More surprisingly for a compact with a width not a great deal broader than your credit card, both RAW and JPEG capture are also offered. Perhaps more predictably, point-and-shoot user friendliness on the S95 comes in the form of the fully automatic face detection, motion detection and Smart Auto scene detection technologies regularly found on Canon's snapshot compacts. Something that was glaringly missing from the S90 - HD video capture - has been rectified on the S95, with p movies at x pixels resolution available at 24fps complete with stereo sound.
Unfortunately there is no optical zoom available during recording, only 4x digital, and no auto-focus either, which limits what can be achieved and doesn't compare well to some of the S95's main rivals. Pared down to the essentials, which includes a quick start guide in the box and full manual on provided CD only, there's nothing initially about the S95 that feels extraneous or gimmicky.
The most prominent feature of the S95's clean and rather serious looking faceplate is firstly the lens itself, and secondly the aforementioned control ring that encircles it and turns with a series of satisfyingly audible clicks.
In this way, to take one example, users can elect to adjust focus manually, a distance slider appearing on the right hand side of the LCD screen and the central portion of the image enlarged as a further aid to accuracy. This expands on the S90's options and allows further customisation to suit your own shooting style.
Additionally if you opt for the Nostalgic mode hidden within the scene mode options, a continual twist of the lens ring in either direction will progressively de-saturate the colours in your image to give the effect of ageing, with a full twist rendering the shot relayed on screen as black and white.
The clever flash is housed within the top plate so that when it's raised it is at least a centimeter away from the lens in a cursory attempt to avoid the blight of red eye. Select the forced flash option and, technically, rather than popping up, the bulb instead rises majestically from the body with a low mechanical accompaniment… very cool.
Moving to the top plate, we find at its foremost edge a shutter release button, which is a little smaller than the S90's, encircled by a zoom rocker switch with front lip that has been squared off to fall into line with the width of the body and avoid distracting from the clean lines.
There's just enough of it to achieve purchase with a fingertip, the lens traveling steadily and surely from maximum wide-angle setting to extreme telephoto in just under two seconds sound-tracked by a low operational whirr.
Press this with a fingernail and the S95 powers up for action in just over a second, rear LCD bursting into life soundtracked by a musical 'sting' and lens barrel extending from its stacked hiding place within the camera's innards to its maximum wide angle setting. A half press of the nearby shutter button and the camera chooses a point of focus within a second or so, AF point or points flashing in green accompanied by an affirmative 'beep'.
Go on to take the shot and there's little if any discernible shutter delay, while full resolution JPEGS are written to inserted optional SD or SDHC card there's no internal memory provided to fall back on in just over a second, with RAW files - selectable in Program or one of the other four creative shooting modes - taking a mere fraction longer. With the integral flash housed and hidden to the far left of the top plate if gazing down on the camera , to the right is an inset shooting mode dial operated by the thumb.
Rigid to the touch, it clicks into place at each of its nine mode settings, with a more definite action than the S90's dial. The S95's Smart Auto functionality goes further than rivals in comparing common scenes or subjects with not just five or six options, but 28 variables to deliver - in theory - the most appropriate and optimal results. The new HDR mode works well, combining three separate images to greatly expand the dynamic range, although you need to mount the S95 on a tripod to prevent camera-shake and fast-moving subjects appear as ghost outlines.
Click the mode wheel around to each subsequent setting and the name and icons of said mode appears on the camera's LCD with, in some cases, a brief text description of the best application for the particular mode. This suggests that the S95 can be used as readily by beginners as more seasoned digital camera users, the variety of shooting options to be found on the mode dial allowing first timers to move beyond their initial comfort zone as familiarity with the camera's workings grows over time.
With the back of the Canon S95 largely swallowed up by the 3 inch LCD screen, the visibility of which proves more than adequate both indoors and out, a familiar array of controls is found shunted to the right hand side. Familiar, in that they ape those found on the G11 to a fair extent, including the love it or loathe it scroll wheel surrounding the thumb operated four-way control pad.
From the top then is a small piece of moulding extending from below where the mode dial sits on the top plate, a subtle protrusion provided under which rests the tip of the users thumb when gripping the camera for shooting handheld.
This is still the only place on the camera affording much in the way of manually steadying the S95; as mentioned, while admittedly keeping things resolutely compact, there's no grip provided at the front or sides and is one of the few areas in which this model feels truly compromised. The Pictbridge button can be more usefully assigned a different function, with no less than 20 different options to choose from.
In conjunction with the customisable lens control ring, this makes it easy to tailor the S95 to your own specific way of shooting. Beneath this is the control pad and scroll wheel combination. At points north, east, south and west we get options, in capture modes, for adjusting exposure compensation, flash settings, self-timer options, and macro or manual focus, if not already using the front lens ring for the latter. The new Tracking AF mode focuses on the subject in the centre of the frame and tracks them if they move, useful for keeping up with fast-moving or unpredictable subjects like children.
