|
Doug Harman is the author of the bestselling Digital Photography Handbook and one of Britain's leading reviewers of digital cameras. Here he picks five of the very best
Click to view Top 5 Digital Cameras.
|
Best Super-Zoom (Canon Powershot S3 IS) |
|
 Anyone looking for portability with paparazzi reach need look no further than Canon’s Powershot S3 IS - it's an excellent ultra-zoom compact with an amazing 12x, zoom lens, great handling, superb image quality and a good price into the bargain. (Compare Prices) |
| |
Admittedly the Canon S3 IS is an upgrade of its sibling the S2 IS, but what an upgrade it is. A 6-megapixel ultra-zoom compact with a superb set of optics that provide a focal length of 36mm to 432mm in a compact easy to handle package.
One of the standout features is its image-stabilised lens, which at those longer focal lengths – or in low light – uses active optics (special lens elements shake about inside the lens barrel to compensate for your movement) and helps to stop image blur caused by camera shake; using that huge zoom range should hold no fear.
(Compare Prices) |
| |
 The S3 IS is replete with neat shooting controls and subject program modes, which automatically optimise camera settings for common subjects such as portraits or landscapes for example, so you don’t have that set-up headache if you don’t want it. This makes the S3 IS very easy to use.
For the more ambitious, you get manual overrides as well, so you can grow your photography skills without outgrowing the camera. An excellent AiAF (Artificial intelligent Auto Focus) focusing set-up is backed up by a Flexizone AF/AE (Auto Focus/Auto Exposure) system that allows you to move the AF point anywhere within the frame with the metering locked to it; ideal for macro or portrait work where focusing and metering are critical for success.
The camera also has a DIGIC II processor - a computer chip developed for image processing - borrowed from some of Canon’s high-end D-SLRs. This chip chews through all the image data created by the sensor and helps to keep images silky smooth and free of noise, the random specks of colour that appear when pixels are misinterpreted.
(Compare Prices) |
Special Effects |
 Those trading across from film will be pleased to learn there’s a Positive Film setting providing superbly rich colour that mimics the effect of colour slide film. But one of my favourite modes is the My Colour control. Here you can select a range of colour saturation or special effects or create shots that are more vivid; shoot in black and white or even swap colours in an image, all in-camera.
The camera’s Movie mode is good too, able to shoot at 640x480-pixels and 30 frames per second(including use of the image stabilisation). This is more than enough for TV quality movies – with audio – and you get a tilt-turn-swivel 2-inch colour screen, making viewing at virtually any angle simple.
Other handling features are enhanced by a traditional control layout, nice ergonomics, and good performance in terms of responsiveness. For instance, the lens moves through its entire range in under one second and start up is pretty much immediate.
(Compare Prices) |
Versatility |
DP Review’s Simon Joinson writes of the S3 IS: “the S3 IS image quality is very good - certainly on a par with most of its competitors… the appeal of the S3 IS goes beyond simple pixel-peeping; it has a class-leading feature set, a very reliable image stabilization system (the benefits of which cannot be overstated) and superb handling. It's well-priced, incredibly versatile and - above all - highly enjoyable to use.”
What Digital Camera’s Jamie Harrison writes that the S3 IS is: “Well made and specified, the S3 IS is capable of fantastic results.”
And Jeff Keller of the website dcresource writes: “The Canon PowerShot S3 is still an excellent ultra-zoom camera that earns my recommendation. It offers just about everything you want in a camera, from a big zoom lens to optical image stabilization to manual controls to a fancy movie mode.”
(Compare Prices) |
| |
 The electronic viewfinder lacks resolution, but this lack is made up for by the nice LCD, the camera lacks a RAW capture mode (RAW files store the unprocessed image data) and while the 6-megapixel resolution might seem a tad low-resolving by today’s standards, it’s more than capable of prints up to and over A3 in size.
Noise at the highest ISO (sensitivity) is intrusive, but because you have image stabilisation (and so don’t need to use the higher sensitivity settings very often to keep things stable and free of blur), it is not often required, so again, this becomes a minor problem.
(Compare Prices) |
| |
For an explanation of technical photographic terms click here
To buy this product try one of the following retailers. They are competitively priced and reliable:
Amazon.co.uk - The UK arm of the giant online retailer
Amazon.com - The US arm of the giant online retailer
UK Shop Search – Click here for more UK retailers
For currency converter click here |
|
Other great reviews in Gadgets:
|
|
RELATED PAGES
USEFUL LINKS
|
Could this