williamrender's Full Review: Canon PowerShot® S5 IS Digital Camera
Canon S1 iS
I wanted a camera that could do it all. I wanted a good sports camera as I’m on the ski hill all winter and on the mountain bike all summer, it had to be able to reach my subject and catch a quick shot before they zoomed by. I also had my camcorder ripped off on a ski trip and wanted something that could take camcorder quality shoots, again aiming at sports style shooting so a few seconds to 1 or 2 min. was all I felt I needed.
I have been looking at digital camera since September of 2003, and there just wasn’t anything that really did what I wanted it to do, the Minolta Z1 had all the right specs. but the reviews were not good (chromatic aberration, Purple hue) and I was told this can be a big factor so I shied away from it and kept looking. The list, not very long when it comes to 10X zooms. The three or four that caught my eye were the FujuFilm S5000, Minolta Z1,Z2 Olympus C 740 ( new C 765. C 770) and at the very end the Canon S1 is. I went to many camera stores but in the end settled on Henery’s I found there staff to be very knowledge and Helpful, plus the 30 day exchange policy, that’s what sold me. So after playing with the Minolta Z1,Z2 and the S5000, I settled on the S5000, I used a weekend excursion and captured about 300 shots with it.. along with some video. The camera did what it said it would do and I was happy. However; at work I run a “digital photo of the day” web site so I have many people emailing me photo’s. It’s a great way to compare cameras. I was about to post a picture I had taken on the weekend when I received an email, it was a beautiful nature seen taken with an Olympus C 740 camera… suddenly I was not happy with the shots from S5000. They didn’t compare not even in the same ball park.. 2 hours in Photoshop and 10 pictures latter I still had nothing that even looked close to the Olympus. I asked the fellow who took the shot to do a “side by side” with both cameras. The next day I had my answer, it was not the photographer that was the problem. The pictures form the S5000 all came out darker, under exposed, and the images were not at the same level, I don’t know how to say it, they were softer or not as sharp they just didn’t have the crispness that the Olympus was giving. Again I tried photo shop but there was no way to bring them up… time to exchange. I had made up my mind on the Minolta Z2 (although I couldn’t find a review talking about chromatic aberration). The C 740 didn’t have a very good movie mode and there was no sound, despite the fantastic shots from it, it was off my list. When shoting with the S5000 I found 320X240 to be ok but 30fps I felt was a must. Henerys had just arecived the Canon S1 iS, so I tried it in the store, I had not read much on it and was a little leery about buying something I hadn’t read a review on, they pulled spec sheet up for me showing a comparison with the Z2, the pixel count was 3.2 vs. 3.8 effective. Another thing I had read about on the Z1 was the sound was not in sink with the video.
It’s been 3 weeks and about 500 shots now with the Canon s1 iS,
Pro’s
The movie mode is amazing. Every bit as good as my old sony 8mm and much smaller. The shots are good the colors are always accurate. Automatic mode works very well, I also found the portrait and sports mode setting to be more accurate when trying to capture those types of photos. I never noticed any Purple hue (chromatic aberration) in my shots, I have only done 2 shots in a darkish room with out a flash they didn’t have any either, although the focus was off and the images looked dark. The iS (image stabilizer) is a bigger factor then I thought it would be, all you have to do is zoom the camera on something far away then turn the iS on and off, you can clearly see a huge difference in camera shake. I have captured some great nature shots and some really cool sunsets. Using the 10X zoom.
Cons
Focus in low light is still a problem, the same as with the S5000. The S5000 has a “AF illuminator” the canon does not. Although I didn’t find the S5000 to ever focus very well. Another features the Canon is lacking is the rapid fire mode, , the down fall of this feature was that the quality of the image is dropped when using this mode (around 1280X960) on the S5000 and Minolta. Also it cannot refocus or correct white balance so it may have been a useless feature.
CANON SUPPORT, is terrible, I read Steve’s review:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/s1is_pg4.html
That stated “Cont. Shooting - Low or High speed continuous mode” I could not find this option on my camera so I emailed Canon. There responses had nothing to do with my question. Four times I replied, each time starting out with “I don’t think you under stood my question” in the end they stated they are not responsible for what other websites say, I took this as “go away”. My question was basically “have you changed the bios on the camera” “Did you remove this feature” “is there another bios available that will give this feature back” each email reply from them seemed to be prefabricated, no one took the time to check this or answer my question properly.
If you are looking for a great site to compare camera try
http://www.steves-digicams.com/
I tend to use steves-digicams as my number one site to compare images as he has reviewed more cameras and has the same images with each camera, so comparison is quick and easy.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 689 CDN This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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