Canon Powershot S40 “Is the Baby G2 the Digital Camera for you?”
Written: Mar 24 '02
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Pros: Compact size, low price, image quality, excellent metering.
Cons: Battery life, under-powered flash, no provision for add-on lenses or external flash
The Bottom Line: The Canon Powershot S40 provides excellent image quality, great ergonomics, compact size, and a fantastic feature set at a bargain price
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| Howard_Creech's Full Review: Canon PowerShot S40 Digital Camera |
The popularity of the Canon Powershot G2 has had tongues wagging for many months. If only Canon would offer the advanced features and pro level performance of the G2 in a package that was like the super compact S110 and S300 (oh, and at a bargain price too) then all would be right in the digital camera world. Well, Canon has done exactly what everyone has been clamoring for. The new Canon Powershot S40 offers almost all the advanced features available on the groundbreaking G2, compact size (almost as small as the Powershot S300) and a bargain price. The S40 is a feature rich four megapixel digital camera that offers advanced amateurs and pro photographers a compact digital imaging machine that provides more features and creative options than most photographers will ever use.
A Few Words About Digital Photography Vs Traditional Film Photography
Contrary to popular belief digital photography and traditional film photography remain two separate and distinct mediums. Digital photography IS NOT going to replace traditional film photography any time in the foreseeable future. Both mediums have their strengths and their weaknesses and smart photographers will dismiss the hype and hyperbole and utilize each medium to its maximum capability for the applications it is best suited for. Digital photography is very convenient and it is possible to shoot digital images and utilize them only moments later, something that cannot be done with traditional 35mm film which must be processed first. Digital images (with the use of image manipulation programs like AdobePhotoShop) are capable of much more manipulation than traditional film images. Reality need not be a limiting factor for the digital photographer, who has the ability to create not only images that have never existed before, but also images that, in reality, could not possibly exist.
What digital photography cannot do is show the nuances in contrast, depth of field effect, edge sharpness, bokeh, and color/tonal dynamic range that traditional (especially slow slide and fine grain B&W) film is capable of. The current crop of high resolution four and five megapixel digital cameras offer photographers more options than ever before. Good 11X14 enlargements of uncompressed digital image files are possible for the first time with consumer level digital cameras. Make no mistake digital 11X14’s will not outshine 11X14 enlargements made with slow speed slide (or fine grain B&W) film, especially if they are viewed with a good quality 4X-6X loupe. Slow speed slide and fine grain B&W film will produce acceptable to good 16X20 enlargements, something that is not possible with digital image files at this time unless they are custom printed.
Be careful that you don’t fall into the digital photography is cheaper trap, because that argument doesn’t hold any water. Digital cameras can cost from 3 to 10 times as much as a similar film camera (here’s an example, the Nikon N65 film SLR runs about $300 and the Fuji Finepix S1 Pro Digital SLR, which actually has fewer features, runs about $2300) CF/SM/Memory Stick/IBM MicroDrive storage media (the “film” for digital cameras) can add from $50 to $500 to the price of your digital camera (depending on capacity) Film cameras last longer and the technology moves much more slowly. Whatever digital camera you buy today is already two generations behind the cutting edge (manufacturers are in the final R&D stages with the next digital camera and they are simultaneously working on the development of the successor to that model) and even more troubling are serious concerns about digital print longevity and technological obsolescence rendering digital image files un-retrievable in the future.
Do You Really Need a 4 or 5 Megapixel Digital Camera?
Probably not, unless you are a serious amateur photographer or a professional. If you’ve been using a pro 35mm SLR and pro quality zoom or prime (fixed focal length) lenses and shooting slow slide or fine grain B&W film, then you are probably going to need a four or five megapixel digital to give you image quality that is comparable to what you are used to. If you’ve been shooting with 35mm amateur SLR’s, consumer level zooms, and color print film, then you are probably going to love digital photography, and if you shoot primarily snapshots (family, friends, life events, vacation) then you probably won’t need anything more than a very good 2 megapixel (or if you occasionally want 8X10 enlargements) a good 3 megapixel “point and shoot” digital camera.
