Canon PowerShot S1 IS Reviews

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Canon PowerShot S1 IS
★★★☆☆
3.4
71.0% of users recommend this
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  • Image Quality

  • Battery Life

  • Features

  • Ease of Use

  • Value For Money

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Specification for Canon PowerShot S1 IS

Main Features
Resolution 3.2
Optical Zoom 10
Battery Type Alkaline or Rechargeable

Features:
  • 3.2-megapixel sensor captures enough detail to create photo-quality 10-by-14-inch enlargements
  • Canon 10x optical zoom with image stabilizer; 3x digital zoom
  • Vari-angle LCD screen; DV-quality Movie Mode; PictBridge compatible
  • Store images on Compact Flash Type I or II memory cards (32 MB card included)
  • Powered by 4 AA-size batteries (alkaline included, rechargeable NiMH recommended)
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    Latest Reviews

    “I have had excellent results from this digital camera!...”

    ★★★★★

    written by aamir515 on 10/03/2007

    I have had excellent results from this digital camera! Movies are excellent! I just burned a movie to a DVD and played it on the TV. It looks like it's been shot on a professional handycam. On a computer it just looks like any normal one, but on the TV it was just awesome. I got my Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera from eBay for $172. Great value! It also has a great zoom.

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    “My Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera has needed to...”

    ★☆☆☆☆

    written by tkman on 05/07/2006

    My Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera has needed to be repaired 4 times. Three times in the first year, and once again in the second year. The pop up flash is a bad design. The mechanism that allows the flash to pop up fails. I will not buy a camera with a pop up flash again. A built-in flash is a much better design. Also, the view display failed. They did repair the camera for the first two problems, and they replaced it for the third issue, where the display failed, and now the flash is failing again. At what point should a manufacturer offer to refund the purchase price?

    It looked good at first, but it has quickly become a problem device that I wish I had never bought.

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    “The Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera has a nice...”

    ★★★★☆

    written by tonyfisk on 30/05/2006

    The Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera has a nice feel to it, and it can give very crisp shots, although colour rendition seems to be a mite variable. Exposure on flash shots is good, but low-light focusing can be dodgy due to lack of a focus-assist lamp. Viewfinder characteristics and slow focus response make tracking high-speed distant subjects tricky (aircraft, wildlife). Close focus, without having to engage any special mode is amazing, and the image stabiliser is magic. Overall, a very satisfactory piece of kit, but obviously it had a few flaws that were addressed in the S2.

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    “I have had my Canon Powershot S1 IS digital camera for...”

    ★★★★★

    written by paulbobd on 11/10/2005

    I have had my Canon Powershot S1 IS digital camera for almost a year now, and it is fantastic. Images are sharp, well balanced, and the manual settings allow you to be creative.

    The image stabilizer works great, and is one of the features that stands out against comparable cameras. I've taken sharp night time photos with a 1/4 second exposure, with no tripod.

    This camera has issues, but so does every other camera. I have had trouble focusing at night, but generally after a few seconds the S1 is able to sort itself out.

    The zoom is great and super quick; some people complain it is too quick and therefore annoying to use. The same people fail to realize the zoom control is analogue, and therefore controllable.

    You can get this camera for less than £200 on the web, and for that price you simply cannot go wrong.

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    “Steve's review really said it all for me. The Canon...”

    ★★★★★

    written by cyclingrelf on 14/09/2005

    Steve's review really said it all for me. The Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera takes great photos, with varying degrees of automation, depending on user preference. I'm fairly new to using cameras and found this one really easy to pick up. The manual is well-designed and written in easy to understand English. The settings are pretty intuitive. The image stabilizer makes taking long-distance high-zoom shots easy. It also has fun features to help in creating panoramas for example. Best of all for me, it takes a 1GB memory card, and will record video with sound at high quality (or lower if you choose) until the memory card is full. That means about 1 hour of recording time!! I'm using it to record videos of the family telling bedtime stories, so I can send them across to my niece in Cambodia. I love this camera - what more can I say?!

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    “My opinion & experience with the Canon S1 iS ”

    ★☆☆☆☆

    written by christophermartin on 04/07/2005

    My opinion & experience with the Canon S1 iS
    The first 6 hours were great the last 6 hours today was a nightmare. And I seriously mean a nightmare. The images I got today were so bad that I would be ashamed to show my great, great, great grandfather (one of the first Photographers in Illinois) the images I got from this camera.

    Now before S1 fans start reminding me how good it is. I will admit two things, the S1 is a good camera for many and that mine was possibly malfuntioning because it was a refurbished camera. However with that said, the many different shots I took June 30 were most disappointing. The zoom worked exceptional and even the digital zoom upto 16X worked flawless.

    However the image it produced, while crisp was rather terrible. The colors had to have massive amounts of Photoshop editing to make them right and then they were not that good anyways. The bad pictures were mainly for Landscapes and such. For people and other things, it was much better but not much.

