Canon PowerShot S5 IS

Reviewed July 2007

Characteristics

The PowerShot S5 IS is fitted with a 1/2.5 inch CCD composed of 8.3 million pixels of which 8 million are effective. Six image sizes are available to record still images:

• L (Large) 3264 x 2448 pixels.
• M1 (Medium 1) 2592 x 1944 pixels
• M2 (Medium 2) 2048 x 1536 pixels.
• M3 (Medium 3) 1600 x 1200 pixels.
• S (Small) 640 x 480 pixels.
• W (Wide 16:9) 3264 x 1832 pixels.

All image sizes are saved in JPEG format — exclusively — using any one of three levels of compression:

• Super Fine: the lightest compression which offers the highest image quality.
• Fine: an average compression that allows storing more images.
• Normal: a strong compression which allows storing many more images, but at the expense of the image quality.

The CCD of the S5 IS has a sensitivity that begins at 80 ISO, but which can also be manually set to 100, 200, 400, 800 or 1600 ISO when the camera is used in one of the Creative modes (P, A, S or M). In addition, the sensitivity can be set to Auto ISO (with the exception of the Manual mode), which allows the camera to adjust the sensitivity from 80 to 1600 ISO. An additional setting, High ISO, allows the camera to increase sensitivity up to 3200 ISO if necessary. Finally another setting called Auto ISO Shift, found in the REC menu, (see further) allows the use of the button to momentarily switch to Auto ISO when the sensitivity is set to a specific value and there is a risk the shutter speed will be insufficient to prevent camera shake.

The zoom lens of the S5 IS appears to be identical to the one used with the S3 IS: a 12X optical zoom equipped with a USM (Ultra Sonic Motor) AF system and optically stabilized so as to absorb most of the involuntary movements of the photographer.

The zoom has a focal length range that covers from 6 to 72 mm, the equivalent of 36 to 432 mm zoom on a 35 mm camera. Apertures start at f2.7 at the wide angle end and f3.5 at the telephoto end, closing down to f8 for both.

As it is with the S3 IS, an adapter can be mounted on the S5 IS (LA-DC58E) once the chromed lens trim is removed from the front of the lens barrel. The adapter has a thread of 58 mm, which allows attaching:

• a 0.75X wide angle (WC-DC58A),
• a 1.5X telephoto converter (TC-DC58B),
• 58 mm filters or a macro lens 500D
• or a dedicated hood (LH-DC40).

The shutter speed range of the S5 IS covers from 1/3200 second to 15 seconds — with some restrictions that depend on the shooting mode in use, and noise reduction is automatically applied to all images captured at 1.3 second or longer.

As mentioned in the Ergonomics section of the review, the PowerShot S5 IS offers — just like all PowerShot cameras — a Function menu that is superimposed on the monitor when the FUNC. button is pressed. The number of settings presented in the Function menu varies with the shooting mode used, but all possible settings are shown in the Creative modes:

• White Balance: Auto; Daylight; Cloudy; Tungsten; Fluorescent (warm white); Fluorescent H (daylight); Flash; Custom (user set, and based on the colour of a white sheet of paper under ambient light).
• My Colours mode makes it possible to alter the colours recorded by the camera:
  • Vivid: increases colour saturation and contrast.
  • Neutral: decreases colour saturation and contrast.
  • Sepia: records the image in sepia tones.
  • Black and White: records a black and white image.
  • Positive Film intensifies the reds, greens and blues.
  • Lighter Skin Tone makes skin tones lighter.
  • Darker Skin Tone makes skin tones darker.
  • Vivid Blue emphasizes blues.
  • Vivid Green emphasizes greens.
  • Vivid Red emphasizes reds.
  • Custom Colour makes it possible to adjust the colour balance freely between red, green, blue and skin tones to obtain subtle effects.

• Bracketing: Exposure bracketing (P, Tv, Av) ±2 EV over 3 shots; or Focus Bracketing (P, Tv, Av, M) over 3 shots (selected position, further away, closer).
• Flash Compensation: (P, Tv, Av, M Scene modes and Stitch Assist) allows compensating the flash exposure over a range of ±2 EV in 1/3 EV increments.
• Flash Output (available with M, Tv, and Av modes if the Flash Adjust option of the menu is set to Manual) allows adjusting the output of the flash to 1/3, 2/3, or Full.