Features
Exposure
The PowerShot S40 offers Automatic, Program AE, Shutter Speed Priority AE, Aperture Priority AE, and Manual exposure modes plus “scene” settings for specific shooting situations.
Color Effects
The Color Effects setting provides a choice of four color options: Vivid color, Neutral color, Sepia tone, or Black-and-White (effects are visible on the LCD monitor)
Quick Review Mode
You can check the most recently recorded image, delete or save, and return to shooting mode easily
Exposure compensation
User adjustable –2/+2 EV, in one-third-stop increments.
Independent Exposure Lock
Another great feature from the G2 (IEL) Independent Exposure Lock allows users to lock not only exposure but focus as well. Very handy for off center subjects and selective focus situations.
White Balance
Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H (daylight), Flash, and Custom. The Custom mode allows users to manually set the white balance (with a white card)
Sensitivity
Auto, 50, 100, 200,and 400 ISO (35mm equivalents)
In-Camera Image Processing Controls
Contrast, Sharpness, and Saturation
Flash
Auto, Red-Eye Reduction (Auto), Red-Eye Reduction (Flash On), Flash On, and Flash Off. Flash output power can be adjusted -2/+2 EV in one-third-step increments. Flash range: 2.7 to 14.1 feet (9-10 feet is more accurate)
Metering
Evaluative, Center-Weighted (Averaging), and Spot
Auto Exposure Bracketing
The S40 will automatically shoot a series of three images (each one at a different setting) users can manually set exposure variation -2/+2 EV in one-third-step increments
Technical Specifications
Resolution: 4.0 Megapixel (2272 x 1704)
LCD: 1.8-inch
Viewfinder: Optical
Lens: 3x optical zoom f/2.8-4.9/35-105 (35mm equivalent) all glass 8 elements in 7 groups
Exposure Modes: Automatic, program AE, shutter priority, aperture priority, and manual, plus “Image Zone” modes: Pan Focus, Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Color Effect, Stitch Assist, and Movie
Shutter Speeds: 1/1,500th of a second to 15 seconds
Continuous Mode: 9 frames at 1.5 frames/sec
Sensitivity: Auto, 50, 100, 200, and 400 (the S30 can shoot at up to ISO 800)
Metering: Evaluative, center-weighted, and spot
White balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H (daylight), Flash, and Custom
Flash: Built-in
File Formats: JPEG, RAW, AVI / MPEG, and WAVE
Storage Media: CompactFlash Type I or II (16Mb CF card included)
User-Selected: exposure compensation, flash exposure compensation, auto exposure bracketing and white balance
Connectivity: USB
Noise Reduction: Yes
Power: Canon NB-2L lithium rechargeable battery pack
DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) compatibility and Direct print to Canon S820D Bubble Jet Printer or the CP-10 Card printer
Playback histogram with over-exposure warning
Included
16Mb CompactFlash card
NB-2L Li-ion rechargeable battery
Battery Charger
Wrist strap
USB cable
A/V cable
CD-ROM (Canon PowerShot Solutions, ArcSoft software, and drivers)
Printed camera and software users manuals
Optional
Canon underwater case (WP-DC300) allows the S30/S40 to be used underwater at depths up to 30 meters.
In the Field/Handling and Operation
The weather here in Kentucky has been pretty typical for this time of year with warm pretty days followed by cold gray rainy days. My Friend (who sells and distributes photographic equipment) showed up the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day with a brand new S40 and asked if I wanted come out and play. My friend thought the compact stainless steel S40 body looked very cool and the sliding lens cover reminded him of the classic WWII Minox spy camera. We tested the S40 over the course of the St. Patrick’s Day weekend, which was cold, gray, and rainy…not optimal camera testing weather. We first set up a macro stage (Children, you can try this at home…for directions see my review of the Olympus E 20N digital camera…the URL is listed below) and spread out a collection of brightly colored plastic beach toys, on a white background, that we use to test digital camera color. After manually white balancing the camera we used the S40 to shoot brightly colored red, green, blue, and yellow plastic shapes. The S40’s colors were well saturated and accurate. The camera's White Balance handled the test lighting pretty well, though we both noticed a very slight warm cast with the Auto setting. The Manual white balance setting produced the best results. The S40 had some difficulty with incandescent (yellow) lighting (without flash) but when used with the flash the incandescent setting achieved nearly neutral results in the close range. The S40’s white balance worked better than most of the current digital cameras available under artificial lighting. The S40’s performance in this test was virtually identical to the tests we had done with the Canon G2.