If the camera is in playback mode, points north and south allow a series of captured images to be leapfrogged if hunting down a particular shot saved to card in a hurry, or alternatively deleting a duff capture. Press this, and as we're used to from recent Canon compacts a toolbar appears down the left hand side of the screen, options highlighted or de-selected dependant on whether the user is in auto capture or one of the more fully featured creative capture modes.
In Program mode, for example, selecting the ISO icon provides a slide rule across the bottom of the screen with ISO speeds set out incrementally in the following order: Auto, 80, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , The user simply utilizes the scroll wheel or tabs between them to select the desired setting.
Returning to the camera back, and below the control pad we find a final pairing of buttons for Display and the self-explanatory Menu. Press the former once and the user is rewarded with both a nine zone compositional grid and simultaneous RGB histogram being added to the on-screen info. A press of Menu meanwhile brings up a trio of folders, for image capture, set up and My Menu settings, in that order.
There again is the annoyingly placed pop-up flash that rises underneath your finger when the camera is held normally. The biggest gain that the S95 has over the previous model is HD video recording p at 24fps with stereo audio. While there's no manual control for movie mode, white balance and colour mode adjustments are available.
The S95 also adds Canon's new Hybrid IS technology, which corrects camera shake from a number of different directions thanks to a built-in accelerometer.
Seasoned photographers will value the bracketing options: HDR-ready, which takes three shots at different exposures; and focus bracket, which takes three shots at different focal distances.
Note there's also an automatic HDR mode accessible from the scene mode menu. The S90's big strength was its image quality, and the S95 consistently matches it beat-for-beat.
Colour rendition is accurate with particularly strong blues and greens. The camera seems to cope well with difficult exposures even in automatic mode, choosing to under- or overexpose using the exposure compensation accordingly.
The image stabilisation system does do well at slow shutter speeds, but it can't compensate entirely for shaky hands or low-light use without a tripod. Like the S90, the S95 is very competent with macro shots and the lens sharpness is very impressive, capturing clear detail across the frame.
From there, just turn the dial or use the left and right arrows to expand the options. My favorite part is from there it's automatic: just frame your image and press the shutter button and the Canon S95 will capture your three images and get ready for the next shot. You don't have to remember what shot you're on or even press the shutter three separate times while trying to maintain the framing.
I'm not really a fan of the overblown use of HDR that's rampant in the photo world, but I've also too often been in places that defied capture thanks to bright skies and deep shadows.
I happened to try it on a day when the sky was filled with fast moving, mostly dark clouds, with the Sun peeking through now and then. The sky was interesting, but it wasn't possible to properly expose the scenery while maintaining the texture and shape of the clouds, even though they were darker.
Because it's a Scene mode, you're offered no control over the span of exposures captured in HDR mode, nor how they are combined.
The Canon S95 takes three shots and combines them in-camera, taking about two seconds to capture the images, and four to combine them. Unlike Sony's HDR and low light modes, the Canon S95 does not microalign each image, and it won't intelligently delete objects that have moved between exposures. So you need a tripod at least, and it's preferable to have a static scene.
I tried several subjects, and enjoyed the results enough that I also added a few color options. With this particular target, the rebuilt Woodstock Train Station, these effects added a nice touch. It's another thing I don't normally do, but since I've taken this shot probably 50 times, it was a nice change of pace.
The HDR mode controls just about everything else, including white balance. Menus are mostly Canon's standard design, and thankfully Canon has returned to the far better Function menu, rather than the slot-machine style that they had on some of last year's high-end PowerShots.
Each tab in the main Menu has more items than can fit on the screen, and you can either scroll up and down with the arrows or use the Control Dial. If you use the arrows, the menu wraps to the top when you reach the bottom of the list; if you use the Dial, it stops.
To move to the next tab, you have to either scroll to the top to highlight the tab, or use a little-known PowerShot trick and use the zoom toggle, which jumps from tab to tab regardless where you are in the menu.
Low light. I didn't get as much low light shooting in as I did with the LX5; just the luck of the draw in terms of family events and such. But where I did shoot it, the Canon S95 did quite well.
There's some noise even in low ISO images, especially in the shadows, which is strange for a Canon product. When I printed the images in question up to 11x14, though, I didn't see the noise.
It was mostly luminance noise, and it just blends in. Many indoor shots are a tad soft, thanks to noise suppression, but again they make good prints, so it's hard to complain about that. I wandered in to get some shots of my daughter sleeping in her crib. With just the light on from the bathroom some 20 feet away--not direct light either, light you could fall asleep in, she looks like she's in daylight at ISO 3, with a 1-second exposure, braced against the top rail of the crib.