• Metering provides a choice of three metering patterns:
  • Evaluative: divides the frame into several zones and meters each zone, combining the results into an average that takes all areas into account.
  • Centre-weighted: meters the entire frame but gives more importance to the reading obtained at the centre of the frame, the place that is most likely to contain the focus point of the image.
  • Spot AE Point: only meters the area within the AF frame. In addition, the metering can be set to follow the focus point to wherever it is positioned in the frame, or can be set to meter the centre of the frame only.
• Movie Size/Frame Rate selects the frame size and rate for movies:
  • 640 [30]: 640 x 480 @ 30 fps,
  • 640 [LP]: 640 x 480 @ 30 fps,
  • 320 [60]: 320 x 240 @ 60 fps,
  • 320 [30]: 320 x 240 @ 30 fps.
• Image size and compression: (see above) the compression setting is accessed by pressing the SET button while the Image Size is highlighted.

The remaining settings of the S5 IS are found in its menu, called up by the MENU button. Set to a capture mode, the menu is composed of three sections identified by three tabs at the top of the screen: Recording, Setup, and My Camera. The last two sections are common to both the recording and playback modes, while the first section contains settings — the number of which depends on the mode — that are related to the way the image is captured:

• FlexiZone (P, Tv, Av and M modes only): On or Off, serves to decide if the AF point can be moved to any position in the frame or not.
• Digital Zoom is the access to the various settings available for the digital zoom: Standard, provides a 4X digital zoom (equivalent to a 36 to 1728 mm on a 35 mm), Off, 1.6X (equivalent to a 57.6 to 691.2 mm) or 2.0X (equivalent to a 72 x 864 mm). Irrespective of the mode selected, the digital zoom interpolates the image to the currently selected image size, causing a loss of image quality. (Set to the Movie mode, the only choices are Standard and Off).

• Flash Synch: selects First or Second curtain (the flash fires at the beginning or just before the end of the exposure).
• Slow Synchro (only with P, Av and Stitch Assist modes): On or Off, starts the slow synch flash mode.
• Flash Adjust (Only with Tv and Av modes): Auto or Manual.
• Red-eye: On or Off. Activates an orange light to the left of the flash before the shot is captured.

• Safety FE (only with P, Tv and Av modes when the flash is used): when this function is active, the camera automatically corrects the aperture or shutter speed to prevent over- or underexposed areas.
• Self-timer: 10 or 2 seconds or Custom, which allows selecting the time delay and the number of shots (0 to 30 seconds and up to 10 images).
• Spot AE Point: selects where the Spot metering occurs, at the Centre of the frame, or wherever the focus point is placed.
• Safety Shift (Tv and Av modes only): On or Off. Automatically adjusts the shutter speed or aperture should the setting selected by the user be inappropriate.
• Auto ISO Shift: allows using the button to automatically increase ISO sensitivity when the camera shake symbol appears on the monitor or the EVF. When the button is pressed, the camera automatically increases the sensitivity to prevent camera shake, returning to the set sensitivity for the next shot.

• MF-Point Zoom: On or Off, decides whether the centre portion of the frame is magnified as an aid to focusing when the camera is set to Manual Focus mode.
• Safety MF: On or Off. When active, this function will automatically correct the focus when the shutter release is pressed halfway if it was adjusted manually but is inaccurate.
• AF Mode: decides whether the auto focus is Single (activated when the shutter release is pressed), or Continuous.

• AF Assist Beam: On or Off. Decides whether the 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.
• 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 part way).
• Save Original (My Colour mode only): On or Off. Decides whether or not the 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).
• Auto Category: On or Off. Decides if images are automatically categorized according to the capture mode as they are captured.
• 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.
• Custom Display Settings: serves to select the level and type of information that is superimposed on the monitor or EVF during capture, each being independent from the other (capture settings, composition grid, 3:2 guides or Histogram).
• Set Shortcut Button serves to assign a function to the button: metering, white balance, custom white balance, digital zoom mode, AE lock, AF lock, or display off.
• Save Settings: allows saving current camera settings to the Custom mode (C).

