Canon PowerShot S5 IS Review

Review Date: September 19th 2007
Author: Gavin Stoker

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Conclusion

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	5
Ease-of-Use	3.5
Image Quality	4
Value for Money	4

In terms of features and handling the more you play with the Canon PowerShot S5 IS, the more you find to like about it, which means that it requires a period of familiarization. Although certain aspects of the control layout might appear slightly compromised or clunky at first you soon learn to live with its foibles. However, it can't be denied that inability to capture any stills file format other than JPEG will be a major turn off for a chunk of its potential ownership. Ultimately the Canon PowerShot S5 IS is something of a jack-of-all-trades – perhaps even a Swiss Army knife of a camera (though it doesn't play MP3s), and there's certainly more of a focus on shooting movies than many enthusiast cameras, with stereo sound (Wave format) offered, a long play option, and a nicely smooth and quiet zoom action thanks to that Ultrasonic Motor (USM). Despite the fact that 12x is looking a little weedy against the likes of the Olympus SP-560UZ or Panasonic FZ18, you do get a lot of zoom for your money compared to what it would cost to equip a DSLR with a similar rage, and yet its stills performance – although perfectly acceptable – is no star turn. As with the likes of Olympus SP-550UZ (the 560UZ's predecessor, and the first 18x zoom) noise is the most visible bugbear and the biggest disappointment as regards the Canon PowerShot S5 IS. In other respects it almost has it all.

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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