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I conception I wanted a micro-sized camera and bought 2 different brands of compact cameras honest to return them because of sub-par characterize quality. After that experience, I decided to give the novel Powershot S3 IS a chance. Positive it might not be miniature enough to fit in a pocket, but what a camera! The pictures are gigantic with animated images from corner to corner, a 12x zoom lens, and an extremely effective Optical Image Stabilizer. The benefits of the the Optical Stabilizer cannot be understated on a camera with such a long zoom range. When you zoom into maximum telephoto every cramped movement of your hands results in a tremendous movement at the lens. With the stabilizer though it eliminates that quandary. The pictures have grievous noise levels from 80-400 ISO, I have not tried the ISO 800 yet, though it should be nice to have in a pinch. The tilt and swivel LCD is awesome, you'll wonder how you got along without it before. Battery life is friendly and I cannot underemphasize the wait on of the camera running on standard AA batteries. If ever you win yourself in the middle of a day of shooting and the batteries die simply pop into a local convenience store and select up some more. I would suggest you choose a grand space of rechargeable NiMH batteries though. The movie mode is titanic with the ability to zoom, a dedicated record/stop button, and stereo sound! Plus, finally a Canon digital PowerShot with a live histogram! You will not be disappointed in this camera.
This is my 3rd digital camera and my first Canon. I moved up from an Olympus Ultra Zoom 2100. The 2100 has 2.1MP 10x optical zoom with image stablization, and lo-res movie mode. The reason I was attracted to the S3 IS was because it offers 6MP with 12x optical zoom and image stabilization, and VGA quality movie mode in stereo. Since purchasing the S3 IS I have not been disappointed.
I also bought a Transcend 4GB SD memory card which can possess about 32 minutes of video, or over 2300 photos in the highest quality. No problems addressing the 4GB memory, or doing a low-level format of the card in the camera.
Shooting both photos and movies is easy. The S3 IS has a separate button that you press with your thumb to launch shooting a movie. While you are shooting, you quiet bewitch snapshots with the shutter button. There are 2 stereo mics built into the front of the camera, along with a software selectable wind filter. While shooting, you can employ the zoom feature with no added noise to the movie; it's very tranquil. Image stabilization is level-headed active when shooting a movie.
I assume the S3 IS is noble enough as both a digital camera and video camera that I no longer need to haul around 2 cameras (digital and video) to every event.
SO MANY FEATURES. SO Limited TIME.
Is it possible for a camera to invent an amateur photographer better? Apparently this is Canon's goal with the S3. It provides easy access to controls that compensate for popular difficult shooting scenarios. Most point-and-shoot (P+S) cameras have few buttons - relying instead on hidden menu driven options. While this may compose the camera appear less intimidating initially, locating the lawful setting while attempting to frame and photograph action or dreadful lighting subjects is frustrating. As a result, many features go unused.
By procedure of comparison, the S3 has at least ten more buttons than my discontinued P+S MINOLTA Dimage G500 (5MP 3x optical zoom) . And many of the buttons on the CANON are multifunction depending on whether you are shooting in one of several modes, playing serve stills, or movies - providing dozens of useful options.
The CANON S3 has a button for instant access to movie recording (with on-screen options for 320x240 15/30/60 fps or 640x480 15/30 fps) up to 1GB or one hour per clip. Stereo sound and zoom functions accompany movies. There are dedicated buttons for ISO, sound recording, flash, continuous shooting, macro, manual focus, prove, and a customized shortcut. The mode dial on top of the camera includes settings for many typical situations such as portrait, landscape, sports, nighttime, and panoramic. There is also an AUTO[MATIC] mode. But if all your shots remain in this setting, you might as well employ a P+S model.