In the Playback mode the menu of the S5 IS is composed of four sections, the first containing standard playback mode options, the second containing Print options, and the last two identical to those of the Recording menu. The first section, Playback, offers the following tools:

• Slide Show contains 7 options:
  • All Images: plays back all the images on the memory card.
  • Date: plays back only those images captured on a specific date.
  • My Category: plays back only images from a selected category.
  • Folder: plays back images from a specified folder.
  • Movies: plays back movies only.
  • Stills: plays still images only, in order.
  • Custom 1-3: allows creating three types of slide shows.
• My Category: serves to organize images into categories (People, Scenery, Events, Category 1, 2 or 3, To Do).

• Erase: deletes all images, with the exception of those that are protected. Images can be erased one at a time, or all at once, or by date, category, or folder.
• Protect: serves to prevent images from an accidental erasure (one at a time, or by date, by category, by folder or all at once).
• Red-eye Correction: allows automatically correcting the red-eye effect in an image.

• My Colours: makes it possible to alter the colours of an already recorded image, and save the edited image as a new image. The options presented here are the same as those in the REC. menu.
• 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 S5 IS as a digital sound recorder. Depending on the card used, up to 2 hours of sound can be captured, in stereo, using the WAV format.
• Rotate: allows rotating an image on the monitor or the EVF by 90° or 270°.
• Transfer Order: selects images that will automatically be downloaded to a computer running the included software.
• Transition: serves to select the transition effect between images when images are played back using the slide show option.

The second section of the menu contains print settings, which are used when the camera is connected to a PictBridge compliant printer:

• Print: starts the printing process and is only available when the camera is connected to a compatible printer.
• Select Images and Quantity: to select the images to be printed, and the number of copies to make of each image.

• Select by Date: serves to select images according to their capture date.
• Select by Category: serves to select images according to their category.
• Select by Folder: serves to select images according to their folder.
• Select All Images: serves to select all images stored on the memory card.
• Clear All Selections: cancels any previous selections.

• Print Settings: serves to choose the type of print to make (index or image by image), whether or not the print should have the date imprinted on it, the file name, and whether or not all the Print Data should be automatically deleted once the images are printed.

The third section of the menu, Setup, is common to both the capture and playback modes. It contains basic settings for the camera and is described in the Interface and Software section of the review.

The last section of the menu, My Camera, provides options to personalize the S5 IS.

The first setting, Theme, allows selecting an overall theme for sounds and the start up image. Three distinct themes are already loaded into the camera out of the box. The sounds are applied to the start up of the camera, operations — when buttons are being pressed on the camera — the self-timer, and the shutter sound. Moreover, the sounds and images can be mixed and matched as desired.

Furthermore, when the camera is connected to a computer, the existing themes can be overwritten with any of the more than 40 themes included with the camera's software.

The PowerShot S5 IS is powered by 4 AA-size batteries that slide into the grip and are held in place by a secure, latching door. Four AA alkaline batteries are included in the camera kit, but the S5 IS offers a better autonomy if rechargeable Ni-MH batteries are used.

The batteries' door also covers the memory card slot. The S5 IS is compatible with SD (Secure Digital) memory cards, and a 32 MB card is included in the kit. As a guide, image and movie capacity are shown below for both the 32 MB card that comes with the S5 IS, and an optional 2 GB SD card:

The S5 IS has three external connections, hidden away on the upper right side behind two flexible plastic doors that are tethered to the camera. The upper jack serves to connect an optional AC adapter (CA-PS700) that allows the camera to be powered from household current over extended periods of time.

Next is the A/V out (Audio/Video) jack. The S5 IS is compatible with both NTSC and PAL televisions, and the output signal is set in the Setup menu.

At the bottom is the USB (2.0 Hi-Speed) port, to connect the camera either to a computer or a printer.