The Canon S100 — like its S-series predecessors — is an almost perfect compact camera with some drawbacks stemming from its pocket-friendly size. There’s a lot of crazy tech on board. The Canon gods have outdone themselves; but that outdoing might be the camera’s undoing.
Why it matters
Enthusiast camera, meet the rest of the world. The S100 wants to be more than just a super-compact point-and-shoot that takes excellent pictures. It’s an everyman’s rig that shoots full HD (1920×1080) video, has a battery of advanced settings and a GPS chip to boot.
The S100 also sports a lot of new hardware that Canon hasn’t extensively tested elsewhere. It’s only the second camera to come with the brand new Digic 5 processor, which is rated six times faster than its predecessor. It significantly improves automatic white balance and noise reduction. Pretty impressive considering the Digic 4 was used in everything from the Canon S95 to epic SLRs like the T2i and the 5D Mark II. Canon’s also swapped out the 1/1.7-inch 10MP CCD sensor for a beefier 1/1.7-inch 12MP CMOS. It’s the first camera of its kind to experiment with a CMOS.
Using it
The S100 doesn’t change much about the excellent design that makes S-series cameras such a joy to use in manual mode despite their diminutive sizes. In this mode, aperture and shutter speed are controlled by the function ring around the lens and by a click-wheel on the back. Feeling spunky? You can change what the ring does with a button on the back panel. On the top panel, you select between all the modes you’d expect on a camera designed for manual use: Av, Tv, P, M, C modes. The famed low-light shooting pre-set is gone, having swapped places with a former menu item — a high-dynamic range mode for shooting in contrasty settings. A record button on the back panel starts video recording.
As before, all of the other shooting settings — which ones depends on the modes you’re in — are buried behind the Func Set button on the back. The difference is that what used to be a streamlined list of essential settings for ISO, white balance, format, and metering, has ballooned with new features. Some sound cool–a high-speed burst setting which shoots eight stills in a row and a super-slow motion video setting — but there’s also a slew of options and settings you’ll probably never touch. GPS is controlled from the camera’s menu.
Like
Simply stated, the S100 makes shooting photos a pleasure. It’s fun to shoot with and the results are excellent. It’s honestly fun enough to make you remember to throw it in your pocket — even thought there’s a smartphone in there with an 8MP camera. The photos are fabulous, and for that you can thank the new Digic 5 — don’t be surprised if you suddenly feel like a better photographer.
The new 12MP sensor takes sharp 4000×2248 images that stay relatively noise free even at the maximum 6400 ISO (though it’s better to stay below 1600 unless totally necessary). Despite its demotion to a menu item, the already great “Handheld NightScene” setting has substantially improved, and now shoots full resolution photos. The automatic white balance, which can set colours at multiple points in the image instead of just one, is so excellent that you can almost forget about setting the colour temperature manually. Finally, you can shoot JPEGs instead of RAW with confidence.
And this thing is unholy fast. The performance is so good that taking a picture stops being a chore and becomes second nature — like taking out your phone to read and answer a text message. The camera finds focus instantaneously and the shutter fires almost without hesitation. When that shutter fires exactly when you think it will, that means you’re steadying your body and timing the shot better. What an amazing bit of feedback.
Everything else on the camera is a bonus: The HD video and super slow motion video both work well enough. The built-in GPS functionality is not a must-have, but it makes it easy to map your photos using either Canon’s bundled software or using other tools by Flickr, Aperture, Google Earth, etc.
No Like
So you’ve been liberated right? The Canon is fast, fun and portable. Then you wake up one day to go apple picking or to go to the beach or you wake up one evening and go to a party — whatever. You bust out your trusty camera. It’s dead. Or maybe you charged it completely overnight, shot for a while, and then pull it out of your pocket: dead. Turns out, that new Digic 5 processor is not all rainbows and puppy kisses.
The camera is good for about 200 photos from a full charge. That’s nothing. The S95 and S90 drew way better battery performance and could hold a charge for months. Here’s the problem: Canon installed a major upgrade to the image processor — along with a higher-resolution sensor, new battery-sucking features like HD video, slow-motion, high-burst and GPS. All of this and the battery barely increased in size from 3.7 V 1000mAh to 3.7V 1120mAh — After all, how could you fit much more battery into this camera and still keep it pocket-size?
If you’re willing to look past this single serious performance flaw (buy a spare battery?), the rest of this camera’s issues are merely minor annoyances. The camera nearly always prioritises ISO over shutter speed in automatic settings, which isn’t great if you’ve got shaky hands. And while all the new features are well and good, the camera feels a tad cluttered with settings behind the menus — a sharp contrast to the otherwise sleek design. At times, it can feel more like a tool box than a tool.
Should you buy it
The Canon S100 is an amazing camera. And I wouldn’t buy it. As a Canon devotee, you have no idea how hard it is for me to say that. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons to buy this camera: It’s tiny, fast, takes great photos and has awesome functionality at a very reasonable price. None of that matters if the camera won’t turn on. This camera is the germ of something great, but it’s not fully developed. If you go for it, keep the battery on the charger, pack a spare and be ready to babysit — because this camera is not quite grown up.
Canon Powershot S100
Price: $US430
Sensor: 12.1MP Digic 5 processor
ISO: Up to 6400
Image: 4000 x 3000
Video: Up to 1920×1080, 24 fps
Screen: 3-inch, 461,000 dots
Gizrank: 3.5
Daylight White Balance Setting
Exposure — 1/80
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 200
Auto White Balance
Exposure — 1/80
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 200
Exposure — 1/50
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 80
S100 Auto
Exposure — 1/8
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 1600
S100 Low-Light
Exposure — 1/4
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 6400
S95 Low-Light
Exposure — 1/15
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 12800
Exposure — 1/800
Aperture — f/2.0
ISO Speed — 1000