The key help of the many buttons and dials on the S3 is rapidly access to a wide variety of useful features without taking your peek off the subject. The FUNC[TION] button can exhibit a colossal amount of pertinent information while the focused image is visible. Everything from remaining number of pictures and image quality to white balance and ISO feedback neatly border the subject. The DISP[LAY] button activates grids and histogram, switches between LCD and viewfinder, or reduces the amount of on-screen information. Either cloak is equally informative and useful for making adjustments. The MENU button differs in that it brings up infrequently frail options that temporarily replace the focused subject.
Elaborating a bit further on the impressive expose of the CANON S3, it does a pleasant job of simulating selected options. Punch up greens, blues, reds, all colors, neutralize, lighten or darken skin tones, photograph b+w or sepia and witness the results before snapping the portray. It is possible to salvage untainted color even with mixed indoor lighting. In addition to AWB (automatic white balance) there are seven other settings accessed from the FUNC[TION] button. The last is custom metering. Honest point at a white object in the room and press the Location button. No more green or orange casts on indoor photos!
Another current lighting spot occurs when a subject stands in front of a smart background or if frontal light from the sun washes out the highlights on faces. After a speedy tap of the FUNC[TION] button, the first option in the upper left corner is exposure compensation. Exercise the omni selector left arrow to darken the foreground or lawful arrow to lighten it. If indoors or a relatively short distance away, you might also enable the flash. (For those with old photography background, there are also options for aperture priority or shutter hurry priority on the mode dial.)
Despite efforts to write a short review, there is mild powerful more to talk about. Image stabilization (IS) and the 12X optical zoom are well-known features that work well together. In fact, now I understand why smaller digital cameras without IS typically only include 3 or 4x. The slightest hand movement is greatly exaggerated at high magnification. IS compensates for this movement. The S3 provides four options for IS: 1) continuous (constantly stabilizes preview which uses more power) ; 2) shoot only (stabilizes image when shutter button is pressed) ; 3) panning (stabilizes vertical movement only for tracking horizontally interesting cars, accelerate horses, bikers or runners) ; 4) off (stabilization is not critical for tripod) .
The 12X optical zoom can optionally be supplemented by 4X digital, making it possible to execute as worthy as 48X zoom. A ring around the shutter button rotates clockwise to enlarge and vise versa. This brings up a slider in the viewfinder. If digital is activated, the white slider goes to a point and stops at 12X. Press it again and the slider is appended with blue as the digital zoom is progressively applied. I uploaded a portray of a bird in a a 16 foot palm tree with 21x zoom.
Panorama befriend is yet another outstanding feature. As each photo is clicked, a allotment slides over in preview, making it easier to align the next. Software is included to stitch the pieces together or you can utilize Photoshop's Photomerge under the Automate menu.
Image bracketing is also nice for difficult-focus situations; with one press of the button, three slightly different focuses are shot within a couple of seconds - a light, medium, and sunless. This is not to be confused with continuous shooting (sometimes called burst mode), which shoots multiple images with consistent exposure as long as the button shutter button is pressed. This is extremely useful when photographing groups of people since it is often difficult to obtain everyone's eyes originate and smiling at the same time. It is also astronomical for photographing slight animals with snappy movements like birds.
WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?
There are a few annoyances that could be solved by spending more. After all, Cannon makes cameras from under $200 to several thousand. Despite grand features, the S3 is, relatively speaking, on the vulgar extinguish of the scale. So any apparent compose omissions must be kept in context.
LENSE CAP FIT: The most minor annoyance is the loosely fitted lens cap that frequently disconnects. Gain clear the lanyard string is attached to the neck strap so it won't be lost. The sure wretchedness is smudging or scratching of the lens. While carrying, frequently check to do definite is on.
