Canon PowerShot S5 IS Review
Review Date: September 19th 2007
Author: Gavin Stoker
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 8 megapixel SuperFine
JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around
3.5Mb.
Noise
There are 6 ISO settings available
on the Canon PowerShot S5 IS which you can select at
any time if the camera is in the normal shooting mode. noise
seems to be more problematic, even when shooting in daylight.
Starting to visibly creep
in from ISO 400, and noticeable without even viewing at 100%,
it becomes markedly more pronounced at ISO 800, while at
ISO 1600 you're losing detail and definition to the extent
that it
appears you're viewing the image through frosted glass. Stick
below ISO 400 for shots you'll want to keep. Here are some
100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have
been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand
image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the
camera images are just a little soft at the default sharpening
setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if
you don't like the default look.
Chromatic Aberrations
The Canon PowerShot S5 IS handled
chromatic aberrations quite well during the review, with
small levels of coloured fringing mainly present around the
edges
of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples
below.
Macro
The Canon PowerShot S5 IS offers
a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that
is 0cms away from the camera! The first image shows how close
you can get to the subject in Macro mode (in this case a
compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.
Flash
The flash settings on the Canon PowerShot S5 IS are Auto, On, Auto Red-eye Reduction, Slow Synchro
and Off.. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken
at a distance of 1.5m.
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Auto
Flash - Telephoto (432mm) |
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And here are some portrait shots.
Both the Auto setting or the Red-eye reduction modes caused
a very small amount of red-eye.
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Auto
(100% Crop) |
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Red-eye
reduction (100% Crop) |
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Night Shot
The Canon PowerShot S5 IS's maximum
shutter speed is 15 seconds, which is good news if you're
seriously interested in night photography. The shot below
was taken using a shutter speed of 1/400 second, aperture
of f/3.2 at ISO 400. I've included a 100% Crop of the image
to show what the quality is like (very noisy in the shadow
areas).
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Night
Shot (100% Crop) |
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Overall Image Quality
Though the lens doesn't suffer as evidently from barrel distortion at maximum
wide angle as some, and pixel fringing – though there – is
reasonably well controlled, the resultant images appear a
little unsharp when viewed on the desktop, meaning that you'll
be wise to embark on some rudimentary image editing to get
the best out of the S5 IS's pictures. At maximum telephoto,
and with image stabilisation set to continuous for the majority
of our test period (one shot and panning IS modes
are alternatively offered), there is occasional camera shake
visible, meaning that this is happily the exception rather
than the rule. On its evaluative setting, metering
is a bit hit and miss: on occasions the camera will underexpose,
so that images benefit from the application of Photoshop
Levels to retrieve shadow detail, which is fair enough. At
other times though – and more pronounced under the trying
likes of strong sunshine – highlights are totally blown,
smoothing out fold detail in a white shirt for example. However,
noise seems to be more problematic, even when shooting in
daylight. Starting to visibly creep
in from ISO 400, and noticeable without even viewing at 100%,
it becomes markedly more pronounced at ISO 800, while at
ISO 1600 you're losing detail and definition to the extent
that it
appears you're viewing the image through frosted glass. Stick
below ISO 400 for shots you'll want to keep. On a more positive
note, and as we'd expect from a Canon compact, the S5 IS' colours
are well
saturated, reds, greens and blues particularly vivid at the
default setting, while skin tones are flatteringly warm. So,
you won't get the best results from pointing and shooting and
leaving the S5 IS set on auto
– but then if that's what you'd wanted you'd be considering
a different camera.
 PhotographyBLOG
is a member of the DIWA
organisation. Our test results for the Canon PowerShot S5 IS have been submitted to DIWA
for comparison with test results for different samples of
the same camera model supplied by other DIWA
member sites.
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