I recently purchase the Nikon Coolpix L20 after lots of shopping.

I have used only Olympus cameras only up to now.

This time I wanted a smaller pocket sized camera, that still took the AA batteries, and that still gave great photos with all the features I was used to.
This camera fit the bill!

It takes 2 AA batteries, inexpensive SD memory cards and yet still delivers fantastic photos.

I have already tried all the features, and was completly happy.
I love using the different scene settings, and could not live without the video feature.
Both still and video capture worked well in both bright light and low light.
The sound playback via the camera is hard to distinquish (live music), but fine once uploaded.
I didn't really require the smile feature, but tried it out on my 3 year old, and was blown away....it really works!
The blink feature is also quite ingenious. The camera actually asks you if your subject blinked when they do, but not when they don't. This is particularly handy when taking photos of children. I would have loved this feature when I was still my daughter's yearbook photographer.

What can I say, fabulous price and awesome quality!!!
Definately worth the money.

Comparibly priced camera's that we have used, produce grainy shots.....but have not found this with this camera at all.
I would recommend this camera to anyone!

This is a professional camera capable of crystal clear prints worthy of publication or gallery display, up to 16x20.

And it is incredibly inexpensive for a camera of such value.

Ok, so its 3.6 optical zoom won't pick sand off an eagle's beak at a thousand yards. Okay, so it won't blow up to billboard size without loss of definition. In the real world however and everyday use this is a fine and professional level camera that will do a far better job than you expected. Better than a cell-phone.

Disguised as a point and shoot. That's what makes it very effective; people are not intimidated by it. You can get right up to them, and it looks like any other camera. Yet, it is more.

In fact, the generous three inch LCD screen means you do not have to hold it to your face. There is no optical viewfinder in any case. So you can hold it at your hip and glance down at it to compose, and snap shots while engaging the subject in small talk comfortably. I have done this effectively with Tarahumara Indian children in northern Chihuahua who normally run quickly from any camera. It works, and came out great. And that large LCD screen has a high-contrast, anti-reflection coating which keeps it clear even in strong sunlight.

This camera is an improvement over the earlier, wonderful Coolpix, such as the great 8 megapix Nikon Coolpix L18 8MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Ruby Red) mainly because it has ten megapix capability. The earlier accessories such as the AC adapter, the Nikon EH-65A AC Adapter, are transferable if you have a long shoot to do in one place (like a schoolful of children, which I have done) or other reason to go off-battery. Nevertheless, a pair of Energizer® e²® "AA" Lithium Batteries For digital cameras, portable audio players, and more last in here last forever.

Your old Coolpix camera pouch also still fits; use it and protect your investment. I like the Rokinon Compact Digital Camera Padded Carrying Case for Canon Powershot, Casio Exilim, Fuji Finepix, (GE) General Electric, Kodak EasyShare, Nikon Coolpix, Olympus FE Stylus, Panasonic Lumix, Pentax Optio, Sony CyberShot and Samsung Digital Cameras.

Also new here, aside from the greater megapixels, is the new Expeed image processing system specially fine-tuned for the Coolpix series "to render natural-looking pictures of incredible quality and quick response" as if the earlier system of digital processing was not fine enough! Amateur enthusiasts will find their photos reaching a new magnitude of quality; even the professional will leave his camera bag and lenses at home (okay, so she might miss her long lens, but macro here gets in to two inches).

The ISO settings are phenomenal, stretching from 64 ISO all the way out to 1600. Over twenty years ago when I was doing photo-journalism in Nicaragua, we used 64 for our slide film and 1600 was just coming on the horizon, very grainy but with a special charm for low light situations, like oil lamp, etc. Here you can do very low light and candlelight (if you do not mind some grain effect), and in fact there are special pre-sets which employ the faster ISO's effectively.

This is another expansion over the prior Coolpix L series. You can choose instead of Auto (with own its user-selected options) to use the pre-set "Scene" selections quickly and efficiently. The Scene modes now include: Portrait, Night Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Party, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Museum, Fireworks Show, Close Up, Copy, Back Light, Panorama Assist, Food. Food is one of the new ones, and you food photo-journalists might want to try it very inexpensively yet quite well here. The rest of the modes you can figure how they are set from the title and how you might apply their settings to similar situations; know that the Nikon impression of party might be much more sedate and candle-lit than the Animal House idea. This is not cheating, to use pre-sets; this is using the tool that you have in the way it was designed. Cheating would be setting this to its auto-scene setting in which it selects the Scene mode according to
prevailing conditions, automatically. Yes, this can do it.