ACCESSORIES: Canon gash accessories to the own minumum. There is no case (strap is included), no power cord, no lens hood, and only Alkaline batteries. Purchasing all the distinguished options can crash your budget by $150-$250 USD. Fortunatelly, some items are well-liked enough that you may not need to retract everything. I already had a couple of 256MB SD cards for my prior camera. You'll need to factor in the cost of a hasty charger with four 2500+ mHa AA batteries (currently around $35) . There is also a need for a high-capacity SD card. The included 16MB card will only store four of the highest quality images. About 90 stills can fit on a 256MB card at the highest quality setting. If you require more images per session or will be recording movies, believe a high-speed 4GB card (currently around $100) . The S3 is optimized for high-speed cards.
LCD BRIGHTNESS: More of an annoyance is the tiny pivoting 2" LCD conceal brightness. Choose comfort in the fact that some expensive DSLR cameras have only a viewfinder. Fortunately, when the LCD is not visible, the viewfinder on the S3 can be venerable. The diopter adjustment is handy since I may be wearing single-vision prescription shades, trifocals, or no glasses at all. The two independent brightness settings for LCD or viewfinder are a advantageous consideration. The LCD objective doesn't obtain knowing enough. In time, it is easy to derive broken-down to the viewfinder.
IMAGE FORMATS: A camera with so many features naturally appeals to the prosumer not ready to construct the leap to a full-fledged DSLR. Though this would result in better high-ISO nighttime shots and better daylight images, the cost with multiple lenses could easy triple the brand of the S3 and you'll lose some consumer-oriented features. Nevertheless, a non-compressed image mode would be useful - especially with the availability of high-speed 4GB SD cards.
Test shots of straight-up blue sky in grand "shapely" and "well-kept magnificent" modes both exhibited pixelization when examining up conclude. In fact, trim dazzling is slightly more pixelated in mammoth areas of SOLID (perhaps due to sharpening? ) . This may be considered simulated film grain. There is more color averaging with gorgeous mode producing a smaller, visually smoother images. The "vast" image setting is 6 megapixels so the anomalies I reference when zooming in 400 percent in Photoshop are not visible on typical prints. When the composition includes many different color changes and lovely DETAIL (landscapes, architecture), the neat blooming mode is noteworthy better. Otherwise the detail becomes muddy.
I developed a Photoshop action called Aloof Pixels. Though not always primary, it provides moderate smoothing on 6MP images to crop pixelization in colossal areas of flat color. It can also be old to minimize artifacts occurring as a result of saving a JPEG image with too powerful compression. If you have Photoshop experience these settings may be familiar to you. Opacities can be increased as great to as considerable as 60% with minimal loss of detail. (A screenshot of the Action palette has been uploaded.)
1 Earn snapshot
2 Duplicate new layer
3 Colorful Blur (Radius: 1, Threshold: 12, Quality: High, Mode: Normal)
4 State fresh layer (Opacity: 40%)
5 Duplicate Background
6 Gaussian Blur (Radius: 0.5 Pixels)
7 Plot recent layer (Opacity: 40%)
8 Flatten image
RAW, LZW TIFF (compression usually requiring a PostScript level 3 printer for decompression) or standard TIFF options would be appreciated by those concerned about consistent pixels within continuous color with no artifacts surrounding high difference colors. It should be famous that each time a JPEG is opened and saved (even with no edits) in an image editor application, there is limited degradation of image quality. This does not occur with TIFF or RAW.
WIDESCREEN LIMITATION: I was fooled by the boast of widescreen pictures. This applies only to STILLS. The WS stills are about 25 percent smaller than the maximum 6MP images. The viewfinder adds shadowy bands to serve frame WS pictures. Don't inquire of a low-cost HD WS movie function from the S3.
FLASH OPTIONS: The manual pop-up flash could be a bane or boone. It is reasonably strong and there is a three-option dedicated button to 1) always enable the flash, 2) automatically flash only when required, or 3) disable flash. If you forget to remove the flash, automatic doesn't remove it for you. Conversely, lifting the flash when the user option is station to never flash results in no extra lighting. One could survey at this as a help since less flashing preserves the batteries. It would compose more sense to me for the flash to pop-up if needed in automatic mode. Net faded to the icon in the viewfinder that indicates the plot of the flash (which is grayed when the flash is not up) .