At least onscreen and in our thumbnails. But zoomed in it's pretty mottled. I found better quality at ISO 2,, with fewer yellow blotches. The Low light mode, indicated by a candle on the Mode dial, didn't even come close to what ISO did, and it was a 2. Clearly that mode is meant for more light than this, and even then it's fairly soft detail compared to what I remember 2-megapixel cameras putting out.
I prefer to shoot at full resolution with some kind of help from a tripod or other brace to get a better shot. Incidentally, 1 second was the limit in Program mode, but I could have done 15 seconds in Shutter speed mode. The camera held the image steady, thanks to Hybrid IS, but very often my subjects moved. Autofocus takes a little longer than the Panasonic LX5, about twice as long, at 0.
That's a little slower than average for most pocket digicams, but telephoto is 0. Prefocused shutter lag is 0. Cycle time is pretty slow, taking 2. In RAW mode, it's 2. In Continuous mode, the Canon S95 turns out 1. Continuous RAW, though, dips back down, at 0.
Flash recycles in 6 seconds, a little slower than average, but not badly. Movie mode is improved, now with p HD resolution, but unfortunately you cannot zoom optically while shooting a movie, and autofocus is locked. Given the zoom motor noise, it's understandable that you'd not be able to zoom, but still unfortunate. There are three "effects" modes available when recording movies, including Miniature Effect, Color Accent, and Color Swap.
One aspect I didn't like about using the Canon S90 was that it didn't update the auto exposure information until you half-press the shutter button. For example, if I was in Aperture priority mode adjusting aperture, I didn't see a preview of what shutter speed the camera was going to choose until after I pressed the shutter button.
It's only then that you find out that the camera might have to set a shutter speed that's outside the camera's ability, in which case the maximum or minimum shutter speed is shown in red. So essentially you don't know whether you've exceeded the available shutter speed or aperture until you half-press the shutter. Relative resolution. In the crops below, the Canon looks like it starts out on top and stays just ahead most of the way.
However, what you're not seeing in this first set of crops is the very difficult red swatch in our Still Life target, which on the S95 starts out quite blurry at ISO 80, yet the LX5 handles it quite well. See the two crops below. They're both doing very well, though. ISO 6, and 12, are both supported on both cameras, but we didn't test it on the Canon S I need only show the two crops from the red swatch at ISO 80 to give you an idea of how the Canon S95 handles this very difficult test of noise suppression compared to the Panasonic LX5.
You can expect detail in reds to blur before other colors in the Canon S I suppose the only positive effect is that it'll soften and de-emphasize reflections in photographs of hot red cars. That is a welcome sight. Printed Tests : Printed results from the Canon S95 are very good, showcasing the quality lens and light-taming sensor.
ISO images have good detail at 11 x 14, but are slightly soft and more luminance noise appears in the shadows. This goes away when printed at 8 x 10 inches.
ISO images are a bit too soft in some areas and grainy in others at 8 x 10, while 5 x 7s look good here. ISO 1, is surprisingly usable at 8 x 10, though dark colors get darker, and shadows deepen. Sharpness improves a bit at 5 x 7. ISO 3, shots are darker overall than any of the preceding shots, and are a little soft at 5 x 7.
They're better at 4 x 6 and quite usable. Like the LX3, the Canon S95's print test is a pretty nice and even descent down the print size slope. It would be even better printing from RAW with careful processing, so bear that in mind. For more on our test results from the Canon S95, please see our test results pages for Optics , Exposure , and Performance. Though we ultimately couldn't ignore the quality of the Canon S90 despite its flaws last year, I'm happy to report that the Canon S95 is improved in just the right ways to eliminate many of the nuisances that made many of us veer off the S Swapping the Power and Ring Function buttons was an obvious and necessary fix, as was clearing room for the thumb on the back of the S95 to minimize accidental activation of that very loose control.
It doesn't really bug me too much that the flash pops up into my finger, because I don't use the flash much on cameras that are good in low light, but it's good that readers be forewarned. I'm extremely fond of the small form factor and rock-like feel and finish to the Canon S It is solid, has good heft, and looks like it means business.
It's tough not to like all of those aspects. Switching back to a lower-resolution LCD, like the one on the Canon SD, really shows why it's good to spend a little more on a small pocket digital camera if you can. The S95's LCD is high-res and gorgeous, easy to use indoors and out.
It's so good, it's almost bad because your images look just a touch better on the camera. Most of the rest of the Canon S95 is unchanged, with the same lens, same basic sensor, but an enhanced image-stabilization system.
Some have been critical that it's not much of an upgrade, but after using the S95 for a bit, I think it's an improvement. Image quality is also slightly improved, and when the resolution doesn't change, that's a good improvement to have. Overall, the Canon PowerShot S95 has placed itself at the top of my shortlist for my next pocket camera. I'm still torn between the S95 and the Panasonic LX5, with its wider-angle lens, but the S95 has more of what you want a pocket camera for, in a size that's not so tough to pocket.
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