Canon PowerShot S40 Review

Overall Rating

An excellent package, great quality, great functionality.

Would like it to be smaller and lighter but it is still ok to fit in my pocket.

A friend and I thoroughly researched the market July 2002, read professional reviews and consumer reviews, went to shops for look and feel etc. We both chose the Canon Powershot S40 digital camera and have both been 110% pleased with our choice. We decided we wanted minimum 4mega pixels because it would enable us to crop pictures and still have good enough quality. We also wanted size to be a go anywhere camera with minimum 3 x optical and a flash that would go furthest possible. It had to be easy to use etc so all the family could use it.

We could not decide whether we would use manual override functionality but it would be good to have.

The shortlisted ones we had were finally Sony P9 (smaller but limited overide) and Olympus C-40 (didnt like shape). It feels as if there will shortly be 4mp cameras on the market soon with longer optical zoom but we couldnt wait.

All these cameras are still at rip off prices and cheapest on the high street July02 was Jessops at £599. On the internet you could buy for £509, but I bought mine at Dixons 'duty free' at Gatwick Airport for £467 (you can ring them ahead to reserve). I was quite chuffed with my saving until I found the identical camera with european wide warranty in Rhodes for £320 equivilent, dont know why they should get them cheaper over there, perhaps it is worth looking for a Rhodes based web reseller (Lanzarotte is similarly cheap for digital cameras and video camera).

Although I am not a photo enthusiast I find myself using the manual overide capability frequently because it is fun to experiment and everyone wants a go. I have got some fantastic shots. The key difference between this and 35mm being you see the results immediately so can do the shot again !

Overall the pictures and flexibility of this camera is terrific and the PC software for viewing and minor editing is also great. I felt the Battery life was good although you find everyone wants to look at the pictures you have taken on the LCD screen so this takes up a lot of the picture power. I bought a spare battery and it was the right choice. I also bought a 256 mb memory card which gives me 123 pictures at full resolution with minimum compression, ie best quality. If you use normal compression settings then you get 221 pictures.

Thumbs up canon but it will be nice in a couple of years when the performance of video cameras and digital still cameras have totally converged so I only need carry one device around.