Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)

This camera is PHENOMENAL ... but if you want it to work right, you need to put in the time to understand how it works and to test all of the many shooting options that are offered. Perhaps, if you are looking for the best pocket camera which takes awesome photos by just turning it on, pointing and shooting, this may not be the best choice (I suspect the canon 300 HS would be one of the best for this). But if you are looking for a camera capable of taking superb pictures with excellent picture quality that require just a little understanding of how to utilize the settings, or if you want a fantastic pocket camera which allows you to manipulate all the basic controls of an old, standard film-35mm, it is hard to imagine you could find better (though if you have the money and pocketability is not of supreme importance, the Fuji Film Fine Pix x100 would be my pick ... at $1200). I spent easily over 1 month doing research on all all sorts of cameras (various models of Lumix, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, other Canons, a couple of others and the FujiFilm) before i bought this. While in the end i am very happy with my selection, it took way too long for me to sort through all the customer reviews here, the professional reviews on CNET, DPReviews, Youtube, etc. The many reviews here on Amazon helped immensely in trying to make my choice, but I have to say I was a bit confused at first and then concerned by the extremes of comments (lots of 5 stars and a good bit of 1 star reviews). I am writing this for other Amazon users in order to help make sense of this situation. (just for reference, i am a visual artist and have a good amount of experience with photography and cameras.) 1. the negative reviews are mostly because of a lens error problem which affected a good number of units of this model. fear not about this ... canon seems to have taken responsibility for this if you get one of these lemons (and in my experience with canon, they are very good with making good on their mistakes). most of the units with this problem were corrected (the S100's with a serial number beginning with numbers 29 through 41 are the ones seemingly affected by the error and most of these have been sold or recalled or fixed). 2. most of the negative reviews regarding picture quality are absurd. if you just put the thing on "auto" and press the button and hope every picture is going to be great, you will likely be disappointed. this camera takes a little more getting to know than the typical pocket camera because it is more complex, but this allows you to be able to do things that most other cameras of this sort cannot do. you just have to invest a little time. PEOPLE SAYING THAT THE IMAGE QUALITY IS CRAP ARE ALL JUST WRONG - they just have not put the time into learning how to use this camera and use it properly. i was going from an old Powershot s500 that i LOVED. this was only 5 m-pixels, but it was easy to use and took really nice, balanced photos with great ease. when i first fired up the s100, i was a bit afraid that some of what was said about the picture quality was true, but after taking 20 or sometimes 30 pictures of the same thing in the same light, i was able to really understand the differences in what the settings and modes do and was able to get a feel for using the auto-modes as well as manipulating the ISO, aperture, and shutterspeed ... and i get not just great but SUPERB photos. now, after a couple of weeks, i sometimes still need to snap 3 or 4 pictures until i get one i like, but that photo is an excellent image ... one so much better than almost every compact camera i have ever seen (and with my research, i looked at buckets of sample photos from all sorts of cameras. pros: image quality - i looked at probably about 20+ compact cameras, their sample pictures and sample shots of all of them at different ISO's: this canon had the best image quality of all of them bar the pricey fujifilm x100 (which was gorgeous but this is also not really a compact camera). at ISO 800, the s100 retains more definition and colour saturation than all of the others (i think there was an olympus that came in close ). low-light shots - MOST PEOPLE THINK THE MEGA-PIXELS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE CAMERA ... NOT SO. while the s100 has ample m-pixels, it is all about the size of the sensor and the aperture range. this camera has one of the biggest sensors (7.44 x 5.58 ... and a good quality CMOS) and the low end the aperture goes down to 2.0, so you have the ability to take really nice low-light shots. also has a good (digic 5) processor. controlability - this camera allows you to control everything important in your photo; f-stop 2.0 - 5.9 has a great range for a camera this size, ISO 80 - 6400, and 1/2000 sec. - 15 sec. shutter speed. there really aren't other cameras that can give you this. macro capability - i have never seen a camera that can take pictures at 3 cm like this, maybe a couple of full size SLRs fitted with macro lenses, but he s100 goes beyond what i imagined even possible on a camera like this data readout - has great data information for each shot, as you line up the picture and after you have taken the shot tons of options - too many for me actually, which i also think is a bit of a con; but you can always just not use the ones you do not like lens ring - gives using the camera a nice sense of control that hearkens back to the old SLRs RAW - i am not a professional and RAW has little appeal to me other than post-production manipulation, but if you want, this shoots in RAW ... personally, i find that JPEGs frequently do better in avoiding colour moire in fine resolution video quality - not even interested in video, but great quality cons: new added finger grip on front - for me it does nothing and just jets a little in the way no decent digital filtres - with all the stuff they stuck in this camera, you think they could have included some digital filtres ... i mean how often are you going to want to use the fish-eye or miniature landscape feature? cute, but i'd rather have some simple digi filtres. too may options - for some could be a plus, but for me there are too many things and features i would never use and some which are so complex i would not be able to remember how to access them lens ring sticking out - while i love the idea of the lens ring, its protruberance makes the camera just a bit more difficult to stuff in the pocket flash - before digital, i had 2 canon elph film cameras. one had a pop-up flash like this one; it broke. i almost did not buy this camera because of the pop-up flash. while this one seems so much better (it has a little motor that seems very tight and strong), i still fear i could break it. in the end, though, i am glad i got the camera because it is otherwise so great. if you still have any doubts, this is a great camera.

