Canon PowerShot S2 IS

Reviewed July 2005

Characteristics

Using a 1/2.5 inch, 5.3 million pixel CCD of which 5.0 million are effective, the PowerShot S2 IS is able to capture a maximum image size measuring 2592 x 1944 pixels. The CCD's sensitivity range covers from 50 to 400 ISO and can be set to 50, 100, 200, or 400 ISO by the user, or placed on Auto which allows the camera to set the sensitivity according to its program and the ambient light available.

The lens of the S2 is new. An optically stabilized 12X zoom lens with a focal length of 6 to 72mm, the lens provides a range that is equivalent to a 36 to 432mm lens in the 35mm film format.

Apertures start at f2.7 when the lens is at the wide angle end, and f3.5 at the telephoto end, closing down for both to f8. Shutter speeds range from 1/3200 sec down to 15 seconds; and noise reduction is automatically applied to images captured with a shutter speed of 1.3 second or longer.

Moreover, lens converters can be mounted on the lens once its trim is removed. The lens trim has a bayonet system and is released by pressing in the button on the lower left of the camera's front, next to the lens. Two converters are available for the S2: a wide angle (WC-DC58A), or a telephoto converter (TC-DC58B).

While the PowerShot S2 IS has a number of enhancements over the S1, including a larger image size, it too provides no uncompressed image format and only offers 3 levels of JPEG compression:

• Super fine, has the highest image quality.
• Fine, offers an average compression level.
• Normal, is the most compressed format, favouring a small file size.

These can be used at any one of the camera's 4 image sizes:

• L (Large) 2592 x 1944 pixels
• M1 (Medium 1) 2048 x 1536 pixels
• M2 (Medium 2) 1600 x 1200 pixels
• S (Small) 640 x 480 pixels

As is common with all Canon compact digital cameras, the image size and compression are set as the last option of the Function menu. The Function menu contains options that are the most commonly required, but the number of the options that are accessible is directly related to the shooting mode currently selected on the mode dial. As always, the greatest number of options appear when the camera is set to the P/Av/Tv/or M modes:

• Exposure Compensation (not available in Manual mode): adjustable over a range of ± 2EV in 1/3EV increments.
• White Balance: Auto; Daylight; Cloudy; Tungsten; Fluorescent (warm white); Fluorescent H (daylight); Flash; Custom (user set based on the colour of a white sheet of paper under ambient light).
• ISO: Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400 ISO.
• Colour Accent (only shown when the My Colour mode is used): Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Colour Accent, Colour Swap, Custom Colour (see the mode descriptions in the Ergonomics section of the review for more information).
• Effect: Off; Vivid (emphasizes contrast and colour saturation); Neutral (tones down contrast and saturation); Low Sharpening; Sepia; Black and White; Custom Effect (freely adjust contrast, sharpness and colour saturation from Weak, Neutral, or Strong).
• Bracketing: Exposure bracketing (P, Tv, Av) ±2EV over 3 shots; or Focus Bracketing (P, Tv, Av, M) over 3 shots (selected position, further away, closer).
• Flash Compensation: (P, Tv, Av and My Colour modes) ± 2EV in 1/3 EV increments.
• Flash Output: (available with Tv, Av modes if the Flash Adjust option of the menu is set to Manual, and standard of Manual) Normal, or +1, or Full.
• Movie Size/Frame Rate: selects the frame size and rate for movies 640 x 480 @ 30 fps, 640 x 480 @ 15 fps, 320 x 240 @ 30 fps , 320 x 240 @ 15 fps
• Image size and compression: see above.

All other available camera settings are found in the menus that are displayed when the MENU button is pressed.

When the camera is set to a capture mode, the menu of the PowerShot S2 IS is composed of 3 sections: the Recording menu, the Setup menu, and the My Camera menu, each identified by an icon at the top of the screen. Worth noting, the last two, Setup and My Camera, are common to all modes, and also appear when the S2 is set to the Playback mode. Please note that the contents of the Setup menu is covered in the Interface and Software section of this review, while the function of the My Camera menu is explained further on in this section.

The Recording menu, identified by a red camera icon, and contains the following options:

• Flash Synch: selects First or Second curtain (the flash fires at the beginning or just before the end of the exposure).
• Slow Synchro: On or Off, starts the slow synch flash mode.
• Flash Adjust (Tv, Av modes only): Auto or Manual.
• Red-eye: On or Off. Activates an orange light to the left of the flash before the shot is captured.
• Continuous Shooting: Selects whether the continuous shooting mode activated by the button next to the shutter release starts the Standard Continuous Shooting mode, or the High-Speed Continuous Shooting mode.

