Nikon Coolpix 4600

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Performance
The results of our performance tests for the Nikon Coolpix 4600 were very close to those for the Coolpix 5600. Shutter lag measured a reasonable 0.31 second in bright light and 0.43 second in dim light; you'll be able to respond quickly to changing environments, such as when you're shooting sports events or fast-moving children. When we tested the Coolpix 4600, its poor time of 7.25 seconds from start-up to first shot surprised us. By turning off the default opening screen animation, we were able to reduce that time to 5.86 seconds, which is still much too slow.

We were also disappointed with this camera's flash recovery time. While the shot-to-shot time without the flash was a fairly typical 1.89 seconds, when we engaged the flash, the time jumped to a frustratingly slow 12.11 seconds. You could miss many valuable shots while waiting for the tiny red light to stop flashing.

Image Quality
The Coolpix 4600's photos were similar to the Coolpix 5600's, except for the lower resolution. Overall, the image quality was quite good. The colors in our exterior shots looked a bit oversaturated, even for a point-and-shoot camera. This was especially evident with the brighter hues, though less obvious with more subdued colors, such as skin tones, that need to be more realistic. Image noise, sharpness, and exposure accuracy were better than average in our well-lit exterior shots.

With our interior photos, we began to see some deterioration. We couldn't adjust the ISO setting, so we experienced higher noise levels on some low-light photos, especially with flash-illuminated shots where the camera would sometimes boost the ISO to artificially extend the range of the flash. The narrow 50-to-200 ISO range for this camera will limit your ability to capture low-light and long-exposure shots, unless you're willing to live with elevated noise levels.

The video mode on the Nikon Coolpix 4600 is hardly worth having. Even the best setting (VGA at 15 frames per second) was jerky and riddled with compression artifacts. Also, the camera doesn't record sound along with the video.

One bright spot is the camera's macro mode. We produced some excellent close-up shots using the macro-focus indicator. The macro icon changes from white to blue when the zoom is within the proper focus range. Note: The manual says the icon changes to green, but it definitely looked blue on our review camera.

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