Small object of desire... (Canon Powershot S20)

Member Name: grandslam

Product:	Canon Powershot S20
Date:	08/02/01 (343 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, lightweight, superb photos

Disadvantages: Pricey, should be bundled with more memory

Okay, so you own a PC, and you're pretty keen on photography. Not a professional, no, but someone who takes quite a lot of photos. Maybe you already have a traditional 35mm automatic camera. The question you're asking yourself now could be:
"Is it time to get a digital camera?"

A year ago the answer was certainly "no!" But there are more reasons for responding "yes!" in 2001. Whereas digital imaging technology used to be grotesquely expensive, it's now merely breathtakingly pricey. Features that were rare or non-existent on early digital cameras are now commonplace. And perhaps most important of all, the market for processing and printing quality digital images has matured. 12 months ago you would have been greeted with derision had you taken a CD-RW filled with JPEGs into a high street photographic shop. Now they are beginning to welcome digital snappers with open arms. The services for uploading and printing via the web are also starting to expand. It won't be long before a digital print is exactly the same price to develop as one obtained from 35mm film.

If digital photography warrants a look, then the Canon Powershot S20 is one of the cameras worth considering for your foray into this brave, new, potential-packed world.
The S20 is a compact autofocus zoom camera for the intelligent amateur. Previously I had used a Canon Sureshot Megazoom, and I was looking for something to fulfil this role in the digital realm. If this is the kind of market in which you find yourself, consider the S20.

A whopping 3.3 Megapixel resolution will give you the ability to request physical prints up to poster size, and still be impressed with the results. The 2x optical zoom is adequate for most purposes, although it may disappoint somewhat if you have tended to shoot traditional photos with a 3x-zoom camera or better. Don't pay any attention to the "digital zoom" specifications of any digita
l camera. 8x digital zoom won't get you any better resolution, it simply magnifies what you just shot by 8 times: an irrelevant distraction.

Open up the S20 packaging and you'll find the camera itself, a charger and battery, one 16Mb compact flash memory card, some CDs with various imaging software, a carry strap, and the all-important manual. There's no soft camera case included, although Canon sells one separately. This could be considered a bit mean, as is the inclusion of just 16Mb of memory, which as we'll see won't go far under some circumstances.

To get started, first charge the battery. You'll have to temper your enthusiasm to get snapping straight away because this takes a while the first time. Once the battery has been "exercised", though, a full charge takes around an hour. The charger also doubles as a mains adapter when used with a cable, which is supplied. This is useful if you're shooting indoors, because flash will really drain the battery.

While you're waiting for that battery to charge, why not install the supplied software? You get Adobe PhotoShop for image manipulation, and various Canon programs for uploading images to your hard drive and archiving them. A neat little package called PhotoStitch even allows overlapping images to be pasted together to form a panorama.All very clever, and a breeze to use.

The S20 connects to your PC via the USB port with a supplied cable. Just connect up the camera, turn its selector dial to "PC", and up pops the software on screen automatically, expecting an image upload. It really couldn't be much easier.

The camera itself is where things get slightly more taxing. Pop your charged battery in the compartment, slide the flashcard into the memory slot, and you're ready to go! Turn the selector on the top of the camera one notch and you're in automatic mode. There's a pleasing whir and out pops the lens f
rom its retracting in-built cover. On comes the LCD panel at the back.
Images can be composed using the viewfinder or the LCD panel. Take care because your photos will actually encompass a slightly wider view than the viewfinder shows. The LCD panel is more representative of the actual field of view. Remember, however, that you will get longer battery life with the LCD panel toggled "off."

In auto mode you are tied to taking pictures at the full 3.3 megapixel resolution, and these are stored with medium jpeg compression. Just about the only thing the user has control over is the use of flash, and even this can be set to fire as required. This is the mode for idiots like me: it does everything for you under most conditions, and the resulting photos are undeniably impressive.

Shoot in "image" mode and now there's a bit more user control. Glance at the LCD and now there are options to set up the camera to shoot night scenes, moving subjects with a fast shutter, or black and white images. Now you can also shoot as low as 800 x 600 pixel resolution and vary the jpeg compression applied.