The PowerShot S40 takes about four seconds to extend the lens and "power up" before you can start shooting. Shutter lag is quite short, but longer than 35mm shutter lag times. The RAW mode is a great feature because it produces a much smaller file than the TIFF image modes of other cameras. RAW images from the S40 run about 2800 Kb and a TIFF file might run as high as 9000 Kb. Canon includes a RAW to TIFF software conversion application in the S40’s bundle.
St. Patrick’s Day
After finishing the basic color test we took the S40 outdoors to shoot some “street” shots of the colorfully clad characters returning from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Our local St. Patrick’s Day celebration has a much more provincial flavor than those in New York and Boston, with the spectators making up for their lack of sophistication with an abundance of enthusiasm and creativity. We spent about an hour shooting revelers wandering back and forth along Bardstown Road between the city’s Irish Pubs (most of which are located in the Highlands)
The S40 produced consistently great color images of the passionate St. Paddy’s Day partyers, especially considering how dreary and gray the weather was. Caucasian skin tones in our Outdoor tests came out a little pink, but that may have been more a result of the brisk breeze and mid thirties temperatures than anything relevant to the S40’s performance. Optical distortion with the excellent 3X zoom was lower than average at the wide-angle end, and the telephoto setting produced virtually distortion free images. Chromatic aberration (purple fringing) was noticeable but well controlled. The zoom displayed some noticeable softness in the corners of the frame. Low light performance was well above average. Noise in longer exposures is well controlled, even at the ISO 400 setting. Macro performance is very good with high resolution in close-up images. The S40’s flash performance is about average for point’n’shoot digital cameras, a bit weak for general shooting and a little hot for macro work. The S40 is surprisingly fast, shutter lag is almost non-existent, and shot to shot times are excellent.
Mid-America Trucking Show
The following Saturday we got together Saturday afternoon to visit the Mid-America Trucking Show, the largest “Trucking Theme Show” in the world. More than 1,000,000 square feet of the cavernous West Wing of the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center is given over to this diesel extravaganza. The show started right here in Louisville in 1971 and has gown bigger every year since. The Mid America Trucking Show draws more than 80,000 visitors to the Bluegrass State every spring to see the most beautifully painted and most technologically advanced trucks on the planet. My friend and I wanted to go because we had seen some shots of some the fantastic paint jobs on these diesel behemoths in TV ads for the show. Many of the fanciest trucks are entered in the Paul K. Young Memorial Truck Beauty Championship. Young was the founder the Truck show and after his death in 1998 the organizers wanted a signature event named after him, the truck beauty contest is a natural. Some of the Semi’s entered in the contest have wonderfully complex murals that stretch the full length of the Cab and Trailer, just the sort of colorful stuff that is perfect for camera tests. All the illumination at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition center is fluorescent, so the truck show provided an excellent opportunity to check out the accuracy of the S40’s white balance system, which worked beautifully. There were also many people photography opportunities with more than 80,000 attendees from all fifty states and more than forty foreign countries and over 1000 exhibitors.
A Few Concerns
The 3X zoom lens on the S40 is not threaded for use with add on lens adapters or filters, and this a really vexing omission. The built-in flash is pretty weak and Canon chose not to provide any capability for using external flash, another glaring omission in a four megapixel digital camera. Battery life is decent (Canon says 180-200 images with constant LCD use and over 400 using only the optical viewfinder) we got a bit more than two hours of heavy use from a fully charged battery (moderate LCD use). The included 16Mb standard CF card isn’t going to provide enough storage for anything more than a minor event. You’ll need to purchase at least one 64Mb card and an additional battery to fully utilize the S40.