The panorama assist is great. You can take a series of photos in a row in either of four directions (left to right, up and down, etc.) overlapping by one third (I really appreciate the rule of thirds grid which you can bring up on the LCD, keeping the camera straight and well composed), and then unite them with the included software into one long (or tall) file. I had reason to do this the other day at a long new school. Things do not build vertical out here in the desert, but there is plenty of room for horizontal, and a special Cinerama style long photo framing. In fact you could line up your whole town along the sidewalk standing and take one long photo of everyone in town. Just find printer and paper!

With the built in macro mode you can jump right into that cactus blossom from two inches away and have perfect focus. Take a photo of that baby's toes and blow them up to 16x20. Come in close to that ant stealing cracker crumbs on your picnic. This strength of macro was recently unimaginable, and yet here you have this power within a humble, tiny and inexpensive package.

What I really love and appreciate is the SDHC compliancy. I can use as standard memory card a regular Sandisk 4GB Secure Digital SD HC Memory Card (SDSDB-4096, BULK, No Reader) and have room for 500 shots at maximum resolution. You can truly, as we used to say a quarter century ago "shoot a roll; keep a shot." Take all of the shots you can, and then pick one out to use and delete the rest. For someone who used to burn through boxes of film (at 36 shots each max) and then do the darkroom processing all night, and then find a free way to get more, this is like living in another, finer dimension. Of course, you can put even larger SD HC memory cards in here and if you ever do fill one up and have nothing more to put in there and no time to delete, this camera comes with a generous 20MB internal memory on hand.

You can hook it up to the USB port of a computer directly and use the included software, or simply pop out the SD card and plug it into a reader and into the computer. Whatever works for you, although I do not like opening and closing the battery/card hatch too much. It is very strong and durable, but in the olden days I had a habit of snapping such things and putting them back together with duct tape. This one looks remarkably resilient nevertheless and has stood up to me.

Speaking of shooting a roll to get the one picture, have you ever taken a shot to discover your subject blinked? This camera lets you know. Yes, this camera sees when your subject blinks, and lets you know, using the Smart Portrait system. It also automatically fixes your red-eye special. You'll never see red eye again. It finds faces, and automatically focuses on them, up to a dozen at a time. It can also snap the shutter automatically when someone finally dares to smile. And the D-lighting will save those details otherwise lost in darkness.

As you can see, this camera does everything for you but serve as photo agency selling your work to Vogue or GQ. A great camera at a small price. What can go wrong?

The most amazing thing for me, of course, an old still shooter, is that this tiny camera is also a video camera, with built in mike, and a built in speaker for playback. You can make movies with this at two different resolutions, either for television playback at 640x480 or laptop at 320x240 (good for e-mailing). These home movies are truly sharp, with the same excellent back to front focus as the photos, and surprisingly high quality sound. The length of the movie is limited only to the size of your SDHC card; you could easily go for feature length! Using .AVI files, it can easily be edited as well.

Of course, this camera comes with the standard sized screw input for mounting on a tripod. I have used it on my Targus 66-inch heavy-duty tripod. Looks a little small up there, but it works great. You will really appreciate the steadiness a tripod always brings, and the freedom, no less with this great camera, which so thoughtfully has a tripod screw-in.

Hey, for the same price, this is way better than a cell phone!

Too bad this one is so, well, red!

I bought this camera for my wife when her Olympus Stylus 300 had run it's life expectancy. May it rest in peace. The Nikon Coolpix is relatively easy to use.. has lots of decent features and the price was killer, but.. picture quality isn't as good as her late Olympus or the Canon Sureshot we also use. However.. It is worth the money. In hindsight I wish I'd spent $50-90 more and got another Canon Sureshot. The picture difference is noticeable. Me thinks this Nikon would be perfect for a child or teen learning to use a camera and NOT seeking hi-end results. My 2 doubloons.