• Self-timer: sets the delay for the Self-timer for 2 seconds or 10 seconds or Custom which allows setting the delay and the number of shots to be captured (0 to 30 seconds, and up to 10 shots).
• Spot AE Point: Centre or AF Point. Decides whether spot metering follows the AF point, or if the spot metering function always takes place at the centre of the frame.
• MF Point Zoom: On or Off. When set to On and Manual focus mode is used, the centre point of the frame is enlarged on the display to help the accuracy of the focusing.

• Safety Shift (Tv and Av modes only): On or Off. Automatically adjusts the shutter speed or aperture should the setting selected by the user is inappropriate.
• AF Mode: decides whether the autofocus is Single (activated when the shutter release is pressed), or Continuous.
• AF Assist Lamp: On or Off. Decides whether the green AF-Assist lamp comes on automatically when the ambient light is insufficient for the auto focus to function reliably.
• Tally Lamp: On or Off. Decides whether or not the tally lamp (the self-timer lamp above the name PowerShot on the front of the camera) blinks during movie recording.
• Digital Zoom: On or Off. Controls the 4X digital zoom. The digital zoom crops the central portion of the frame and interpolates the image to the selected image size.
• Review: Sets the length of time during which a just captured image is displayed (Off, 2 through 10 seconds, or Hold which keeps the image displayed until the shutter release is pressed partway).
• Save Original (My Colour mode only): On or Off. Decides whether or not unaltered original image captured by the camera is saved in addition to the colour altered image.
• Reversed Display: On or Off. Decides whether or not the image is horizontally reversed when the LCD monitor is facing the front of the camera (as it would be in a mirror).
• IS Mode: decides the stabilization mode, either Off, or Continuous, or Shoot only, or Panning which only compensates for vertical movements.
• Converter: lets the camera know if a converter lens is installed. The options are Off, or WC-DC58A or TC-DC58B.
• Intervalometer: Allows setting the camera to shoot automatically at a selected time interval (1 through 60 minutes) for up to 100 shots if there is sufficient memory card capacity.
• Set Shortcut Button: selects one of 10 functions for the Shortcut button which can be accessed immediately. (See the Ergonomics section of the review for more details).
• Save Settings: allows saving current settings to the Custom mode (C).

The same presentation is continued for the Playback menu, but using blue instead of red while the other 2 portions of the menu (Setup and My Camera) stay the same. The Playback menu offers 7 options:

• Protect: serves to prevent images from an accidental erasure.
• Rotate: allows rotating an image on the monitor or the EVF by 90° or 270°.
• Sound Recorder: in addition to the option of adding a 60 second voice annotation to an image by pressing the button, this option allows using the Powershot S2 IS as a digital sound recorder. Depending on the card used, up to 2 hours of sound can be captured, in stereo, in WAV format.

• Erase All: deletes all non-protected images.
• Slide Show: plays back still images in an automated slide show. Up to 3 slide shows can be set-up, images can be individually selected, and display timings can be set.
• Print Order: serves to select images that will be printed on a DPOF compatible printer, or service. The S2 is compatible with Direct Print, DPOF, and PictBridge and can be used to print directly from the camera to a printer supporting one of these protocols.

• Transfer Order: selects images that will automatically be downloaded to a computer running the included software.

The third part of the menu My Camera — as noted above, the second part is covered in the Interface and Software section of the review — is common to both shooting modes. The menu contains options to "personalize" the sounds made by the camera, and the image it displays on start-up:

Theme, the first option, serves to select a set of sounds and a matching start-up image. By default 3 themes are pre-loaded on the camera, but more — approximately forty — are available as part of the camera's software, and can be uploaded to replace the defaults.

In addition, the My Camera menu provides options to set the start-up image, and all 4 distinct sounds independently, using any of the sounds/images available on the camera or in the software, or even an image captured with the S2.

Unlike the PowerShot S1 which uses CompactFlash memory cards or Microdrives, the PowerShot S2 IS is designed to use Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. The SD format, considerably smaller than CompactFlash, provides a space advantage that allows for a more practical and better organization of the S2's external connections.

The SD card slot is located on the lower right side of the camera, behind a small but solid cover door.

The PowerShot S2 IS is retailed with a 16MB SD card, and the acquisition of a larger capacity card should be considered an absolute necessity if the camera is purchased.

As a guide, the chart below shows image capacities for both the 16 MB card included with the S2, and for a relatively inexpensive 512 MB high speed SD card: