Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 3.5Mb.

The Canon PowerShot S100 produces images of excellent quality. It recorded noise-free images at ISO 80-800, with some noise and slight colour desaturation at ISO 1600. ISO 3200 shows more obvious noise and loss of colour but still remains perfectly usable, and even the fastest setting of ISO 6400 doesn't suffer too badly. The RAW files were also very clean from ISO 80-800, with a slight drop in sharpness but also slightly less noise at ISO 1600-6400 than the corresponding JPEGs.

The Canon PowerShot S100 handled chromatic aberrations well, with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations and generally at the edges of the frame. The lens exhibits some degree of barrel distortion at the 24mm wide-angle setting, along with softening of detail towards the corners. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure, although there's noticeable vignetting at 24mm. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 15 seconds being long enough for most after-dark shots.

The image stabilisation system works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range. Macro performance is good, allowing you to focus as close as 3cms away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the Canon PowerShot S100 at the default sharpening setting and ideally require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting.

Noise

There are 8 ISO settings available on the Canon PowerShot S100. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 80 (100% Crop)
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

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 a little soft at the default sharpening setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Canon Powershot S100's 5x zoom lens provides a focal length of 24-120mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

24mm	120mm

Chromatic Aberrations

The Canon PowerShot S100 handled chromatic aberrations very well during the review, with limited purple fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Canon PowerShot S100 allows you to focus on a subject that is 3cms away from the camera. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Canon Powershot S100 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.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (24mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (24mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (120mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (120mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On or the Red-eye-Reduction settings caused any red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Canon Powershot S100's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 80. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Anti Shake

The Canon PowerShot S100 has an anti-shake mechanism, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/4 sec / 24mm
1/2 sec / 120mm

Dynamic Range Correction

The S100 allows you to manually set the amount of dynamic range correction, with four options available - Off, Auto, 2005 and 400%.

Off	200%
400%

My Colors

The My Colors function menu option contains the now familiar range of colour options for tweaking the look of your images before shooting.

Off	Vivid
Neutral	Sepia
B/W	Positive Film
Lighter Skin Tone	Darker Skin Tone
Vivid Blue	Vivid Green
Vivid Red

Creative Filters

The new Creative Filters shooting mode contains 10 different options, including High Dynamic Range, Miniature and Toy Camera. In the High Dynamic Range mode the S100 combines three separate images to greatly expand the dynamic range.

Off	High Dynamic Range
Nostalgic	Fish-eye Effect
Miniature Effect	Toy Camera Effect
Monochrome	Super Vivid
Poster Efect	Color Accent
Color Swap

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Canon PowerShot S100 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Canon PowerShot S100 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Canon RAW (CR2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Turned On

Front of the Camera / Pop-up Flash

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Function Menu

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Ring Function Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Canon PowerShot S100 may look a lot like its popular predecessor, but a brand new sensor, processor and lens combine to produce a more versatile, faster, better specified and more capable pocket camera that makes an ideal everyday shooter for DSLR and CSC owners. Only a significant price increase, lack of control over the flash and poor battery life prevents us from giving the S100 our coveted Essential award.

The S100 addresses virtually all of the issues that detracted from its predecessor - most notably the poor video mode and lack of a hand-grip - whilst further improving the handling, array of features and image quality. There's more than enough on offer to tempt even current S95 owners to upgrade, and it all adds up to make the S100 an even more attractive proposition as a serious compact for serious users.

Image quality is excellent, with a perfectly usable ISO range of 80-1600 and fast f/2.0 maximum aperture, albeit only at the wide-angle lens setting, making the S100 very well-suited to low-light, hand-held photography. It's also possible to capture the blurred backgrounds and sharp subject that most compacts struggle to achieve, while the 5x zoom offers a longer reach than the S95, albeit with a somewhat inevitable increase in the maximum aperture to a rather slow f/5.9 at 120mm. Full 1080p video with continuous auto-focusing, stereo sound and full use of the zoom is the icing on the imaging cake.

We suspect that all of the new hardware, particularly the GPS unit, has pushed up the price to an eye-watering £439.00 / €509.00 / $429.99, which is a lot of money in anyone's currency. While some will question such a price-tag for what is after all a mere compact camera, for many the S100 will make perfect sense both economically and logically - it's still the smallest camera on the market to offer such a wide array of DSLR-like features and excellent image quality to match, topped off by a refined user interface that is a pleasure to use. Price aside, the Canon PowerShot S100 is a worthy winner of our Highly Recommended award.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	5
Features	5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	4

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Canon PowerShot S100 from around the web.

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