Contrary to the first commentor (I believe he had a defective product from the onset) I love my new L20. A jewel-like body containing every important feature one needs to take excellent pictures. And what a beautiful video capability that camera has! Very smooth, can zoom in during shooting and has long recording capability. Everything works just as advertised. The pictures are brilliant with correct balance of color intensity vs. sharpness and contrast. The Easy Auto feature is powerful and works every time to compose the right scene correctly. I love this camera - highly recommended especially at the price range it's being sold. I think it's underpriced.

Okay, so I don't usually make reviews here (a little too private). But I couldn't help but come to the rescue of this highly misunderstood product. Too much negative reviews for a product that actually delivers, IMO. I bought this item as a gift for my 11 year old daughter. Then when I looked at most of the reviews here, my heart sank. Should I have researched more? But being that hard headed as I am. Plus I don't like the headache of returning things, that I have already bought. I investigated more and really tested this product. First off, I noticed that mostly first time camera users seemed to have no problem with this camera (like a reviewer's fifth grader here or a grandpa). So what seems to be the problem? Okay, I found out this - most of us have been used to other digital cameras where you half pressed first on the shutter to focus before you press all the way and shoot. Well this camera has what you call an easy auto mode - wherein the camera does everything for you including focusing. With easy auto mode, it is just that - easy - just point, camera does it's job and shoot right away. Let the camera focus for you (it actually makes a sound) and once it does that then just shoot away. Don't even half press anymore and "wala" - very sharp pictures that even a fifth grader and grandpa could take. I have found out that in easy auto mode and then I half press to focus or don't click right away after the camera focuses - pictures come out so blurry. But, wow! Just follow what I say and the pictures are so sharp. The camera also has the standard auto mode, wherein you could half press first to focus (if you're used to that), and the pictures still come out so sharp. So there you go, this camera I highly recommend and is a good point and shoot camera that takes really sharp pictures. Don't believe me? Investigate for yourself and just follow what I did...

I owned a Nikon Coolpix (an earlier model) for about ten years (constant use) until I finally wore it out and needed to replace it. When I bought this one, I immediately fell in love with it. It produces sharp, clear pictures and could not be easier to use. It has a nice, big preview screen which gives you a very good idea what your picture will look like. This camera's settings allow you to take good, clear pictures of almost anything - sporting events, plays, birthday parties, evening functions, etc. I cannot say enough about how terrific this camera is, and the price is amazing. I would recommend it to anybody without reservation or restriction.

I researched alot of cameras to get just what I wanted. This is definitely it. The price was great. I got everything I wanted on it(smile,red eye,motion stabilizer etc.)We took pictures of fireworks and a video of them and it turned out fantastic! It is very easy to use. Make sure you get a card,as the camera itself only holds 10 pictures. I would recommend this camera to everyone.

I own allot of point and shoots and I think the folks who gave this camera a less than 5 star rating must enjoy looking at horrible photos from other digital camera manufactures.
The beautiful red colored body of the L20 is unisex and it's absolutely right in line with the jeweled quality of Nikon. I was able to use the camera right out of the box without having to read the instruction manual, it's that easy to use. You should however read the manual since there were allot of little gem features the camera had that I didn't know about.
When I loaded my photos onto my PC with the supplied USB cable, the first thing I noticed was how natural the colors and skin tones appeared. White balance was incredibly accurate. The focus and detail were right on target and in some close up portraits the image had the appearance of a professional camera set in aperture priority. Macro mode and optical zoom worked flawlessly with no noticeable distortion or noise.
The camera feels good in my hands and the controls are easy to find without having to take your eyes off your subject. The large 3 inch LCD view finder was easy to see in bright light. There is also a brightness control for the view finder to increase bright daylight viewing. This camera does not need an optical view finder. I always thought having an optical view finder on a point and shoot was dumb and Nikon picked up on that.
The Nikon L20 comes with a one year manufactures warranty - "Not that you would need a warranty for a Nikon camera" - Impressive warranty details, I was amazed that any camera manufacturer would offer a one year on a point and shoot but Nikon has such a good reputation and so I doubt very much that you would even need to use it.
In a nutshell, I love this camera so much that I would recommend this Nikon L20 to my friends, family and anyone else looking to buy. It's a real beauty!

