The Canon PowerShot S30 is fairly easy to use, good size lets you know its there but yet not to big, quick recharge on the battery. All and all for the money its a great camera and you can't go wrong with it

I bought the Canon PowerShot S30 camera 2 years ago. I'm a keen amateur photographer who was often disappointed by the reproduction quality of 35mm photos from the photo labs. When the price of digital cameras started to come down, I bought the S50 as the features seemed to be close to a 35mm SLR. I have been amazed at the quality of the photos this camera produces, and have recommended it to my friends. The software is basic, but very efficient and easy to use, most people who really want to mess around with the images use either Photoshop or Paintshop Pro, anyway. The camera can be used as a point-and-shoot with excellent results, but that's like never taking a sports car above 30mph!!
The camera has all the features an SLR has and loads more which make it fun to use. I haven't used that many other digital cameras, so I can't really compare it with others, but who needs to when you're satisfied with what you have?
It's a good price, good spec, seems to be well-made and robust, what more can you ask for?

I bought the Canon PowerShot S30 based on price (the S45 had just come out so the S30 was a run out model) and image quality of others on the net at about the same price.I found an extremely good site which compares actual images from one camera to another taken in the same light conditions of the same subject. Great stuff. http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM
It comes with a reasonably comprehensive manual that's quite easy to follow for most users from beginner to advanced.
All the software supplied is of good quality if not entirely user friendly. All cables required are supplied to connect to either a TV or a PC. I bought a card reader to simplify it further and I'd recommend anyone using cards do the same. It's so much easier.
I have to say I'm not disappointed with it's pictures. The focus seems to struggle every now and then and not end up quite as sharp as it could be but generally it spits out great pictures. I mostly use it at the 2 megapixel level as that seems to give a good image for general photos. 3mp gives very clear A4 printable images but they are a little large in filesize for general snapshots.
It's good in low light conditions for up to about 4 metres. After that the flash needs more power to throw enough light on the subject.
I've found the focus to sometimes be a little slow at grabbing it's target, particularly in low light or low battery conditions.
This is not an enthusiast's camera. It's manual focus is so fast I haven't yet managed to successfully taken a photo using it other than infinite setting or absolute minimum and moving the camera to suit. Using the flash as fill-in takes a very over-exposed image which can probably be adjusted out using the manual exposure, it's a little too complex to play with so I haven't managed as yet (better things to do with my time). I have to admit I haven't really done even 1/2 what this camera's features allow so I imagine it is probably better than I give it credit in this area.
Like the manual focus deleting an image from the card via the camera is tricky....The button can move sideways while pressing which moves to cancel rather than delete. This is a pain.
It's sturdy, I've dropped it a couple of times onto carpet with no adverse effect, it's never really been looked after as it probably should but is still going strong after 2 years or so. Unfortunately in being sturdy it's also heavy and a little bulkier than it could be.
The supplied strap which is great wears and eventually breaks after only a little use which is a bit of a shame, especially since a case is an extra.
I personally find 16Mb to be far too small a card to be used with a camera with even a 2Mp lens so likewise a higher one. Personally I have a 256Mb card but a 64 supplied with it would have been nice and not too expensive for Canon. Considering a 3Mp image can be up to 2Mb 8 shots on a card is just not enough.
Finally if you buy another battery for it, get the Canon one. I have the original Canon one and a 1/2 price no-name brand one. The Canon one lasts for days, the other an hour if you're lucky and the Canon one is 12 months older!
Recharge time is reasonable (can't remember how long but it's quick enough).
Overall a good buy if you're after a snapshot camera, if a little outdated now. Don't be fooled by 5 Mp cameras and up, the realistic image quality you'll use for everyday snapshots and upto A4 images is 2Mp. It would be nice to have a little headroom but I prefer the compactness of the 2Mp images. 4Mp would have been ideal for me but too expensive at the time.

The S30 is a "Think, Point & Shoot Camera" - though it's' size may fool you to think otherwise. It does have an 'automatic mode' which requires you to only 'point & shoot'. However, the camera has as many advanced features as most high-end 35mm cameras. The most important thing a new user should do before turning the S30 on, is to review the manual. Turn the dial to "Auto" and fire away. Having been a 35mm camera user for over 40 years, I finally gave in, saw the mulitpixels, and digitized with the S30........

