Canon PowerShot S3 IS Review at Digit.no
DIWA member and Norwegian website Digit.no have reviewed the Canon PowerShot S3 IS, a 6 megapixel camera with an image stabilized 12x zoom lens, ISO 800 and a 2 inch LCD screen.
“The best thing about the update from PowerShot S2 IS to S3 IS is the colour. Everything else is either unneccessary, like the increase of resolution from 5 MP to 6 MP and the higher sensitivity to ISO 800, or insufficient, such as the enlargement of the LCD screen from 1.8” to 2” without solving the real problem, namely the fact that the screen is virtually useless in bright sunlight. However, the camera has a heap of features and nice qualities, it is user friendly, fast, extremely well equipped and should win many buyers with its fast 12x zoom lens with optical stabiliser in a compact body. Image quality is generally good for people with ample requirements to perfection and who will use it the same way as their film based camera, making prints directly from the original file. The lens on our test sample did not meet 6 MP resolution, colour fringing was quite disturbing at both wide angle and telephoto, sharpness at telephoto was disappointing and even though JPEG compression is lowered slightly, it is a shame that the camera lacks RAW format option. Despite an excellent software package, we dislike that the full instruction is now available in electronic form only, that rechargeable batteries and charger must be purchased separately and that the capacity of the supplied memory card is a laughing matter. 16 MB internal memory would be far better. Nevertheless, the PowerShot S3 IS is a very fine camera, indeed, only a pity Canon didn’t take the full step in improving the final details to make it perfect.”