Happy Birthday to My Favourite Nikon Experiment

The date is 18th February 2003, J-Lo and LL Cool J are topping the charts, and I'm just 2 years old when Nikon announce one of the strangest cameras I've ever had the pleasure of using. The Nikon Coolpix SQ is a square-shaped camera released on this exact day in 2003, an off-beat design at the time and I certainly haven't seen anything quite like it even now after 4 years of running Digicam Collective. When ready to take a photo, you can swivel the lens towards the front or towards yourself - uno reversing the typical design we know now of the flip screen and creating a lens that moves instead. You can also use the screen as a sort of waist-level viewfinder when the camera is neatly folded into its compact square formation.

It's difficult to find a TV or print ad for the Nikon Coolpix SQ, and when I say difficult, I mean Danielle and I spent an hour searching for one and we couldn't find a trace - but what we did find was a recreation of a flash website used to market the camera. Flash websites are outdated now but they were desgined to create an immersive experience for an audience, with more freedom than typical websites allowing for the creation of video games and artistic interfaces. It was hoped that this advertising strategy could compete against the Canon IXUS and Sony Cyber-shot series of cameras being released in the early 2000's. It's fitting that a now-retro technology was marketed through such a retro form of advertising - everything about this digicam screams Y2K!

If you had bought the Coolpix SQ at retail, it would have cost you $500/£391 and come with a Nikon EN-EL2 battery, a 16MB compact flash card, a copy of NikonView 6 Software and a Cool-Station MV-10 Dock used for charging and transferring. Nowadays, it can be difficult to find an SQ that hasn't been separated from its cool-station dock, most of the examples of this digicam we've seen have sadly been on their own. Reviews from the time emphasise the SQ's radically different design, as well as its compact, pocketability - which is true, it's something of a technological miracle but compared to modern smartphones it is significantly more challenging to fit it in your front pocket and walk around with it constantly. In my opinion, this is a camera you'd want to keep in your bag, with something to keep it protected - especially being exactly 23 years old to the day at the time of writing this.

Fast forward to the present day and the Nikon SQ is still a cult favourite - with online prices at one point in 2024 reaching the same price that they were originally released for at retail, brand new. The SQ speaks to the nostalgia-lovers, the trendsetters and the collectors for its unique style, as well as the wonderfully unique and Y2K-esque shots it produces. This masterpiece of retro-futurist technology was designed by a team of engineers given free reign to move throughout the office talking to specialist teams as and when necessary - a diversion from the usual pattern of work at Nikon. I'd call this experiment a success - it would be fascinating to see what the same experiment might yield with todays technology. 

 

🔧 Key Specifications

Sensor

• 3.1 Megapixel CCD

• 1/2.7-inch sensor

• Max resolution: 2016 × 1512

Lens

• 3x Optical Zoom

• 5.6–16.8mm (equivalent to approx. 37–111mm in 35mm terms)

• Aperture: f/2.7–f/4.8

• Macro capability: approx. 4cm

• 4x Digital Zoom

Video

• VGA video recording (640×480)

• 15 FPS

• Maximum recording time: 40 seconds

Display

• 1.5-inch TFT LCD

• 118,000 dots

• Screen only, no viewfinder

Storage

• Compact Flash card compatible
  

Battery

• Rechargeable EN-EL2 Lithium-ion battery

Shooting Features

• Shutter speed 1/2000 - 2 seconds

• Flash modes (Auto, Red-eye Reduction, Slow, On)

• Self timer: 3 or 10 seconds

Build & Design

• Weight: approx. 216g (with battery/card)

• Dimensions: 83mm x 85mm x 25mm

• Premium metallic finish