Below is an email that I have just received from Canon weeks after registering my camera on their website. ****************************************************** Dear Michael, This service notification e-mail contains important information about your Canon PowerShot S100. Please note that product service announcement e-mails contain advisory or informational content that may be critical to the proper operation of your product, including safety, update, and instructional messages. Please carefully review the information in this e-mail as it relates to your Canon product. Thank you for using Canon products. It has been confirmed that some PowerShot S100 digital cameras encounter a lens error caused by a disconnected part inside the camera. This announcement conveys the details of the issue and Canon's service policy for affected cameras. Canon continuously strives to provide our customers with high quality, reliable products that can be used with confidence. We offer our sincerest apologies to any customers who have been inconvenienced. Phenomenon Some PowerShot S100 units (with the serial numbers listed below) may encounter a lens error due to a part becoming disconnected inside the lens. In particular, this lens error may occur when the camera is used in certain environmental conditions such as high temperature and/or humidity. Affected Product: Some PowerShot S100 Digital Cameras within the following serial number range: The first and second digits of the camera's serial number are any number from "29" through "41". For example: "29xxxxxxxxxx", "30xxxxxxxxxx"........."41xxxxxxxxxx" (The [x] characters shown above represent the remaining characters of the product's serial number.) Market Support Affected products that exhibit this phenomenon will be repaired free of charge, regardless of the warranty status, if it is confirmed that the lens error has been caused by disconnection of the part inside the lens. However, please note that affected products which are received by Canon after their service period ends (the period during which such products are expected to be serviceable), will no longer be eligible for free repair service and will be handled in accordance with Canon's then general repair standards and regulations Support This information is for residents of the United States and Puerto Rico only. If you do not reside in the USA or Puerto Rico, please contact the Canon Customer Support Center in your region. Thank you, Customer Support Operations Canon U.S.A., Inc. Contact Information for Inquiries: Canon Customer Support Center Phone: 1-800-OK-CANON (toll free) 1-800-652-2666 TTD: 1-866-251-3752 (toll free) E-mail: [email protected] For additional support options:[...] ****************************************************************** I luckily received a camera with a serial number that should be unaffected by the lens errors some others are having. I am really liking my camera so far so I have no reason to give it anything other than 5 stars. I know my way around the manual settings of this camera, but I am far from a professional so I will hold off on a lengthy review. The programmable control ring really makes the manual settings easily changeable. Between the control ring and the sleek black color, its obvious you've got yourself something a little more substantial than a digital Elph. This camera just does everything it is supposed to do very well. The 5x zoom is inadequate for long distance shots, but that is not what this camera is for. If you are interested in carrying a compact digital camera with all the major settings of your DSLR, this is a great option. I think this camera makes a great compact alternative and companion to a DSLR because it is easily pocketable and has great manual settings. I recommend that you register your camera on Canon's website immediately because it guarantees you support and has provided me with this useful information that I would not have known otherwise. I plan on updating this review. UPDATE #1 In every way, I have found this camera to be a vast improvement over my previous compact digital camera, a 10.1MP Powershot ELPH SD88IS, however; it is not without issues. Notably, the battery life is very poor when the default GPS mode is active. I could not tell you exactly how many shots I have been able to get per charge, but it has been noticeably less than I would expect. I already ordered a backup battery and am considering toggling the GPS as I need it. This battery is the same basic battery that was in my 4-5 year old Elph. I think it is time Canon looks at updating these NB5L batteries. In addition, while the image quality for day shots is tremendous, I was not overly impressed shooting with a tripod at night. I could not get more than a few half decent shots of a full moon for the life of me. Despite my best efforts, I was having issues with exposure and focus. I found underexposing and bracketing the focus to make for the best shots. Reviewer Sheraz A. Choudhary states "NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHERS: a major con for me is that the s100 is locked to ISO80 for shutter speeds over 1sec. May not matter to most people but I loved shooting 15sec ISO400 shots with my s90." This certainly did not help me either. It was a real pain to see ISO80 keep flashing up as I slowed my shutter speed. If you are mainly concerned with shooting close range shots at night, you wont have a problem, but shooting stunning nighttime nature shots seems to be an issue. Neither one of these issues is a real deal-breaker for me, but I have mentally subtracted a half star off this camera and well, I'd kind of like to get my hands on the Sony DSC-RX100. Because it is almost $300 more expensive, I still feel good about my purchase of this camera.

