Canon's S70 is a good step up for most... but not for a few
Written: Oct 24 '04 (Updated Oct 31 '04)
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Pros: Fairly Compact, Advanced features, above average wide angle lens, decent battery life, 7.1 freaking MP!
Cons: Weak flash compared to S50, some mild distortion on wide angle, non-centered tripod hole
The Bottom Line: A solid 7 MP camera with a few minor faults but overall a solid choice that also allows users room to grow creatively.
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Canon PowerShot S70 Digital Camera |
I reviewed the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P150 about a week ago... now I actually bought the Canon Powershot S70 for a nice low $420! I'm quite excited and can use the accessories from my older S50 with the S70 as well. After playing with this nifty camera for a week, I'm able to make some comparisons of this camera versus the Sony DSC-P150, the older Canon S50, and the Canon 6.1 MP Digital Rebel.
Pricing
The initial MRSP was $599 but fell to $499 at the end of October... now making this competitive against cameras like the DSC-P150!
Personally, I purchased the camera on the internet from Onecall.com for a low price of $455.61. I can pricematch this with an ad for $419 from a less reputable camera dealer through my American Express Costco Small Business Card. I spent an additional $100 to get the 2x tele-converter (MRSP $99) and the adapter housing (MRSP $29) as well. I know I said $410 on my DSC-P150 review... I misplaced the ad with the lower price for the AmEx pricematch... sigh. Now with the lowered MRSP, I can wait a month to a month and a half to try to get a lower price to pricematch with my AmEx business card.
For some tips on ways to save money on items, look at my epinions article The Art of Buying... Getting your money's worth. Although the article is a bit dated, many of the tips are still easy to apply and worth doing to save some big dough.
Short Take
Anyone who has kept up with my reviews knows that I've been a big supporter of Canon digital cameras... the majority of my digital camera collection is composed mostly of Canons... with a few Nikons, a couple of Sonys, and a Pentax. The S70 continues a strong tradition started from the S30 of a semi-compact nearly full featured digital camera with a solid performance and allowing the user room to grow.
The S70 weak points includes the flash... which actually seems weaker than the older S50 especially at distances beyond 10 feet. There also seems to be some mild distortion at the wide angle settings. Canon still doesn't have an add-on flash unit for the S60/70 series. Another weak point is the limited options for movie mode versus the competition.
The only question comes up is if you need to buy a 7MP camera. At a MRSP of $599, it certainly puts a large dent in your savings. However, with Canon dropping the MRSP of the S70 and the G6 by $100, the S70 is $499 MRSP now. This makes the camera the price range as the DSC-P150 (unless Sony lowers their price as well!) In reality, 4 and 5 MP cameras are more than good enough for 4x6 inch photos. Heck a good 5 MP camera should be able to make above average to excellent 8x10 photos! However if you're willing to pony up about $425-500, the S70 certainly is an excellent camera for its catagory!
Pros:
1) 7.1 MP camera
2) 3.6x optical zoom
3) Better wide angle than previous models (S30/40/45/50)
4) A little more compact than the previous models
5) Compact Flash card for storage... enhanced size of memory buffer for the 7MP images
6) Extensive advanced features.
7) Print Direct button
8) Improved controller interface from previous models
9) Improved lithium-ion battery
10) Uses most of the accessories from the previous models
Cons:
1) Mildly Expensive but you get a feature rich camera!
2) Proprietary lithium-ion battery
3) Weaker flash than S45/50
4) No hot shoe or external flash capability
5) Only 32MB memory card included (about 10 shots at full JPEG resolution or 4 shots in RAW mode!)
6) Movie modes outpaced by the competition
7) Off-center tripod mount
Design
The S70 basically looks like a black version of Canon's S60... kind of the same thing Canon did with the S45 and the S50 models over a year ago. The S70 camera is much lighter than the S50 and slightly smaller... it also feels a little less solid than the S50 does. The camera has dimensions of 4.49 x 2.22 x 1.5 inches with a weight of 10.1 oz. with the Compact Flash (CF) card and battery installed. Compare this to the S50's dimensions of 4.41 x 2.28 x 1.65 inches and a weight of 11.2 oz. Most of the difference is in reality the loss of an ounce. The S70 fits rather nicely into Canon S50 leather case. On the flip side, the S50 has a more solid and metalic feel versus the S70. To me, the S70 feels a bit more plastic than the S50. In reality, the S70 follows the use of a rigid polycarbonate body with overlying metal plating (aluminum for the S70).
Unlike the S50, the camera lens is no longer centered in the middle of the camera but slightly to the left side (if you're looking at the back of the S70). The tripod mount is mounted further left from the midline of the camera lens. The S70 also does away with looser control pad from the S45/50 models and does away with the playback switch for a playback button. Overall, the S70 is easier to use and control than the S50 model it replaces. The S70 is also a tad longer than the S50 model and appears thinner on first glance.
