Canon PowerShot S95

There's an increasing demand for small cameras with manual controls, a demand fuelled by amateur photographers looking for a go-everywhere replacement for their digital SLR. Panasonic has had such a camera for a few years with the Lumix DMC-LX3, and its replacement, the LX5. Last year Canon answered back with the PowerShot S90, which features manual controls and a wide, bright F2 maximum aperture.

While we really liked the S90, there were a few issues that this camera needed to resolve before making it a real contender for the crown. Enter the S95, then.

Design and features

One of the perennial complaints about the S90 was its tendency to slip out of the hand due to its polished surface. The S95 gains a textured exterior that helps allay any fears of accidentally smashing a S$669 piece of kit to smithereens.

Like the S90 before it, this camera features a rotating ring around the front of the lens that can be configured to change a number of shooting parameters, such as ISO, white balance and manual focus control. The button on top of the camera, labelled Ring Func., changes the parameter. A bright 3-inch LCD screen sits at the back of the camera; its resolution is 461,000 dots, but in use it's bright and very precise when reviewing.

Lens specifications are the same as the S90; 3.8x optical zoom with an F2-4.9 maximum aperture. There again is the annoyingly placed pop-up flash that rises underneath your finger when the camera is held normally.

The biggest gain that the S95 has over the previous model is HD video recording (720p) at 24fps with stereo audio. While there's no manual control for movie mode, white balance and color mode adjustments are available. The S95 also adds Canon's new Hybrid IS technology, which corrects camera shake from a number of different directions thanks to a built-in accelerometer.

Seasoned photographers will value the bracketing options: HDR-ready, which takes three shots at different exposures; and focus bracket, which takes three shots at different focal distances. Connectivity is taken care of via mini-HDMI and mini-USB ports. Note that there's also an automatic HDR mode accessible from the scene mode menu.

Performance And Image Quality

The S95 took about 2.4 second from power off to taking the first shot, and it clocked an average of 2.2 and 2.5 seconds for JPEG and RAW shot-to-shot time, respectively. Shutter lag measured approximately 0.4 second, which is pretty respectable.

The S90's big strength was its image quality, and the S95 consistently matches it beat-for-beat. Color rendition is accurate with particularly strong blues and greens. The camera seems to cope well with difficult exposures even in automatic mode, choosing to under- or overexpose using the exposure compensation accordingly.

Images are clean and mostly noise-free up to ISO 400, though there is some digital processing visible on JPEG shots. The image stabilization system does do well at slow shutter speeds, but it can't compensate entirely for shaky hands or low-light use without a tripod.

Like the S90, the S95 is very competent with macro shots and the lens sharpness is very impressive, capturing clear detail across the frame.

Video quality is really very impressive for a compact of this class. They're stored as MOV files in H.264 compression format, and while there's no external mic input, the sound quality is the best we've seen on advanced compacts. There is no optical zoom during filming, though.

Conclusion

The PowerShot S95 is an excellent compact camera that will complement any photographer's arsenal, provided you don't need super-fast performance specs.