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Review: As with previous reviews, I have found this Canon Powershot S1 IS digital camera to be excellent. I've had and used it for about a month, and am very impressed with the quality of the pictures, and especially with the anti-shake, which really does allow you to use the full 10x zoom. For me, as an added bonus, using this plus the in-camera facility of bringing the magnification up to 32x allows the camera to double up as a pair of binoculars, and produces images on the camera screen of sufficient quality to (for example) allow for bird or plant identification that otherwise might be very difficult. I have also found that it's capable of great photos in quite dark rooms, and without the flash - again, thanks to the anti-shake feature. For me, the big "but" is the focus - mentioned by others but (again, for me) a bigger problem than others seem to find. I find that the focusing is poor and unreliable even in good lighting conditions, especially where there's a big difference in distance terms between the main object and the background. Even after tricking around to help the auto-focus, I often find I have to resort to manual focus, and manipulating the buttons is actually quite difficult and time-consuming. I haven't yet found any problems with picture quality - fringing, etc - but mayeb I'm not as demanding as others. If Canon could produce this camera with better focusing - maybe taking a leaf from Sony with its laser-assisted focusing - this would be a superb camera indeed. Am I alone in thinking that doing away with the video facility and improving the functionality of still-photo-taking would be a better way of producing a great camera at relatively low cost? If I want a video, I'll buy a cam-corder; this is for photos. But overall I'm very very pleased with my choice, and I'd recommend this camera, but do note the focus limitation! |
Digital Cameras
