Charles Platt Say: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
Overall, an improvement, 2012-03-01
This review is for: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
I assume you have read reviews complaining about lack of picture sharpness in some samples of this camera. I suggest reading the in-depth review at dpreview.com, which is a bit more detached and objective than some of the negative reviews here. (This is only natural. Someone who has spent the money to buy a camera, and has been disappointed, will react less objectively than a reviewer who tests four sample cameras, compares their image quality, and doesn't have to spend money on any of them.)Personally I am satisfied with the lens on my sample of the S100, and I speculate that there were production problems in the first models to come off the line. You always run a risk by being an early adopter, especially if the model is brought to market hastily for the Christmas season, as this was.S95 owners will find just enough differences in the controls to be irritated by the S100. After a relearning process, however, I felt that the functional changes were improvements, especially when I want quick access to aperture/shutter speed, ISO, and exposure adjustment. I also appreciate the completely new features such as GPS and automatic dynamic range compression. And most of all I like the wider lens. I am not so thrilled by the rougher finish of the metal body and the finger/thumb grips, presumably included to satisfy users who complained that the S95 was too slippery. I liked the S95's totally clean styling.For those who never touched an S95 (or its predecessors), you have a treat in store: I consider this the most amazingly feature-packed pocket camera, besides being one of the smallest. Almost all the features from my full-size D5 mark II have been replicated here, and are fairly intuitively accessible. Or, of course, you can just set it to Auto. But that isn't why you want this camera, is it? The intended buyer, I think, is a fairly serious photographer who wants total feature-control in a package small enough to take anywhere, with minimal sacrifice of image quality. Yes, the small physical size of the 12MP sensor introduces some additional image noise compared with a full-frame camera, and you may miss the higher pixel count from time to time, but still--an incredible achievement, and very beautifully executed.

M. Broderick "mikebinok" Say: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
Great little camera!, 2011-11-02
This review is for: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
It's delightfully small and pocketable. It readily fits in a jeans pocket, without the protruding lens that is a problem for many small cameras. Image Quality is very good, and it is perhaps one stop better at high ISOs than the S95. But despite Canon's hype, it isn't magically better, and in poor lighting will be outperformed by most any SLR camera. That isn't the S100's fault, it goes with having a small sensor. I find ISO 2000 usable for most purposes, but it depends on your tolerance for image noise.Key strengths are the ability to pick your most used menu functions and put them in a shortlist of favorites, an even faster way of accessing one key function by assigning it to a handy ring around the lens, good low light performance, and most of all the small, handy size.No real weak points beyond those unavoidable in a small digicam, though I am not impressed with the battery life, claimed to be about 200 shots. I haven't rigorously checked that claim, but it is reasonable based on my experience so far. Not really a weak point, but note that the claimed fast f/2 is available only at the widest focal length. By the time you zoom out to 120mm, you are at f/5.9. Again, it is a physical limitation of having such a small camera.Pricey, but worth it to have a super small camera with good image quality, and the ability to override the excellent automatic modes to control things yourself if desired.

Andre060 "Andre" Say: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
Big disappointment, 2011-12-09
This review is for: Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide-Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
I was really excited for this camera - there are very few in this market segment, a small compact camera intended for enthusiasts. It has full manual controls and can save images in Raw format.On the plus side, the ergonomics and build quality are excellent. It was lighter than I expected, but still feels very solid, with high quality buttons and switches. The screen is big, bright, and gorgeous.Its ultimate downfall in my mind is image quality. I'm not sure if the lens on mine was bad or whatnot, but both the left and right edges were blurry in pretty much all pictures I took. This includes brain-dead easy things to shoot, like the facade of buildings in sunny conditions outdoors. On top of that, the images seem more noisy than I expected, even at the minimum ISO setting of 80.I've owned several Canon cameras over the last few years and this one is definitely a let-down in my mind. It went back to the store, and for now I'm going to keep my 1.5 year old Elph instead.*** UPDATE *** : The day after I tested the S100, I just borrowed my friend's S95 (the previous model in this line of cameras) and took the exact same test shots again. The facade of a building in the same exact conditions (clear skies, 2 hours before sunset). And I brought along my current compact, a canon SD780. The result was as expected: While not as sharp as a prime lens on an SLR, both the S95 and SD780 were reasonable shots with no obvious blurry sections. When you put them side-by-side with the S100 shots from the day before, the difference is absolutely obvious - the S100 shots look blurry to the point of being awful and almost unusable. This is not just me being a snobby camera nerd - any casual observer could see the difference quite easily.I would love to believe that I had a one-off example of a bad camera, but the DPReview preview of the S100 seems to indicate this problem is much more widespread than that. Get it together, Canon. I have been a fan of your products for many years and have never been this disappointed.