並行輸入品ということだが、 画面表示は、メニュー操作で日本語に切り替えられるし、 取扱説明書もメーカーのＨＰからダウンロードすることができるので 何の問題も無い。 基本性能は定評通り素晴らしい。 しかし、高級機は実際手にした時に判るものだ。 手にした瞬間に高級のオーラが伝わってくる。 コンパクトながらがっちりとした造り、ずっしりとした感触 シルバーならではのメカニックな手触りは、まさに快感だ・・・。 手にする喜びが味わえる。 ポケットに忍ばせて毎日持ち歩けるこの幸せを、あなたも感じてほしい。

I bought this camera from Future Shop-Toronto, and I used it during my trip to the Caribbean's. I took many lovely shots for the beach and the sunset. It's a very high quality and easy to use I turned it back to Future Shop since I found it in Amazon cheaper and tax-free It's just great, and the shipping was super-fast!!

日本語の使用説明書がなく，何故かネット上にもこの機種の使用説明書ＰＤＦが見つからないのが残念です。 似たような機種の使用説明書ＰＤＦで対応してますが，，，

I bought this camera on the recommendation of Ken Rockwell (Google his photography site) and have been very happy with it. I recommend visting Kens site for advice on setting up the cameras shooting defaults. (However I would avoid "vivid" on landscape shots...he likes to shoot vivid as default). Pros: Small/lightweight, good menu system, good colour rendition, reasonably sharp pics, wide 5x zoom, reasonably good at low light, very good video. Cons: Short battery life (get 1 or 2 extras), flash isn't that great (but the fast 2.0 lens at wide end gets around that), I had hoped for sharper pics (it is a point and shoot though), high contrast shots lose highlight details Yes, I would buy this again.

I am a professional photographer tired of never having a camera handy for fun family and pet moments. My nephew, an electrical engineer, meanwhile has been taking great shots with an S95. He found that camera after exhaustive research. Anyway, he convinced me to buy a S100 and while it is about as much as I would want to spend for a little camera, it really delivers. In biz, I use Nikon exclusively so I am a little slow getting on to the Canon menus and buttons but by and large this is exactly what I wanted.