Canon PowerShot S2 IS Review

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Canon PowerShot S2 IS
3 stars
Average rating for this product is: 3 out of 5

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cmerriman's Review of Canon PowerShot S2 IS

28th Jul 2005

Overall Rating

5 stars
  • Value for money
    3.5 stars
  • Image Quality
    4 stars
  • Features
    4.5 stars
  • Time Digital Camera Owned
    1 - 4 Weeks
  • Battery Life
    4 stars
  • Ease of Use
    5 stars
Good Points

Easy to use in auto (point and shoot) mode
Loads of features and manual capabilities for more demanding requirements
Image stabilisation is excellent - handheld at full optical zoom is quite possible.
Adjustable display
Good AA battery life
Sound and video recording capability and quality


Bad Points

View finder could be clearer
Speed to take photo (middling for class)
Lense cap falls off
Some difficulty taking good night shots with illuminations


General Comments

This is my first digital camera. I bought it because I needed a camera that powered off AA batteries and had a big zoom. With it I bought a 1Gb Sandisk Ultra II SD and 8 (2 sets) 2500mAH rechargeables. It is very satisfying to use and easy once you know your way round the standard digital camera controls.
Its rich feature set does mean that there are lots of options but for everyday operation the controls are readily at hand. I am very impressed with being able to use an equivalent 400mm+ zoom without tripod. On a 2 week holiday we took 170+ pics, a few minutes of video, some sound recordings and my son did lots of "playing" with it. One set of rechargeables lasted the 16 day duration with spare to review all the pics on the tv back home and there was plenty of space left in the memory. Downloading to the PC is quick and easy, taking only a couple of minutes for everything. I am using Windows XP, and I have not as yet installed any of the Canon supplied software.
There are similar cameras with a faster (and slower) response time but I found it fine, except when taking pictures of moving objects like car racing. The "half press" and some anticipation were a must and were made harder by the less than clear viewfinder. I also have fingerprints on the lense thanks to the annoying lense cap falling off.
Overall, I am absolutely thrilled with the camera and have no regrets for waiting for it to come onto market or its cost.

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Members' Comments oncmerriman's Review

  • cmerriman Rank: Lance Corporal on 27th Sep 2005

    Have subsequently found the reason for the night shot problems with bright lights. The camera's night setting takes a long exposure (1 sec) combined with a the flash. The problems with the lights was due to camera movement, me being unaware of the very long exposure. There is another night setting which does not have a long exposure, so the camera has it all, just the operator that was lacking!

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