    However my biggest peeve even past the bad color was something that didn't malfunction at all. And that was the View finder. The view finder is a LCD screen. Good idea on paper but terrible in reality if you wear glasses and shoot while wearing them. I know dioptic meter but to me that makes no sense, how can I take a picture of something if I can't see it? Out side, in the sun it was terrible because as we all know sun & LCD screens don't mix. I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of outside. Which makes the camera essentially worthless to me because I take pictures out side mainly.

    Framing the picture at great lengths was very difficult and often most of my shots were slanted and not straight. Most of the pictures I took with it were this way and had to be trashed or straightened with photoshop.

    Normal batteries last about 130 pictures, which is not too bad at all considering how much power the zoom requires. But if you leave it on for more then five minutes it starts to get warm and it also has a humming sound.

    Take my review for what you want. If you want a good camera, buy the S85/A95 or S2 IS, both are a far superior camera. I returned the S1 after playing for it for a day. Mainly because of the view finder issue, the color issue on landscapes, and because the macro wasn't very good at all.

    Review by ChristopherMartin

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    Stevetc's Response to 161355_christophermartin's Review

    Written on: 08/11/2005

    The comments of Christophermartin are not justified on the S1 1S.Either he's plugging Photoshop or he needs to buy a new camera instead of buying a re-furbished one which is CLEARLY faulty.

    Reply to this comment
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    161355_Christophermartin's Response to 161355_christophermartin's Review

    Written on: 08/11/2005

    No SteveTC the comments are completely justified and the entire review is based on the ACTUAL camera that I owned. I attributed that some of the problems could have been due to it being refurbished but most of my problems with this camera would have been the same refurbished or not.
    <br>
    <br>Reviews giving only high praises towards products are not useful, honest reviews of both the good and bad points are useful in helping others. This review is based on honest opinion of this product. Thanks

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    “Having not long bought the Canon PowerShot S1 IS I was...”

    ★★★★★

    written by SteveTC on 09/04/2005

    Having not long bought the Canon PowerShot S1 IS I was looking forward to putting it through it's paces (I already own an Ixus V3 which has similar menu's) so I was able to get started right away. I had made my decision after much research on the internet and found this to have everything I needed and because it was 12 months old now it was at a bargain price for what it could do. The handbook that comes with it is very easy to follow and comprehensive and reading it you must if you want to get the very best from this camera. Having said that, you can get it right out of the box and start shooting in full Auto mode within minutes and get great results. The purpose of this camera is to give the enthusiast the ability to go into manual mode and experiment like a pro. Aperture and Speed priority, bracketing, adjustable flash output, it's all there to play with if your feeling adventurous. This camera has a great feel to it, not to heavy not to light and the grip is just right and well balanced even with the zoom active at full. The 10X optical zoom is a dream to use and having the image stabiliser is the icing on the cake so unless you are jumping up and down you should not get a blurred shot even down to one thirtieth of a second without flash (you can't do that with a good many camera's)The flash itself is adjustable (in manual mode) having red eye reduction, which works as long as you tell the person to look into the small orange light that comes on just before shooting and the overhaul flash is very even having no noticeable dark areas around the edges unlike many. You can adjust the quality of the pictures from the full 3.3 million right down to E:Mail friendly snaps at the touch of a smart button, so no need to keep going into the menu every time (nice touch that) You have spot, centre weighted and average metering so no need to get an out of focus shot ever again.
    After you have taken your shots you can add narration to the individual pictures up to 1 minute long(which is more then enough)and play them back through your TV or computer with the supplied leads. The new Canon software is a doddle to use and you only have to attach one lead and press one button to download the pictures and the software even makes a new folder, names it with the date taken and files it in My Pictures ready for your viewing, how simple is that. Even though this camera is simple to use it gives you a professional feel as you click away and try to find more subjects to shoot, it's a pleasure to use.
    As like most digital cameras of today it offers the ability to shoot short video clips with sound, but the quality of the video from this camera can hold it's own against some more expensive models. You have a choice of 15/30 frames a second and 3 choices of record mode 640X480(fine), 640X480 and the usual 320X240. The playback on my 32 inch TV was a pleasure to watch and the detail was crisp and sharp with no jerkiness or frame dropout. As to the length of record time ,this will depend on your Flash card and I chose to purchase the Sandisc Ultra II 1GB which gives me 15 mins of top quality movie.(580 top quality pictures)You can in fact use a 4GB microdrive which will give you an impressive 1 hour of movie, just make sure you have plenty battery power. As to the batteries, if there's a down side, this is it. Ordinary Alkaline and even Duracells will not last long but the rechargeable high power (2300AH) will. So an initial outlay of them could put you off (but I wouldn't let it). This is a superb camera and so easy to operate giving you great results every time. Like I said at the beginning of this write up I like to push any new camera to it's limits and this ones limits are very high indeed.
    I could go on for forever telling you why you should buy this camera and not find one reason why you shouldn't, so go get it while you can as I would imagine very soon a new model will come out but at a dearer price, so why pay more when this little beauty does it all.

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