CANON POWERSHOT S100

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he canon Powershot S100 sports a small from factor and on first sight one might not reckon that it is a high-end professional point and shoot. It is fairly simple in design and has a boxy overall appearance. The body has a metal finish and when held, has a rich feel to it. The S100 is similar in size to its size to its predecessor, but is similar by a millimeter. However the new model is a bit taller in height than the S95. The rear feature a large 3 inch display that is flushed along the body on the camera. Alongside the screen is a dedicated video recording button. Apart from this there is a whole range of controls for accessing the different options from the various modes.

                The flash is housed in the body and can be accessed by tapping the flash button at the back. Another notable inclusion is GPS support. The side of the camera features connectivity options under a plastic flap. These include an AV out, USB port and an HDMI port. The overall build quality of this camera is really good and it feels extremely sturdy.

                The S100 features a 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor along with the canon’s new DIGIC 5 image processor. It olso features a 5x optical zoom lens, up from the S95’s 3.8x. there are full manual shooting modes on this camera, which is really good, as one can play around with the setting. The S95 had HD 720p video capabilities but canon has raised the bar by supporting videos in full HD 1080p at 24 fps. There are a number of scene modes and one ahs the ability to shoot in different environment easily and get the colors that are best suited to the environment. The camera feature a number of filters as well, such as HDR, nostalgic, fish-eye effect and toy camera.

                Being a professional point and shoot, this camera offers the ability to tweak setting. The S100 was put to the test in a controlled environment. It fared really well in the ISO sensitivity test and from ISO 100 to 400, there was virtually no image noise visible. The noise is seen at ISO 1600, and at ISO 3200 to 6400, the noise is more pronounced, but image are still useable.

                It would be safe to call the S100 one of the best point and shoot compact cameras when it comes to performance. The detail found in images shot outdoors is really good and  this can even be achieved while shooting in auto mode. But to truly get the best out of the camera you would have to venture into the manual modes. While capturing outdoors images there was next to no fringing visible and all colors appeared accurately. Skin tones appeared natural and outdoors photography was very good. Though the S100 may be more suited for professional photographers looking for a compact camera to tote around, anyone with a passion for photography will find this camera a joy to use.