The S3 has also been criticized because it does not have a hot-shoe connection for a replacement flash. (A handheld flash farther away from the lens is the right solution to red peer.) Canon's less than optimal acknowledge is to provide an optional slave flash that can be dilapidated as a supplemental bounce flash positioned closer to the subject or mounted onto the camera using a bracket that connects to the tripod thread. (I have a distinguished less expensive non-digital Canon T-50 SLR with multiple lenses with a hot shoe so adding one to the S3 is possible.)
TRIPOD THREAD: A plastic tripod thread is never appreciated. Be careful not to wound the threads or assume using a tripod quick-shoe attachment.
ABERRATION: Though improvements are being made, digital cameras (particularly less expensive ones) suffer from aberration, sometimes called purple fringing, surrounding high-contrast areas where a pixels along edges are discolored. The S3 is not exempt - more notably a few pixels of red (NW) and green (SE) misregistration. This is most apparent on photos with very light objects next to color away from the center of focus - particularly on overcast days when the sky is white instead of blue. A 6MP image is scaled down so noteworthy for standard prints that the aberration is not usually noticeable. For gigantic prints this may require additional image editing.
UPGRADE FROM S2: Owners of the Canon S2 will not fetch the S3 a critical upgrade. This camera appears to create on prior success with a few additional features to support it competitive with other brands. In doing so, Canon has left room for even more improvements in an S4. Differences between the S2 and S3 are summed up below.
* Unusual sensor (6MP versus 5MP)
* Higher maximum sensitivity (ISO 800)
* Bigger LCD hide (2.0-inch versus 1.8-inch)
* Novel Sports mode
* Represent live Histogram
* Widescreen shooting mode (stills)
* Fractionally larger and heavier
* Dusky gunmetal (gray) as opposed to silver body
The contrast between 5MP and 6MP is not perceived in standard size prints (both have far more megapixels than famous) . The extra pixels in the 6MP are useful for retaining more detail when cropping miniature areas of a photo with image editor software. High ISO (400+) is obsolete for shaded scenes when no tripod is available. ISO 800 is largely symbolic in the S3 since results are too noisy (aberrated pixels) to be useful. The 2-inch hide has the same amount of pixels as the 1.8 but it's scaled up a bit. The histogram is an enchanting graphic that indicates whether the framed subject is under- or over-exposed; this should also be apparent in the viewfinder preview image. Of course widescreen images can be cropped in post-production if it's only an occasional desire.
CONCLUSIONS
It will buy some time to become familar with all the CANON S3 features. If results are too noisy or blurry, it is likely because the just setting was forgotten. The CANON S3 is not perfect but, in its impress range, includes a very kindly combination of available technologies with itsy-bitsy image quality sacrifices. Professional photographers may be inclined toward an entry level DSLR (perhaps CANON DIGITAL REBEL XT, CANON EOS 30D, or SONY ALPHA) . The S3 is a nice alternative to a dedicated digital camcorder; it can even zoom and shoot high-resolution stills without exiting movie mode. For the best quality stills, movie recording is sacrificed in higher-end cameras.
If this review seems like too remarkable to read then the S3 is not for you. There is remarkable more to read -- beginning and advanced manuals for the camera itself in addition to manuals for the software. Prosumers that invest time reading can be rewarded with greatly improved image quality from the S3. Of, course composition is composed up to the photographer. (www.photoinf.com) The prior S2 model may be a better bargain for the cost conscious unless some of the recent S3 features listed above are absolutely valuable. The typical no-frills consumer might be place off by the plethora of options and remove a compact P+S with less buttons (CANON POWERSHOT S80, SD500, A540, or A520) .
(Leer uploaded pictures of bird in palm tree and building exhibiting aberration. Because the Amazon image processor scales down images as powerful as possible, there are more image artifacts on samples than on current photos.)
