Takes great pictures (Canon Powershot S3 IS)

Name: olly374

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Product:	Canon Powershot S3 IS
Date:	10/08/06 (252 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Image stablizer, Lots of features, Zoom, Macro mode

Disadvantages: Lots of features, Auto shot not the best, you have to learn how to use it, no RAW files

Why I brought the camera?
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Most compact digital cameras only have a 3x optical zoom which means you are limited how far away you can be from the subject matter. SLR cameras have the problem that you can get dust between the lenses and have the hassle of getting the dust out or using a graphics program to edit your pictures. The Canon Powershot S3 IS has the advantage that it is an ultrazoom which means that unlike compact digital cameras you have a wider range of distance you can be from the subject matter, and unlike SLRs it has a fixed lense which means you will not get dust between the lenses. As I like taking pictures of people, landscapes and close shots of plants I wanted a camera with a better zoom and at least as good a macro mode as my old Pentax camera but wasn't as hard to learn to use as a SLR.


What's in the box
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Depending where you buy your camera you will get the camera, 2 instruction manuals, a 16MB SD card, various cables and 4 AA batteries for about £324. There are better deals out there and for £350 I got all the above plus a mini tripod,a camera case, a battery charger with 4 rechargeable batteries and a 512MB SD card.

Features
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I'm just learning to use the camera (I've had it for 1.5 weeks ) so while it has an array of features i.e. you can change your ISO settings manually for different light conditions, I have mainly used the camera in the easy modes such as autofocus mode, sports mode, landscape mode, portait mode, macro mode and scene mode.

The auto focus mode is the first mode you would use when you get the camera. It is basically the point and shoot mode i.e. you set the lense to the zoom position you want and you point and shoot.

The landscape and portrait modes are for taking panoramic pictures of landscapes and portraits of people/animals respectively. The sports mode is to take pictures of fast moving objects however I found that sometimes taking pictures of people and landscapes in this mode gave very good results particularly in poor light conditions.

The scene mode seems to be a mode you select to get a more accurate representation of the colour and light conditions of the item you are taking a picture off. For example if you are taking a picture of some plants you would choose the scene mode and then select foliage from the menu.

There is a macro mode and a super macro mode. These allow you to take pictures of objects very close up i.e. from 0cm away. However for best results you should use a tripod or a table.

There is a night scene mode which any pictures I took using that mode looked awful. Maybe because it was not dark enough at dusk to use that mode, instead I found that if I took the same/similar scene in sports mode I got a very nice result.

There is also a video camera mode which I have yet to use. This is because the camera runs until your SD card is full and as I was on holiday using the camera I didn't want to run out of memory space.

Technical specifications
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- 12x optical zoom with image stablizer, USM and UD lens
- DIGIC II image processor to drive continous shooting.
- iSAPS technology to optimise camera settings before a shot is taken.
- FlexiZone AF/AE to manually select the focus point from almost anywhere in the frame.
- 6.0 Megapixes
- Widescreen 16:9 mode
- 20 shooting modes
- 30fps VGA movies with full audio
- High ISO Auto and ISO 800 for low light flexibility
- Macro and Supermacro modes to take pictures from 0cm away.
- movable LCD and has an eye viewer
- has pict bridge technology so you can attach camera straight to a printer
- flash


Physical specifications
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-Dimensio ns 113.4mm X 78.0mm X 75.5 mm (excluding viewfinder-eyepiece & protrusions)

-Weight approx. 410g

Storage
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SD cards or MMC cards

Batteries
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4 times AA batteries


Advantages
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- lots of modes
- produces amazing pictures
- smaller than SLR and can get some extra lenses for it.
- movable LCD
- uses SD and MMC cards which are now cheap
- provided with software so you can stitch panoramic shots together

Disadvantages
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- need to learn a lot to make the most out of the camera
- need a good tripod or a solid platform to take pictures with the zoom fully extended or macro photos
- pictures only in JPEG format
- needs 4 times AA batteries
- not pocket size

Conclusion
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As you can see this camera has a lot of functionality which as someone new to taking pictures with a camera that is not just point and shoot it will take more than 1.5 weeks to get use to it.

Summary: Good alternative for those who don't want another compact or a SLR

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