wasn't very fast. The Panasonic took a bit more work getting the presets enabled, but it was very quick.Over all, based on it's performance I'd give it a rating of 2. Based on the poorly designed battery latch, and the poor reception we received from Nikon support... I will be giving this product a 0. And I doubt I will be purchasing another Nikon.