Nikon Coolpix L20 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6 Optical Zoom and 3 inch LCD (Deep Red)
I have found the L20 to do quite well for a low cost camera. Excellent features, easy to use, great photos. Love the raised holding area for a firm grip. This was my primary reason for purchasing this model as I tend to drop things.My only change would be for this area to have a rubber grip, but not everyone needs a rubber grip, or any at all. Great color and terrific zoom and macro qualities. I did some shots in heavy wind and most turned out even though I was being blown around causing movement. My husband and I both bought this one as he is a truck driver and often photographs from a moving truck. Would make the same choice again.

I do a lot of backpacking, so for me, size and weight are crucial issues (I still remember the old days of lugging around either a digital camera or a camcorder, because they were too heavy to take them both). Until recently, I was using a small point-and-shoot Polaroid 7MP for still photos, and an RCA Small Wonder to shoot 640x480 video (I shoot for the Web, so I can live without high def). Both worked well for what I needed, but the limited one-hour recording time for the Small Wonder was a
huge (but at the time unavoidable) annoyance--it required that I carry along an ASUS PC EEE netbook (which is also, by the way, a wonderful little machine) to download all the footage every time the camera got full. So a few weeks ago, when some shmuck stole my fanny pack containing my Small Wonder (and a bag of raisins), I decided to use it as an opportunity to consolidate some things and save myself some weight. So the critera I set for a replacement camera was (1) had to do both video and still photos, (2) had to be able to use SD cards for storage so I wouldn't have to carry the ASUS laptop with me anymore, (3) had to be as small and light as possible, (4) had to use AA batteries instead of lithium-ion, and (5) since I'm poor, it had to be cheap cheap cheap.

The Coolpix L20 fits all those.

Some of the other cameras I considered, and the reasons why I rejected them:

The Flip. Nice video camera, but it doesn't do stills, and the built-in non-expandable 2hr recording limit would be crippling for me. I was getting tired of lugging that ASUS around with me all the time. I'd much rather carry around just a couple SD cards.

The Vado HD. This one does both photo and video (both standard VGA and 720p HD), and has 8G of internal memory, giving it more recording time than the Flip. I liked it. But it was important for me to have an expandable storage capacity, and the Vado doesn't take cards. It also uses a lithium-ion battery, and I wanted something that used AA's. So I had to rule it out.

The Kodak Zi8. This really looked like a great camera, and I considered it very very carefully. It has almost everything I wanted (and real 1080p High-Def, to boot). It alllmmmooosssttt went into my pack. Ultimately, though, the reason I rejected it was because it uses a lithium-ion battery instead of AA's. For most people that probably wouldn't be a problem (although it might be a problem that the Zi8 costs twice as much as the L20). For me, though, AA batteries were a necessity, since I use a solar panel to charge the camera in the field, and finding a AA charger that will work off a solar panel is easy, but finding a lithium-ion charger that works with solar is not easy at all. There is also the advantage that, no matter what flyspeck of a little town I might happen to wander into off the trail, I can *always* find AA batteries somewhere if I need them. It's just worlds more convenient to be able to use readily-available rechargeable AA's instead of proprietary lithium-ion. And of course it's better for our Mother Earth, too.

So I went with the Coolpix, and have not regretted it. Is the photographic or video quality as good as a pricey high-end model? Nope. But it's pretty darn good. Unless you're a professional photographer shooting for National Geographic or something, this little camera will do everything you need to do, especially if you use a mini-tripod. As for the video, if you want super-sharp broadcast-quality high def, then this ain't the camera for you. But if you just want to shoot video of your vacation or your kids for YouTube, FaceBook, or email, this will do the job admirably.

My only real concern was how well it would stand up to being in the wild for extended periods of time. So far, though, my worries have been groundless. Although I try to protect it from rain, mud, sand and dust as much as I can (ziploc baggies are a backpacker's friend), it's still gotten a pretty good amount of abuse with me, and came through just fine. It even got accidentally dropped once with no ill effect (something I don't recommend you try for yourself).

Of course I realize that most people probably don't have the specific requirements for a camera that I did. But if you're just looking for a good basic video/still camera, with the convenience of readily-available batteries, this one is pretty hard to beat.