For the most part, the controls of the S70 are almost entirely in reach of your right index finger and thumb. The S70 was made to be held in your right hand. The only three buttons out of reach (being of the far left side of the back of the camera) are the FUNC button (important), Manual Focus/Delete, and the Light Metering/Audio buttons. The rest of the back of the S70 include the 1.8 inch color TFT LCD on the left side and the new Omni-selector (i.e. 5-way joypad) with the direct print button, playback, display, and menu buttons surrounding the Omni-selector at the diagonals. The zoom lever is now at the back of the camera (compared to the top front on the S50) above the Omni-selector. Two more buttons are above the LCD which are the Macro/Jump and the Flash/Index buttons. There is a green LED and a blue LED (the blue LED is embedded in the Direct Print button). The green LED lights up in playback mode. The blue LED lights when the camera is connected to a computer or a PictBridge compatible printer. There are two smaller LEDs by the optical viewfinder that tell you the camera's status.
The right side of the camera holds only the eyelet for the strap. The left side of the camera has a portion of the three buttons mentioned above and the rubber cover for the A/V out and Digital/mini-USB jacks (I believe the USB jack is still 1.1!). The bottom of the camera holds the cover to the CF slot and the battery (the cover slides out to the right instead of back) and the off-lens-center tripod mount. The good thing about the tripod mount is that you can open the battery/CF cover now but makes stitch photos a bit harder to take. The top of the camera holds the mode dial, the shutter button, and the speaker grille. The front of the camera is the flash (partially covered with the cover closed) and the microphone hole and IR remote sensor below it (both are always exposed). When you slide the lens cover open, the lens, the optical viewfinder, and the AF/red-eye lamp are all exposed.
The S70 uses only Compact Flash type memory... it will accept Type I or II CF cards and microdrives as well. Faster CF cards like the Sandisk Ultra II series do help. Lexar 80x CF cards with Write Acceleration (WA) also help but don't seem to be as fast as in particular Nikon models (maybe Canon does conform to the Lexar WA technology?) and slower than the Sandisk Ultra II series from my use.
Battery Life
I tested the S70 with my older S50 lithium-ion battery. The S50 battery is the older NB-2L (570 mAh). The S70 uses the newer NB-2LH (720 mAh)which has a much higher charge capacity than the older NB-2L battery. I pulled off about 200 shots with moderate flash use and with the LCD on with the older battery. The NB-2LH battery should be able to draw at least 50-75 more shots than what I got on the NB-2L fully charged. The S70 continues the awful tradition of giving the low power warning when the battery has enough power for 10 or less shots.
Movies?
One of the weaknesses of Canon's digital cameras is the limited movie capturing modes versus just about the rest of the competition. Canon offers only 160x120 @ 15fps, 320x240 @ 15fps, and 640x480 resolution @ 10fps. Although every other digital camera maker offers the same resolutions and then some. However, the S70 (like just about all the other Canon models) is limited to 30 sec clips at 640x480 resolution and 3 minutes at 160x120 and 320x240 resolution. The DSC-P150 from Sony offers a 640x480 mode with record time limited to the free space on the memory stick and at 30 fps! Canon just seems to be taking steps backwards for the movie record mode. The ancient Canon S320 performed way better than this!
Zoom?
The S70 offers the 35mm equivalent of 28mm-100mm. Canon states this is an optical zoom of 3.6x. If you care, the digital zoom is 4.1x... but digital zooms are pretty useless in my opinion (It's about the same as cropping and enlarging the original shot on your home computer!).
Image Quality and File Sizes
The S70 pictures are nothing short of stunning. Overall, the pictures retain more detail than those taken with the S50 and maintain just about the same color reproduction and vibrancy. Overall detail was sharper than my Canon Digital Rebel... although colors on the Digital Rebel were more subdued but realistic compared to the more vibrant (and some reviewers call consumery colors) hues on the S70. Regardless, the images were sharper than those on the Sony DSC-P150 as well (both camera use the same imaging sensor apparently). Note that I felt the noise levels and purple fringing/chromatic abberation seemed to be better than that in the S50.
As far as chromatic abberations are concerned, this is influenced by several factors. These include the size of the lens, the size of the image sensor (smaller the sensor the worse the abberation), and the size of the image (I referring to the MP count in this case)(Higher MP count the worse the abberation). In this case, the high MP count, relatively small lens and form factor of the camera, and the small size of the sensor (1/1.8 inch sensor which is fairly small). I was expecting chromatic abberation that was worse than the S50 but I was plesantly surprised. The chromatic abberation is slightly better than the DSC-P150 although the image noise is slightly worse. Chromatic abberation is worse at the wide angle view (28mm) and minimal at other zoom lengths. I don't think it is a deal breaker by any means... besides, I don't think I've seen any digital non-SLR camera have little to no chromatic abberation to date! Even the Canon Digital Rebel has a little bit as well.
