Nikon announces six new Coolpix cameras: P6000, S710, S60, S610c, S610, and S560

Included in Nikon's blast today are six new Coolpix cameras that sport features like built-in GPS (the P6000), a 3.5-inch touchscreen (the S60), and built-in WiFi (the S610c). Ranging in price from $499.95 for the P6000 to $249.95 for the S560, there's something here for practically any compact camera user.

All of the cameras include optical image stabilization and introduce new Nikon features like the fairly self explanatory Scene Auto Selector mode (automatic selection of a scene mode based on your shooting environment), Smile mode (waits for subject to smile before triggering the shutter), and Blink Warning (displays a message to warn you that your subject has blinked). Nikon plans to ship all cameras in September.

Nikon Coolpix P6000 The only new announcement from Nikon's P (for performance) line, the P6000 (which replaces the P5100) is a 13.5 megapixel shooter with a nice and wide 28- to 112mm (equivalent), f/2.7-5.9 lens. The 2.7-inch LCD leaves room for an optical viewfinder. Program, aperture, shutter, and manual exposure modes make this a compact camera to please enthusiasts, who will also appreciate the new support for RAW image files. The new GPS capability lets you geotag your photos on the go.

Nikon Coolpix S60 This sleekly designed 10 megapixel compact camera sports a 33- to 165mm, f/3.8-4.8 lens, but the main standout is the huge 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD, which replaces the viewfinder and all buttons except for the on/off switch and the shutter button. The touchscreen provides access to a ton of features, such as in-camera retouching, recording hand-written memos (with the included stylus), time-lapse movies, and HD slideshows. The camera takes good advantage of its touchscreen, allowing you to control shooting options (such as locking autofocus and exposure on your subject by touching it onscreen) as well as playback options (such as scrolling and zooming in on images). The camera comes in six colors (Espresso Black, Arctic White, Burgundy, Champagne Pink, Platinum Bronze and Crimson Red) and list price will be $349.95.

Nikon Coolpix S610c Essentially the same camera as the also-announced Nikon Coolpix S610--except that it includes built-in WiFi--the 10 megapixel S610c lets you share your images and videos over a WiFi network. You can use Nikon's myPicturetown photo sharing service to e-mail photos directly to your recipients (and securely store up to 2GB of images and videos), you can upload pictures directly to Flickr, or you can link photos to blogs or social networking sites. An added bonus is a complimentary subscription to Wayport's WiFi service (valid until August 31, 2011) so you'll be able to upload at Wayport locations such as hotels, airports, McDonalds, Hertz, and more. Like the S610, the S610c uses a 28- to 112mm (equivalent), f/2.7-5.8 lens, a nice big 3-inch LCD but no viewfinder, and starts up in 0.7 seconds, which Nikon claims is the world's fastest startup time for a digital camera at the time of the announcement. List price will be $329.95.

Nikon Coolpix S710 A 14.5 megapixel compact shooter. As I've already hinted, I'm not a fan of big megapixels in small cameras (it's generally overkill and a surefire recipe for noise), but Nikon tries to mitigate that with ISO sensitivity settings up to a whopping ISO 12800 (image sizes of 3mb or lower are required). The S710 will ship in three colors (Graphite Black, Deep Red, and Brilliant Silver) for $379.95.

Nikon Coolpix S560 Last (and essentially least) is the Coolpix S560, the cheapest camera of the lot at $249.95. The 10 megapixel S560 is meant to be easy-to-use and fashionable, with something like 15 scene modes and pastel metallic colors like Cherry Blossom (read pink) and Cool Blue (read light blue) as well as Graphite Black.