Canon PowerShot S100 Camera: specifications and reviews of professionals

The Canon PowerShot S95 is a popular camera with some flaws, including: poor flash design, no capture, a narrow maximum aperture in the tele focus range, short battery life, low performance and relatively high cost. In the S100 model, Canon tried to eliminate some of them by introducing a wider angle of 24-mm focal length, manual control and zoom during video shooting, geotagging.

Evaluation of photo quality

Despite a slight increase in resolution, the Canon PowerShot S100 supports excellent photo quality, which has made S95 popular. Exposure and exposure, color accuracy and tonal range are good, the lens is relatively clear. There are some distortions, but they are less than you would expect with a focal length equivalent to 24 mm. Given the size and relatively small sensor, the camera provides excellent JPEG quality up to 200 ISO units, and the photos remain good enough up to ISO 800. When shooting in RAW, you can even get quite a suitable result for ISO 1600, which is rare for cameras of this size. In addition, there is a color halo of high contrast edges. The camera is capable of eliminating it in JPEG format, but when shooting in uncompressed format it will be necessary to work hard to fix it.

High sensitivity is especially important for the S100, since the aperture at zoom, although limited to a range of 5x, narrows so quickly that light is not enough. Shooting in the afternoon in November is likely to disappoint. Any zoom with the maximum open aperture requires an increased sensitivity setting.

Improved video shooting

Camera Canon PowerShot S100 Silver is able to shoot video and at the same time quietly and unnoticed to use the zoom. This feature has become one of the improvements in the S95 model. The video is clear, somewhat oversaturated (this can be fixed by selecting neutral settings), the sound quality is good. There is a slow-motion mode when recording at normal speed, and playback at 240 or 120 fps with MP4 recording. This method is good in that it does not limit the shooting time, but it is made with a resolution of only 320 x 240 or 640 x 480 pixels, depending on the frame rate.

Too slow for children

Unfortunately, Canon did not improve the performance of the S100 compared to the S95. It is still inadequate and does not keep pace with the leaders of the XZ-1 or LX5. The camera turns on, focuses and takes a picture in 1.6 seconds, which is acceptable. The speed of single photos is about the same as that of competitors: 0.4 seconds for focusing and shooting in good light and 0.6 seconds for dim. But, like the S95, the camera slows down with two consecutive shots to 2.4 seconds for JPEG, 2.6 seconds for RAW and 2.8 seconds for flash. RAW + JPEG is not very fast, but here the camera is particularly sluggish.

Serial shooting in JPEG is performed at a speed of 2.4 k / s, but the model can not be used to photograph fast moving objects, including children and pets. In addition, battery life is the shortest in this class. This is what you need to sacrifice for the sake of size: the small Canon PowerShot S100 camera battery is also small. The LCD is the same as the S95 - bright, saturated, allows you to work in direct sunlight.

Work on bugs

Developers Canon PowerShot S100 corrected some design flaws S95. There was a tiny holder in the front and a rubber stop for the thumb from behind, which greatly facilitated the shooting process. The control ring around the lens has been preserved, which distinguishes the camera from its competitors, except for the XZ-1, which repeats this design. The ring can be set to set the shutter speed, ISO speed, exposure compensation, manual focus, white balance, zoom, frame size or custom function. The settings are independent of the shooting mode. For example, you can control the focus in manual mode or the shutter speed in aperture priority mode. Step zoom can be surprisingly useful, since it sets the popular focal lengths (24, 28, 35, 50, 85, 120 mm), which is very convenient if you want to repeat the picture. Quick access to the ring setting is done with a special button on the back of the camera. If frequent change of functions is not planned, then you can reset this button to perform many other tasks, including metering, RAW + JPEG deactivation or using the built-in neutral filter.

View from above

Above it stands the shutter button and the mode dial, such as PASM, auto, video and story, as well as a slot for custom settings and special effects. Custom settings include manual focus and / or zoom and "My menu items" in addition to the corresponding shooting parameters.

Back view

The back panel of the Canon PowerShot S100 contains a typical set of controls, including focus mode, flash and exposure compensation plus a shortcut to functions and a dedicated video recording button. Although the menu items are distributed among three seemingly small screens, however, the user has enough tools to monitor and adjust the camera's operation and options. For example, at first glance it seems that there are only the most necessary flash parameters, including correction and synchronization for the first or second curtain. But, having gone deeper into the menu, you can find the manual level setting of its intensity. Nevertheless, it would be nice if the flash behaved a little smarter in the "auto" mode.

Quality compact

Canon PowerShot S100 is still the smallest camera that can be purchased, providing good quality photos with a full set of manual settings and a lens with a wide aperture. This is an excellent camera, well thought out and convenient, although with some drawbacks. The lens, although it establishes a wide diaphragm, sharply narrows when zooming. The camera is not very fast, which is probably good for street shooting, but for unpredictable children or animals it does not have time.

In the next model, the Canon PowerShot S110, these shortcomings will not be fixed. Will add support for Wi-Fi, and the screen will become a touchscreen. The rest - optics, sensor, image processor - the Canon PowerShot S110 camera will remain the same.

Feature Location

The most noticeable new addition is the GPS receiver for geotagging photos. Management is quite simple - you can turn it on or off. There is also a function of continuous recording of the location between the pictures, so that you can compose the complete route of your journey. To access this information, use the supplied software. The GPS recorder works when the camera is turned off, which reduces the battery charge, especially when there are problems with receiving the signal.

There are some less interesting innovations. Movie Digest mode automatically captures a few seconds of video before taking a picture. It sounds good, but the video is recorded only with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. High-speed continuous shooting HQ allows you to take 8 photos at a speed of 9.6 fps - this is less than a full second capture with fully automatic settings. Then you need to wait about 4 seconds while recording is in progress. Allows you to shoot at full resolution. In addition, there are additional scenes and special effect filters.

Canon PowerShot S100: reviews by professionals

In general, the model is very similar to its popular predecessor, but a completely new sensor, processor and lens together make up a more versatile, faster and more productive pocket camera, which can become an ideal everyday camera for owners of DSLR and CSC.

Among the main disadvantages of the Canon PowerShot S100, professional photographers call a significant price increase, insufficient flash control and a small battery capacity. This somewhat reduces the positive impression of the camera.

Users are strongly advised to upgrade the Canon PowerShot S100 firmware to version 1.0.2.0, which fixes the problem with changing the focal length of the control ring and interrupting the wireless connection when using the camera as an access point for iOS devices.

Users agree that the S100 solved many of the problems of its predecessor, including weak video and lack of a holder, improving performance, functionality and image quality.

The ISO range is from 80-1600 and the maximum aperture is F / 2.0, which, however, is only possible in the wide-angle position of the lens, allows shooting in low light conditions and with hands. Positively evaluated the possibility of achieving a background blur and sharpness of the subject, which most of the owners of other compacts can only dream of. The 5x zoom provides more coverage than the S95, although with the inevitable increase in the maximum aperture to F / 5.9 at 120mm. Full HD 1080p video with continuous auto focus, stereo sound and full use of zoom professionals pleased.

Is the price justified?

It seems that all the new hardware, in particular GPS, has led to a price increase to fabulous $ 429.99. Many will doubt the fairness of such a price for a simple compact camera, but others will find it economically and logically justified: it is the smallest device with a wide range of digital SLR functionality and excellent image quality, completed by an elegant user interface.