Canon PowerShot S90

It’s tempting to accuse Canon of some false advertising with the Canon PowerShot S90 digital camera. Here it sits, an innocent looking point-and-shoot when in fact it’s bristling with sophistication and functionality that advanced users will almost certainly swoon over.

In fact, the Canon PowerShot S90 gets you right up to digital SLR level functionality without the larger body design and choice of lenses. You have manual control over focusing, aperture, and shutter speeds in addition to the ability to capture RAW image files. If that doesn’t convince you of the S90’s high-end bona fides, the $430 price tag should.

Don’t let the slim point-and-shoot appearance fool you: this is a camera for enthusiast photographers.

Terrific F/2.0 Lens
The first thing that needs to be said of the S90 is it has exceptional optics. The good news is that Canon went with a wide-angle (28mm equivalent) lens for an overall zoom capability of 3.8x.

Wide-angle lenses are still an underappreciated asset, but it truly enhances the photographic experience, allowing the camera to swallow up much more of the scene in front of you. It also has optical image stabilization, which is always a plus (and pretty much a commonplace).

The better news is Canon used a lens with an aperture of f/2.0. In layman’s terms, the lens allows much more light into the camera than traditional point-and-shoot lenses – enabling the S90 to take better photos in low light.

Canon paired this bright lens with some noise-fighting camera processing to deliver solid low light performance. You can set the ISO yourself to a maximum of 3,200 or set the camera to low light mode and let it attempt the best photo possible when the lights go dim.

You can see some noise at ISO 3,200 but nothing that would dissuade you from printing the shot. The bottom line is that in low light, without a flash the S90 is delivering some excellent, well balanced images.

With a zoom of 3.8x it’s slightly longer than your average point-and-shoot zoom, but other manufacturers have stuck longer (although not brighter) lenses into similar-sized bodies. A little longer focal length and you’ve got a product that handily competes with a low-end DSLR.

Excellent Photo Quality
Canon purposefully dialed back the number of pixels on the S90’s 1/1.7-inch image sensor to further boost low light performance (there tends to be less “noise” in a camera when the pixels on an image sensor are larger).

Still, 10-megapixels is nothing to sneeze at and the S90 puts them to good effect with sharp, color accurate images in most shooting environments.

Click on the photo below to see the full resolution quality from the Canon Powershot S90.

Innovative Design
Canon designed the S90 for fast and easy access to its wealth of features. The stand-out design touch is unquestionably the ring wheel surrounding the lens which can be customized to activate select camera controls such as focus, white balance, ISO, exposure or step-zoom on the fly. A similar, smaller dial surrounds the toggle switch on the back of the camera for quickly scrolling through images during playback or camera functions while navigating the menu.

A mode dial atop the camera gives you the usual options along with a custom mode which you can program for quicker access to a favorite photo setting.

If there’s a knock on the design it’s that while the camera looks quite sleek and, dare I say, sexy (in an understated kind of way), the exterior is very slick. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s “slippery” but your fingers do tend to glide across it.

Since it’s a compact model (measuring in at 3.94 x 2.30 x 1.22 in), space is also at a premium. If you’re using two hands to hold the S90 aloft, you’ll likely cover the pop-up flash.

Solid Feature Set
Canon generously doled out the features to the S90. You’ll find numerous shooting modes (Portrait, Landscape, Foliage, Snow, Beach, etc.) along with the aforementioned ability to manually adjust exposure.

An assortment of photo effects (positive film, light/dark skin tone and a custom setting) are available for further experimentation and you’ve got face detection, exposure and focal length bracketing as well.

While geared toward photographers comfortable tweaking with and experimenting on their images, the S90 does provide a few pathways to the uninitiated. The menu helpfully provides short explanations for each function you’re considering. The S90’s 3-inch LCD is large enough to accommodate this user-friendly menu and is quite bright and clearly visible even in well lit environments.

No HD Video?
Since we’re pushy reviewer types, let’s take a moment to pound the table and demand more: as in, where’s the high definition video capture? Even 720P would suffice (although it wouldn’t hurt to throw us some of that 1080p capture that’s sweeping through Canon’s line of digital SLRs).

Instead, we’re left with ho-hum VGA/30fps video recording. For a camera above $400 with so much functionality, it feels somehow incomplete without HD video recording.

While we’re complaining, the S90 is a little skimpy on battery life as well, with a CIPA-rated 220 shots per charge. Enough for a full day’s worth of shooting (provided you’re somewhat restrained) but not much more.

What We Really Think
The S90 is unquestionably a powerhouse compact digital camera. It’s wealth of features and manual control can be found elsewhere, but not in such an intuitively designed camera body. The f/2, wide angle lens alone makes it almost worth parting with $430. Provided, of course, this economy has left you with $430 to part with. 


Pros:
• Superb image quality
• Excellent lens
• Strong feature set
• Well designed

Cons:
• Pricey without a longer zoom
• No HD video capture

The Canon PowerShot S90 ($430) at a Glance
•    10-megapixel 1/1.7-inch CCD
•    3.8x optical wide angle zoom lens (28mm)
•    3-inch LCD
•    Manual controls
•    Full specs here