February 15th, 2008Review of Canon Powers Shot S5 IS
The S3 IS super zoom may have long been stop by Canon, but it’s still a pretty hot vendor in the local market here. Now with Canon skipping the sequence and releasing the S5 IS, the question arises – is it good sufficient to take over the market imprison by its predecessor?
Out of the box, the camera looked like it means business. Though it’s sufficiently small for a super zoom (117 x 80 x 78 mm), it does get attractive heavy at 550 g thanks to the four AA batteries it takes. Packed to the teeth with buttons and toggles, the S5 is certainly designed to offer you everything you want in a matter of a couple of button presses. The good thing here is that the controls are easy to use, and most options can be easily admission in a single-handed operation.
As intimidating as the layout may look to a novice user, the camera remains absolutely simple to operate, while providing you options to go as hands-on as you wish. The tilt-and-swivel LCD display is as flexible as it gets for captivating pictures in really tricky perspectives. Thankfully the display gave me little trouble when I was shooting in bright sunshine.
The 12x optical zoom is accompanied by optical image stabilization to decrease those little jitters you get even when you sense your hands are astounded steady. It shoots at a maximum of 8 mega pixels (3264 x 2448 pixels) and features canon DIGIC III Image processor, which is known for its noise reduction.
The biggest upgrade in the S5 IS its video shooting capability. Though the camera still shoots video in VGA resolution (640×480), it does so with a whole lot of options. The first being the ability to zoom in and out when shooting video. This may not be a new feature in dig cams, but it sure is a welcome one. The subsequent characteristic brings the S5 IS a bit faster to its camcorder brethren by allowing you to freeze-frame for a snapshot while shooting video. It’s not a must-have feature, but its fun.
The two tiny circular meshes right above the lens indicate the two microphones that record sound in stereo. Canon has gone a step further and extra a feature called ‘Ultrasonic’ to prevent the sound of the lens touching in and somewhere else from intrusive with the sound imprison by the camera. Anything for good sound, I say! What I liked the most about the S5 IS was its speed. The camera took just about a second to start up and the same time to power off.
That said, I personally am not very impressed with the image quality produced by the S5 IS. To begin with, the unevenness levels were pretty low even in shots taken in bright sunlight. Even though the DIGIC III image processor used in the S5 IS specializes in noise lessening, it’s not very evident in the results. Due toward the noise levels, even the overall black levels of the images get pretentious, because of which the pictures look slightly washed out.
The washed-out look I just talk about also affects the colors in a big way, so subjects that should appear bright and vivid tend to come into view bland if not you shoot them in entirely bright light.
To get the best out of the camera, I suggest you rely mainly on the manual controls where you can influence things to get the results you want. It’s definitely an improved option than using the scene modes, which is also obvious by the picture shot underneath in the camera’s night scene mode.
The S5 IS an outstanding camera on paper, but its feeble image antenna is a major downer. Bearing in mind the excess of features and options available, advanced users will get excellent results from the camera’s manual mode. If, on the other hand, you’re thinking of buying it for its scene modes, think again. Behavior in mind its street price of Rs 21,995, you have better options available in super zooms – and at lower prices
