Canon Powershot S 60 Review

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Canon Powershot S 60 and its successor S 70 are small compact cameras (230 grams weight) that incorporate features like wide angle lens (starting from 28mm, 35 mm film equivalent) with solid 3,6x zoom, RAW format recording and wide range of manual controls.

The newest S 80 is an upgrade in many ways, BUT it doesn't support RAW format recording. Both S 60 and S 70 share identical features except sensors (S 60 is 5 MP camera and S 70 has 7 MP sensor), and S 70 has slightly faster performance.

Canon Powershot S 60 is my first digital camera that helped me explore the world of photography. From shooting completely in Auto mode and gradually progressing through various manual settings it proved to be reliable, good and easy to handle. It is well suited both for beginners and professionals (as a backup camera).

Features:

Sensor: 1/1.8-inch CCD (approx. 5.3 million total pixels)
Lens: 5.8 (W) - 20.7 (T) mm (35mm film equivalent: 28 - 100 mm) f/2.8 (W) - f/5.3 (T)
LCD: 1.8-inch, 118,000 pixels
Focus: TTL auto focus; Focus lock, Manual focus and Focus bracketing are available; 9-point (AiAF)/1-point (AF); 1-point AF: any position is available
Macro: min. distance - 4 cm (1.6 in.)
Shutter speed: 15 - 1/2000 sec.
Light Metering: Evaluative, Center-weighted average or Spot (Center or AF-point)
Exposure Control: Program AE, Shutter-priority AE, Aperture-priority AE or Manual exposure control.
Also available: AE lock, Safety Shift, Exposure Compensation (auto and manual), and Auto Exposure Bracketing.
ISO: Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400.
White balance: TTL Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Flash, Underwater and Custom (manual).
Built-in Flash: Range: 55 cm - 4.2 m. Red-eye reduction, Flash exposure compensation, FE lock, Slow synchro and 1st-curtain/2nd-curtain flash are available.
Shooting Modes: Auto, Program, Shutter-speed Priority, Aperture priority, Manual, Custom (saves chosen settings), Portrait, Landscape, Night scene, Fast Shutter, Slow Shutter, Stitch assist and Movie.
Also available: Continuous shooting, Interval shooting (interval: approx. 1-60 min, 2-100 shots), Self timer, Wireless control and PC-controlled shooting.
Recording Media: CompactFlash (CF) cards, Type I and II.
[B]Image Recording Format: Still images: JPEG and RAW; Movies: AVI
Interface: USB, Audio/Video output
Power Source: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery NB-2LH, AC Adapter kit (sold separately) and Car Battery Charger Kit (sold separately). Full charged battery can produce approximately 200 images.
Dimensions: 114.0 x 56.5 x 38.8 mm
Weight: Approx. 230 g (8.1 oz) - camera body only
Additional accessories: telephoto converter (2x), underwater case.


S 60 has solid metal body with metal tripod mount. It is not too heavy to carry around all the time, yet it is heavy enough to feel solid in hands during taking photos and so prevent the camera shake.

S 60 has easily accessible functions, shooting mode menu and playback menu. The LCD picture movement is smooth during camera panning. In play mode, all info on taken image is available, including histogram.

LCD is rather small for today standards (only 1.8 in.) but, personally, I prefer small LCDs since they are not too power consuming. What is disturbing is low visibility at bright light conditions. The camera also has an optical view finder (covers approx. 80 % of an image).

Images are of high quality. The colors are authentic. The images appear to be slightly soft and colors slightly pale - that's typical for Canon: instead of radical contrast and colors boosting inside camera which reduces image quality, it gives realistic images as a high quality 'raw' material to work with in post processing. At wide angle images are slightly distorted on the edges, which is acceptable. Also I've been told that there is some vigneting on the corners (I have a difficulty to even notice that!), and some purple fringing (not such a big issue in most high contrast photos). There is very little noise at low ISO settings, and I can?t remember seeing any noise at ISO 50.

What I liked:

- Wide angle, it proved to be essential in many situations, from indoors to urban and landscape photos (not advisable for portrait close-ups though - it magnifies noses!).
- RAW format recording: it is possible to switch from JPEG to RAW after shooting the image, during image display.
- 3.6 x Zoom - solid for small compact camera
- small dimensions, perfect weight, portable in all occasions
- easily accessible functions and menus
- high quality images, even those taken in low light condition; authentic colors
- lots of manual settings and features

What I had to struggle with:

- Flash: too strong for my taste, even at the lowest setting. No fill flash option. Red-eye problem not solved by red-eye reduction.
- LCD: hardly visible at bright light. Also, I wished it was flip out and twist LCD - I needed that so many times!
- ISO and WB settings accessible only through functions menu. Shortcut buttons would be most helpful.
- Auto Focus - camera is struggling focusing at telephoto and macro
- Unreliable Auto WB
- It got stolen last summer. At first, I wanted to purchase exactly the same camera. Now I am using Canon Powershot S 3 IS, and enjoying its 12 x zoom, but I'm still searching for small compact camera with wide angle lens and RAW format recording... and big zoom, and flip out and twist LCD, and...

More about Canon Powershot S 60:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons60/