It's a beautiful camera which has a nice feel and weight to it, so you know you are holding something, unlike some light-weight ones. Suits the bigger handed person and has a nice thumb indent too for gripping. Handy short strap on camera, so when it's in it's case you can still have it round your wrist, not your neck. The canon S30 has the option of manual focus/exposure or automatic which I think is an added bonus on a digital camera.

I bought this camera at Dixons Duty Free shop at Heathrow T4 the price was stightly better than the high street price. It is a little beauty to use and the picture quality is first rate. Being able to reveiw the picure and delete it if it is not any good means that you can only save the pics you want. Must save up for the printer to go with it now.

I purchased one of these Canon Powershot S30 digital cameras a little over a month ago-in time to take it on holiday with me to Florida. I've so far taken about 800 pictures and I'm delighted with the results. Until now I've been using a Canon EOS-300 35mm SLR which is big and bulky. I've long wanted to move into digital photography but the Canon digital SLRs are just too expensive for me. I chose the Powershot S30 because it has almost all of the manual features of my SLR. It has all the same pic modes (portrait, landscape, sports, nightscene and so on) plus a couple more that my SLR doesn't. The only things I've lost in replacing my SLR are the flash hotshoe and swappable lenses/filters.

Image quality is everything I hoped for. I take everything in highest res and best quality JPG and I get 69 pictures on a 128M CF card - more than enough for a day's shooting and I carry the 16M card that came with the camera around as well just in case. I also purchased a second rechargable battery so I'm always carrying a fully charged spare. I shoot everything using the screen on the back of the camera and I've only had one day of shooting where I had to switch to my backup battery. Batteries charge from empty to full in about 80 mins.

The software that came with the camera has so far been excellent. I already own PhotoShop 6 so I don't use the picture editor that came with the camera but I do still use the ZoomBrowser image library program. I find it easy to use. It's particularly useful for organising my pictures into folders and running slide shows.

The only negative point I can find is that the 4-way controller with the "push-in-the-middle-for-set" doohicky is fiddly. You'll get used to it but not before you've sworn at it a few times. This is a very minor problem, though, since it's rarely used (I really only press "set" when I'm deleting a single picture). Other than that the button layout is very natural and if you've used a canon camera before you should find it works just like you'd expect.

One quick point for those of you wondering whether to buy this or the S40. For me the price difference was not worth it simply to get another million pixels. The S30 is 3 megapixels and that's a heck of a lot - if you take pictures at max size they're already far far bigger than you can fit on your monitor (unless you have a monster monitor of doom with a video card to match). Personally I still take pictures in highest res so that I can crop them down and still have great quality. The higher res of the S40 still wouldn't help much, though, because once you've cropped a lot you'll start finding that the lens aberrations or your own poor focus become too much of an issue. So basically - unless you have money to burn I'd recommend the S30. If you have money to burn then start looking at the Canon Powershot G2 instead.

The bottom line - I love this camera. So will you.

After lusting after a digital Ixus at a party I upgraded from the Fuji Finepix 2800 I bought recently to the Canon Powershot S30 digital camera, which at the moment is well-priced compared with the S40 (the 4 mpixel model) and the other 4 MP models. Reviews suggest image quality of the S40 is a fair bit better than the comparable compacts around like the Olympus C-40Z and the Pentax Optio 430 models.
I am delighted with the camera. The images are clear and sharp and colours are deep and beautifully natural. The number of modes give you almost full control over things like aperture priority, time priority, and ISO from 50 to 800, which gives you fantastic flexibility, as well as Canon's photostitch mode which lets you make panoramas easily with the supplied software. All this is readily accessible with all buttons easy to use (except the rocker selector which can be fiddly). It is comfortable and can fit into a coat pocket reasonably comfortably, unlike the bulky and unergonomic Fuji, while being strong (metal body). Despite a couple of weak points this is a great camera that I've basically fallen in love with already.