Conclusion
After we finished our tests we printed the two best St. Patrick’s Day image pairs at 5X7 and 8X10 and two 8X10’s from the truck show on an Epson Stylus Photo EPX 785 that we’ve been testing (watch for the upcoming review of this exciting “digital darkroom” tool). We then carefully inspected the printed images using a Mamiya 4X loupe designed for checking medium format prints; they were as good as similar images we’d printed from the G2. Color, contrast, resolution, and subjective “look” were comparable to any four megapixel digital camera currently available in terms of image quality. The S40 is an excellent general-use digital camera that offers users just about all the manual exposure controls they might want, but works beautifully for neophyte photographers who want to shoot creative high quality digital images without learning basic photography skills. Recommended without reservation.
Are you considering spreading your imaging wings and setting up a digital darkroom? Check out my review of a bargain priced and very capable photo quality ink-jet printer.
The Epson Stylus Photo 780 ink-jet Printer
http://www.epinions.com/content_54223670916
For information on How to Choose a Digital Camera please see my review:
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-2E46-17B174E2-39A418E3-prod1
For more information about specific Digital Camera models, please see my Digital Camera Reviews:
Nikon Digital Cameras
Nikon Coolpix 5000
http://www.epinions.com/content_52720406148
Nikon Coolpix 885
http://www.epinions.com/content_46290931332
Nikon Coolpix 995
http://www.epinions.com/content_40256769668
Nikon D1X
http://www.epinions.com/content_36023996036
Nikon D1
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-4868-E2433E5-38737CF8-prod2/tk_~CB003.1.78
Nikon Coolpix 880
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-2DA8-DF21E52-39E118CA-prod5
Nikon Coolpix 990
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-3B78-3C431D90-3A345313-prod3
Canon Digital Cameras
Canon Powershot S30
http://www.epinions.com/content_59041746564
Canon Powershot A20
http://www.epinions.com/content_56389701252
Canon Powershot G2
http://www.epinions.com/content_47646084740
Canon Powershot S10
http://www.epinions.com/content_7563808388/tk_~CB003.1.74
Canon EOS D30
http://www.epinions.com/content_11625991812/tk_~CB003.1.58
Canon Powershot PRO 90IS
http://www.epinions.com/content_30440001156/tk_~CB005.1.9
Canon Powershot G1
http://www.epinions.com/content_8768294532/tk_~CB003.1.70
Canon Powershot PRO 70
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-6496-25768DA-38C3E01A-prod9/tk_~CB003.1.70
Sony Digital Cameras
Sony DSC S85
http://www.epinions.com/content_51957567108
Sony MVC-CD 300
http://www.epinions.com/content_45591793284
Sony DSC-S50
http:http://www.epinions.com/content_15885897348
Sony Mavica MVC-CD1000
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-5F01-365BA12-3980602C-prod3/tk_~CB003.1.14
Olympus Digital Cameras
Olympus Camedia C3020
http://www.epinions.com/content_57190944388
Olymous Camedia E 20N
http://www.epinions.com/content_54953348740
Olympus Camedia C3040
http://www.epinions.com/content_42675179140
Olympus Camedia C3000
http://www.epinions.com/content_26106105476/tk_~CB003.1.30
Olympus Camedia E10
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-59FB-183DFC73-3A17388F-prod2/tk_~CB003.1.42
Fuji Digital Cameras
Fuji Finepix 2600 Zoom
http://www.epinions.com/content_58485149316
Fuji Finepix S1 “PRO”
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-5591-16816C34-39047A87-prod5/tk_~CB003.1.18
Minolta Digital Cameras
Minolta Dimage 5
http://www.epinions.com/content_49104522884
Just “cut’n’paste” the URL into your browser’s address window.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 500
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Howard_Creech
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Member: Howard Creech
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 333
Trusted by: 1274 members
About Me:
Photographer/Writer fascinated by Movies, Music, Books, American Diner Food, History, "Popular Culture", and Travel.
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