But it's shooting in "manual" mode that demonstrates the S20's versatility. The range of options can, however, become rather daunting. Now there is full user control of resolution, compression, contrast, white balance and (hallelujah!) gain.

Let me say a bit more about gain. How often have you loaded your camera up with 100-speed film on holiday, only to find the sun goes in after five shots? Conversely, how often have you loaded up 400 speed film for jazzy night-shot performance, only to get poor shots in bright light with the film left over the next day. This for me is the major limitation of traditional photography. It's no grief if you're a pro, but mere mortals like you and I are stuck with 24 or 36 frames of the same film through changing conditions.

But with the S20, you can change t
he gain through 0, 1 or 2 for every shot, and these settings are roughly equivalent to 100, 200 and 400 - speed film respectively. A higher gain gives you a faster shutter in poorer light, at the expense of some graininess in the image.

The other major bonus of digital photography is that if you don't like what you just shot, do it again! Thus there is no need to be afraid of changing those settings in manual mode, until you get the result you want on the LCD.

The LCD is important on digital cameras, as not only is it one way to see the "live" image, it's also your only window on what you've just shot, and the medium on which you see the cameras menu controls. The S20 has a big, bright LCD, with two contrast settings. It's certainly one of the best LCDs going, but having said that, no LCD will be satisfactorily visible in direct sunlight, and this is a fundamental limitation of all digital cameras.

Turn the dial to "review" and the LCD becomes a photo gallery, showing you all the images on the memory card. These can be erased or protected from erasure via a menu. There's also a nifty magnifier that can be guided round screen to magnify any part of the image by means of four cursor arrows. This is indispensable because there is a huge amount of detail in each image that the LCD is just too small to display without this magnification. ("I can see that's Auntie Dot, but is she smiling or frowning?"). The cursor arrows double as "zoom in" or "pan out" when composing a shot.

Photographically, there's everything here of the quality you'd expect from Canon. The flash is more than adequate, and the red-eye reduction flash seems especially effective on this unit. Each photo has a pleasing colour balance, sharp focus and appropriate exposure. All the old compact camera tricks are included on this digital version: shoot many frames in succession with continuous
mode, or appear in your own photos by use of the timer mode.

So are there any gripes? Most definitely! Not everything in the Canon garden is rosy...

Your first trip to the accessory shop will be for more compact flash memory. If you are shooting at the maximum resolution, the card will be full after about 20 shots. This is completely impractical if you are off on holiday for 2 weeks! Another solution is to shoot at much lower resolutions. But if you decide in hindsight you want a poster-print of that girl you met on the beach, believe me you'll rue the day you took her photo at 1 megapixel resolution! In this way, digital imaging is changing the way we take photos. Yes, you can throw bad snaps away and it's cost you nothing. But it's now necessary to think about the likely end use that the image will be put to before you shoot.

The next thing you'll need in that accessory shop is a second rechargeable battery. CCD technology is fiendishly battery-thirsty, and when the battery fails, it does so with very little warning. If you are shooting more than a few frames at night with the flash, expect to exhaust the battery and carry a spare. Fortunately the S20 will also take a standard lithium battery, so you will never be stuck for photos abroad provided you know how to say "I need a CR5 lithium camera battery for a Canon Powershot S20" in Greek or Spanish! Lithium battery purchase is an expensive hobby, however, at the rate the S20 drinks current.

I like the S20's very compact size and weight, and dinky controls. But I am a little chap with little hands (so the girls say), and it may be tricky to grip and manipulate such a small case with larger mits than mine.

In conclusion, we all know in the Dooyoo community that you get what you pay for. The S20 is pricey, but it's a super digital camera that will do everything your advanced 35mm traditional compact camera can do.
There would have bee
n a number of ways to give the consumer better value. When investing this sort of money in a camera, it would be nice to see more memory, an extra battery and a soft case included. For sure, the competitiveness of the digital camera market means better value in some way or other is just around the corner.

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