Canon PowerShot S2 IS

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/digitalcameras/0,39030233,39190939,00.htm

Reviewed 26 July 2005

Reviewed by Theano Nikitas

The successor to the image-stabilised S1 IS has more than just a slightly expanded waistline. The Canon PowerShot S2 IS boasts an upgrade to a 5-megapixel sensor (from 3.2), a 12x zoom lens (up from 10x), and a 46mm (1.8-inch) LCD (versus 38mm). A Digic II processor and a high-speed USB connection quicken things up. Add a full complement of manual controls, as well as high-quality video with stereo sound, and the S2 IS is sure to find its way into the hands of photo enthusiasts who want to shoot long and print big.

Design
The Canon PowerShot S2 IS is well designed and feels well balanced, even for one-handed shooting. The S2's silver plastic body is well built, although we'd prefer a lens cap that snapped on more securely. It's slightly larger and heavier than its predecessor -- at 513g with four AA batteries and an SD card installed -- but not enough to be noticeable. What users familiar with the S1 will notice is a larger 46mm tilt-and-swivel LCD, a minor step up from 38mm and certainly no match for the Sony DSC-H1's 64mm LCD. However, the ability to rotate the LCD and fold it inward to protect the screen is almost worth putting up with a smaller monitor. The electronic viewfinder (EVF), with its adjustable dioptre, is larger and seems brighter than the Sony DSC-H1's, though.

The variety of buttons, dials and levers are well positioned, although the sound/flash button to the left of the pop-up flash may initially escape your attention. Other standard controls include a small four-way rocker, as well as display and menu buttons. A Function button takes you directly to the most frequently used settings, such as ISO speed, white balance, image size, compression and exposure compensation. You can also customise a separate shortcut button to access a single function.

Canon has improved the operation of the S2's Jump button. You can now scroll through images in multiples of 10 or 100 as well as by date or go directly to a video clip. Furthermore, shooting spontaneous movies doesn't get any easier than this -- there's a single button that will begin recording regardless of your current mode. Keep in mind that you'll need a high-capacity, high-speed SD card (at least 60x) to make the most of this camera's features. Add a set or two of nickel-metal-hydride rechargeables and a charger, too -- the S2 IS comes with alkalines only.

Features
The 'IS' in the Canon PowerShot S2 IS's name stands for 'image stabiliser' and, in combination with the camera's 12x optical zoom (36-432mm in 35mm-equivalent terms), provides the main attraction. With a maximum aperture range of f/2.7 to f/3.5, the lens is respectably fast at the telephoto end.

A trio of image-stabilisation options include shooting only (when the shutter is pressed halfway for focus lock), continuous and panning. The latter works to prevent vertical camera shake when photographing a horizontally moving subject such as a bicyclist or racing car. We found that the shooting-only mode worked best for all but panning shots.

Equipped with a full feature set that includes manual exposure and custom modes, the S2 IS is an affordable option for enthusiasts who want the flexibility of a long lens and digital-SLR-like features without the cost. However, like its competitors, the camera does not support TIFF or raw formats, but the S2 IS does offer four resolution and three compression options.

A handful of special effects complement standard features such as exposure compensation (EV), preset and manual white balance, sensitivities ranging from ISO 50 to ISO 400, along with a handful of scene modes. In addition to special effects such as vivid colour, black and white, and sepia, there's a custom function that allows users to save and recall contrast, sharpness and saturation levels. You can also adjust flash intensity.

Part useful tool, part quirky novelty, the S2's My Colors mode has a number of colour adjustments that intensify reds, greens and blues collectively or individually, as well as two skin-tone-specific (lightening or darkening) functions. For fun, you can convert a colour image to black and white with a colour accent or replace one colour with another -- all in-camera. And you can opt to save a copy of your original along with the colour-adjusted image.

The S2's VGA movie mode, which now supports stereo audio, is quite good, with a top resolution of 640x480 at 30fps. Unlike many cameras with similar movie-capture modes, the Canon lets you use the zoom, which operates very quietly, and the IS while capturing video. The recording capacity is limited to 1GB; the actual time will vary, but the camera estimated 15 minutes, 24 seconds with a 2GB SanDisk Ultra SD card.

Shooting movies is incredibly convenient, since all you have to do is press a button, regardless of the camera mode. You can also shoot a 5-megapixel still at any point. Once the image is saved, the camera immediately starts recording video again.

A nice set of accessories are available for the S2 IS, including add-on lenses as well as an external flash that attaches via the tripod slot and is triggered by the camera's built-in flash.

Performance
Thanks to the company's Digic II processing, Canon's PowerShot S2 IS performs admirably. Start-up to first shot -- including the time allotted for the lens to extend -- was just over 2 seconds. The lens moved smoothly and quietly, except for minor groaning at start-up. We noticed little distortion at either extreme. Shot-to-shot time without flash was fast at 1.3 seconds, although flash recycling added almost 3 seconds of waiting. There was minimal shutter lag and autofocus worked well even in low light, thanks to the addition of an AF illuminator lamp.

Continuous shooting was only about average at about 1.6fps at high resolution, but the S2 IS was able to capture an impressive 17 frames at that speed before slowing. Dropping the resolution allowed the camera to keep going for more than 57 frames.

Both the LCD and the EVF gain up in low light, making it easier to see what you're shooting. Bright sunlight, on the other hand, often made LCD viewing difficult.

Image quality
As expected, our test shots were generally very good, with appropriately saturated colours, accurate exposures and sharp focus -- the latter thanks to the Canon PowerShot S2 IS's excellent image stabiliser.

While the S2's macro mode worked very well, delivering nicely detailed subjects, we had less luck when we tried to take advantage of the S2 IS's Super Macro mode, which allegedly focuses down to 0.0 centimetres.

The S2 IS showed little image noise at light sensitivities below ISO 200. At ISO 200, noise became noticeable, and things got worse from there. Auto white balance when shooting indoors delivered overly warm images, which is common among Canon cameras, as is the purple fringing we discovered along high-contrast edges. The latter, however, did not seem quite as nasty as we've seen in other Canon models.

Edited by Lori Grunin
Additional editing by Nick Hide