Canon PowerShot S5 IS Reviews

Canon PowerShot S5 ISThere was a lot to like about the Canon PowerShot S3 IS, and much of it remains in this year's PowerShot S5 IS, including Canon's veteran optical image-stabilization technology, excellent metering and focusing systems, the ...

Tons of manual and automatic features ; well-laid-out controls ; solid body ; nice LCD display

Lens aberrations and vignetting ; some processing artifacts ; lacks raw file support ; redesigned lens cap still pops off too easily

Though it remains a good megazoom, thanks to continued image and lens artifacts, the Canon PowerShot S5 IS is slowly losing ground to competitors.

The Canon PowerShot S5 IS ($499) is the follow-up to the incredibly popular PowerShot S3, which was introduced in February of last year. The S5 takes an already excellent camera and improves up on it, adding these new features:

Very good photo quality ; 12X optical zoom lens ; ultrasonic motor means fast, nearly silent focusing ; Optical image stabilization ; Large and sharp 2.5" LCD can flip-out and rotate ; screen is easily visible in low light ; AF-assist lamp, great low ...

Redeye a big problem (but at least you can remove it) ; Some purple fringing and corner blurriness ; noisy images at higher ISOs ; Electronic viewfinder has low resolution, so-so outdoor visibility ; Overly sensitive zoom controller ; Lousy lens cap ; ...

As you can see, the S5's battery life is a good 20% lower than on the S3. I'm guessing that the larger LCD has a lot to do with this. Despite that, the S5's numbers are still well above the group average

It's the oldest megazoom camera in this roundup, but it's hardly a dinosaur. Canon's $400 PowerShot S5 IS, released In May 2007, represented the company's latest foray into the advanced, high-zoom digital camera market. Like its 2008 competitors, it ...

Sturdy and fully adjustable LCD screen Top-notch image stabilization

Poor manual focus No RAW support

Despite a handy function menu for the most commonly used options, the S5 IS has an overabundance of hey-let's-just-throw-it-in features that can clog menus (a wolf-howl sound effect for the self-timer? Really?). This feels indicative of the uneasy ...