I have been using this camera for a year and a half and have taken more than 2500 pics in different occasions. The little S100 has followed me to Switzerland snow mountain (-15 degrees there), to paris, to Berlin, to Vancouver, and now, I am typing up this message with my S100 besides me in Japan. I cannot say I am an expert, but I consider myself a S100 professional. Wanna know the truth about this camera? read on!

This camera has been officially discontinued on april 2002. If you are planning to buy one, you are either looking for a second-hand or a S110, which is quite similar to the S100.

I have owned this camera since Feb 2001. At the time, digita camera is quite pricy and I bought mine at around $550USD. I know that you can have a much better camera at this price nowadays..

I cannot say it was the best $550 I have ever spent, but I never regret buying it.

At the time you read this review, you may heard many complaints about this camera like poor flash, poor battery life and such. Let me tell you the truth. The flash sucks, really. The flash cannot light up anything more than 2 meters of range. But, keep in mind, you are talking about a super compact camera with a flash smaller than your finger tip. What do you expect? In fact, all super compact model suffer from this same problem.

The battery life is short, yes, really short. This is an aspect that I dislike most about this camera. How to remedy this problem? You either choose to turn of the LCD most of the time or buy one more battery!! In fact, I did not get an extra battery for my S100 and it did cause me big problems.

I remembered that I read from somewhere saying that this camera cannot take night scene. Let me tell you, This camera CAN TAKE GOOD NIGHT SHOTS! I know that this camera is rated only ISO 100, so what? It takes good night shots! Mount the S100 on a tripod (you have to get a tripod), aim at the nightscene you wanna shoot and press the button! If you are shooting behind a glass wall, set the S100 into infinity focus mode. If you would like to shoot an object (a person maybe) that is near your camera together with the night scene, choose the night-sync mode. This mode will turn on the flash and leave the shutter open for a little longer. If you would like to get some samples of the night shot that the S100 produce, email me at sailorking2@hotmail.com

This camera is quick, press the on/off button, and it is ready to shoot in a second.

Although this camera is kinda old now, but its image quality is still hard to beat. I was thinking about getting a new 5.0MP SLR type camera last month, but I cease to think about it when I discover that my lil camera is still very capable. I think that you can get a second hand of this for less than $300, and I strongly recommend this camera. It may not be the best super compact camera on the league, but think about how much more you have to pay to step up from a 2.1MP to a 3MP. 2.1MP is capable of producing 1600x1200 resolution shots. And trust me, you would like to keep your pics at 800x600 resolution maximum because 1600x1200 means a lot of storage space.

I know that there are some people who bought this camera and dislike the image quality that the camera produces. The bottom line is, you have to learn to take pictures. If you cannot do well in this camera, you probably cannot do well on other machines.


wanna know more about the S100? email me at sailorking2@hotmail.com

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 550
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use