Low light and Nighttime conditions were a weak point of the S70. The flash seemed to be notably weaker than the S50. I felt that the S70 flash was good really up to 10 feet. Past that distance, you need to have decent backlighting or use some kind of external light source for shots other than landscaping/skyline shots. The S50 averaged a few feet better than that at least. The flash is still stronger than that on the Sony DSC-P150 (although weaker than the DSC-P150 with the add-on flash unit).
The S70 allows you to select from resolutions of 3072x2304, 2592x1944, 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 640x480 pixels. There are three levels of JPEG compression (Normal, Fine, and Superfine) as well as RAW files. At 3072x2304 at JPEG Superfine settings, the image files are around 3 MB each! At 3072x2304 (7.1 MP images) and RAW file settings, the image files are at least 7 MB each!
Modes, Options, and Features
The S70 has a ton of features and modes... if Canon keeps with tradition, the S70 should share almost all the same features as the Canon G6!
The mode dial allows you to select from:
1) Program AE (P): camera controls shutter speed and lens aperture
2) Shutter Speed (Tv): camera controls shutter speed, you set lens aperture
3) Aperture-Priority Av (Av): camera controls lens aperture, you control shutter speed
4) Manual (M): You control everything
5) Custom (C): Recall your previous saved settings
6) Auto: Camera controls almost everything (you just set the flash mode, macro mode, image size and compression settings)
7) Portrait
8) Landscape
9) Night Scene
10) Fast Shutter
11) Slow Shutter
12) Stitch-Assist
13) Movie
The FUNC button allow you to control:
1) Exposure Compensation -/+ 2 EV in 1/3 increments
2) White Balance (Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Flash, or 2 Custom modes)
3) Drive (Single, Continuous, or High-Speed Continuous and 2 and 10 second Timer)
4) ISO (Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400)
5) Effects (Vivid Color, Neutral Color, Low Sharpening, Sepia, Black and White, or Custom)
6) Flash Exposure Compensation
7) Resolution and Quality
Accessories
If you're upgrading from a S30/40/45/50, you'll be happy to know that you can use the old batteries and AC adapter. Camera cases like the leather case from Canon is usable with the S60/70 model. I am not sure about the underwater case however. New for the S60/70 is the ability to add specific lenses through an optional lens adapter. The adapter runs about $30-40 and additional lenses run about $100 a pop. The 2x teleconverter makes the S70 a 48mm-200mm equivalent (although the chromatic abberation increases and there is a slight decrease in image sharpness from my use so far). The lens adapter allows the use of appropriately sized lens filters as well.
In the package, you get a hefty camera manual, two software CDs, the A/V and USB-to-mini-USB cable, a camera strap, a high speed 32MB CF card, a NB-2LH lithium-ion battery, and NB-2L/LH battery charger.
You must buy an additional CF card of at least 256MB capacity. I would recommend a high speed CF card of at least 512MB if not 1GB! I would recommend Canon's leather case for the camera... I think it's one of the nicer ones out there. A second battery would be nice but not necessary.
In Actual Use
Again, more photos were taken in the Hamptons and of Northport VA Hospital Grounds. I tried to take shots close to those I took on the DSC-P150 and my Canon Digital Rebel. I took some additional shots between the Canon Digital Rebel, the Canon S50, and the S70 for comparison. Color reproduction were most pleasing with the S50 and S70 although Digital Rebel seemed more realistic due to the more subdued colors. The DSC-P150 had more subdued colors than the S70. The S70 retained more details over the S50, Digital Rebel, and the DSC-P150. Prints of 8.5 x 11 showed no loss of quality.
Camera startup was a bit slower than the DSC-P150 model. It took 1-2 seconds longer. Menus were fairly easy to navigate and the Omni-Selector extremely easy to get used to.
My comments on the flash and nighttime/low light shots stand as above. The S70 seemed weaker than the S50 but better than the DSC-P150. I would be careful of the distance from your subject in such conditions (for portrait and group photos).
Cameras in my Possession
Canon PowerShot S110
Canon PowerShot S50
Canon PowerShot S410
Canon Digital Rebel D-SLR 6.3 MP Camera
Canon PowerShot S70
Sony DSC-V1
Pentax Optio S
Nikon CoolPix 995
Nikon D70
Nikon CoolPix 8800 (I don't have this yet... I am thinking about getting it though)
Sony DSC-P150 7.1MP (Click here to go to my epinion). Actually I gave this as a wedding gift to a friend.
Need more reviews?
Click here to see my other reviews... you can go to the drop down menu to read my camera reviews.
I often use multiple sites to research cameras before purchasing them. These include:
www.dpreview.com
www.imaging-resource.com
www.steves-digicams.com
Need a decent book for beginning photographers. Read my review on John Hedgecoe's The New Manual of Photography.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 420
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Solid Enough for a Professional
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yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
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