Canon PowerShot S2 IS Review

The User Reviews

Average User Rating: 8.4

1. very nice digicam, 4.5 points, remember, not dslr.

   

   By: bob gordon
   March 11, 2009 @ 12:26 PM

   I have used this model for over 2 years, and have been very pleased with the results (usual digicam issues apply). I shoot mostly outdoors, birds, scenes, & vistas; using av, -1/3, 100 iso, neutral, & cont. af. I have an 85% success rate on pics, including hawks, swifts, egrets, herons. tweek brightness & contrast, crop, slight sharpening. I have been photographing for over 50 yrs.

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

2. Very Good but a bit bad

   

   By: Bahaa
   November 10, 2008 @ 9:49 AM

   I have owned this camera for 1.5 years and its very good but the only thing that is bad , is that it needs a lot of batteries and it has no battery charger otherwise everythng OK !

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

3. Lousy in low light conditions

   

   By: Debbie
   August 16, 2006 @ 7:58 AM

   I’ve had this camera for a year now and have taken over 5,000 pictures from Africa, Mexico, Costa Rica and home in the US. I’m very happy with these aspects – long focal length lens w/ image stabilization (most of my pics would have been blurry while riding in a jeep on very bumpy roads), the option to use a screw on adapter so you can attach filters & converters (alot easier than a “real” lens), option to use or not use flash, compact size considering what you get and batteries last a long time. My dislikes? The slow response shutter sometimes and difficulty in focusing in low light conditions (and it doesn’t have to be that low light!!). That has cost me some great pics! One other small complaint – cosmetic really – only after 1 year of use, the body is showing wear and tear w/scratches and the silver paint is wearing off in places the camera rubs. Of course what do you expect – it’s made of plastic to save on weight. I love the camera overall and highly recommend it!

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

4. Annoying Focus Errors & Red Eye

   

   By: Jez
   December 31, 2005 @ 4:03 PM

   I have owned this camera for approx 3 months and find that it has problems focusing. Also the red eye is the worst I have ever seen from any camera even with red eye reduction turned on. Although everything else works fine and the handling is excellent I would not buy this camera again. I think the pictures from my old Fuji 6900 zoom are far superior.

   Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

5. Manual flash is a GOOD thing!

   

   By: AB
   December 7, 2005 @ 9:13 AM

   The manually operated flash on this camera is an advantage – it means I can choose whether I want a flash or not. I find it incredibly annoying when cameras mees up your picture taking by popping up a flash and waiting for it to charge, when you didn’t want to use it anyway.

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

6. Best camera I've seen, bar none.

   

   By: Greg "Z"
   November 26, 2005 @ 7:01 PM

   I found the controls fine and not at all confusing.
   My only minor niggle is the absence of TIFF or RAW output – otherwise it seems as good as a far more expensive body-only SLR and lenses but without the pricetag(s). Oh, and a nice feature for the future would be bigger SD cards – then you could use it as a full video camera for more than 8 minutes of video – but that’s probably coming, and if you took a laptop with you, or several SD cards . . . . why get a dedicated movie camera?

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

7. Bottom of the List? Joking, Right?

   

   By: JTL
   November 21, 2005 @ 1:42 PM

   After trying all of the current ultrazooms, this camera easily came to the top of my list! It has a class-leading feature set and without question takes thae best images of the lot. Is the learning curve steep? Yes. Is the investment in time worth it? Most certainly!

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

8. best buy of the year

   

   By: pradeep p
   November 13, 2005 @ 6:38 PM

   great cmera .it has impressed not only me but other photographers coming across me .the zoom is stupendous..wow.the controls are easy. the price is reasonable . the megapixel are sufficient.i went on a trek to Himalaya with this & i got very good results be it landscape or portait. recommended

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

9. Excellent camera

   

   By: R. Boswell
   October 31, 2005 @ 5:38 PM

   This camera is light years ahead of the camera it replaces for me. One thing puzzles me though. The resolution/compression settings are not global. Changing the resolution/compression in one mode does not necessarily change the resolution/compression settings in all the other modes. How many other settings are not global?

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

10. Absolutely great camera

    

    By: Joerg
    August 9, 2005 @ 1:33 PM

    This is the second digital camera I own, after an Olympus C 5060 WZ that I use in parallel – an ideal complement due to its wide angle (28 mm equivalent). I bought the Canon S2 in early June, just when it was available here in Germany, in due time to take it to a six weeks trip to Ecuador.
    After some 1100 shots taken in Ecuador, I am absolutely convinced by this camera. It is just great. The wonderful 12x zoom lens with image stabilization does an excellent job.
    The controls are easy to learn (sorry, I disagree with the review in this point). And I also do very much welcome the fact that the flash does not pop up automatically! In many cases a flash does more harm than good. How many fellow tourists did I see taking pictures with a flash inside a huge church – useless if their flash just goes 3m and the church walls are 20m and more away.
    My only wish for the improvement of the S2 refers to the size of the video files. They are very big – Canon shout provide a firmware update including a new codec for the video files, that could compress them better.

    Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

11. The S2 is not just a P&S camera

    

    By: Mark
    August 9, 2005 @ 11:01 AM

    Nice review, though I would make two counter-points:

    1. I actually LIKE the fact that the flash has a manual defeat (i.e., keeping it closed). In many situations the bright strobe of the flash is not appreciated, and the loud snap as the flash automatically deploys is distracting. Yes, you can usually turn the flash off via a menu choice, but the way the S2 does it is much more direct. On the flip side, if you’re worried about needing the flash, just leave it open.

    2. This is probably related to the first point, but this camera is not designed to be a simple-as-can-be P&S camera. Canon chose to make some of the camera’s many functions available without having to dig through endless menus. Menu massaging has cost me many shots: having the direct controls is a boon for “power users,” and easily enough ignored by those who don’t wish to mess with it.

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

12. Excellent

    

    By: Daniel
    July 31, 2005 @ 6:12 AM

    Great review but please note that with PhotoStudio if you overwrite the original, you’ll get scewed EXIF data. That software for now have a problem and does not keep INTACT the EXIF data written by the camera.

    Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No