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About
The Canon Powershot S3 IS strength lies in its small size and long zoom reach, combined with Image Stabilization.
While not a pocket digicam, it is coat pocket size, and therefore quite inconspicuous and portable. The use of AA batteries adds to the versatility, and a very high quality movie mode with a dedicated activation button are icing on the cake.
Aside from upping the megapixels, Canon Powershot S3 IS has a (slightly) larger 2-inch LCD screen than the Canon Powershot S2 IS and offers consumers a choice of either gray or black finish. Canon also raised the top ISO to 800, which is important for shooting in low-light situations. The company also added some very cool features, including the ability to shoot video and simultaneously capture still images at full resolution.
The video on this camera lets you use the 12X optical zoom. Unlike other superzooms, such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1, the S3 IS did a good job of zooming in and out without picking up the noise of the motor grinding. It also adjusted quite well to indoor and outdoor lighting and to refocusing after zooming. The video files are stored as motion JPEG .AVI files at VGA (640-by-480) at 30 fps. The sound was also quite good. And you can snap a photo as well during filming. When compared with two other recent compact superzooms—the TZ1 and Kodak EasyShare V610—the video quality on the S3 IS was better. The S3 IS has a more powerful zoom than the V610, and the video has more clarity and less purple fringing than the TZ1.
The Canon Powershot S3 IS doesn’t keep you waiting: Not when you start it up (even though the lens has to extend); not when you’ve taken a shot; not when you’re shooting in Continuous mode; and not when you’re shutting down.
It isn’t instant, like a digital SLR, but I never felt like I had to wait for it. And not having to wait meant I felt free to turn it on or off at will. When it takes a camera a long time to start up or shut down, I just let the power management routine put it to sleep so a half-press of the shutter button wakes the camera up. With cameras that have extendable lenses, this is a risky strategy. But the PowerShot S3 IS was quick enough to shut down and start up, and the lens extends and retracts quietly.
The Canon PowerShot S3 IS comes to the ultra-zoom digital camera market with a unique set of features. It has the 12x optical zoom lens that qualifies it as part of the ultra-zoom market and couples it with an optical image stabilization system that works incredibly well.
Canon put the lens on a chunky SLR-shaped body that looks almost professional with its black finish. The S3 has lots of options in its movie mode that aren’t available on any other digital camera and includes dual recording buttons so users can snap full-resolution pictures in the middle of a video clip. The optical zoom functions in the movie mode - and even looks smooth with the image stabilization system activated. Users can adjust everything from the audio sampling rate to the microphone level and wind filter feature. The still recording features are just as extensive.
Full manual control is available, although the manual focusing feature is difficult to execute with the poor viewfinder and LCD resolution.
Like its predecessor the Canon Powershot S2 IS, the Canon Powershot S3 IS is a very capable entrant in the megazoom digicam market.
With 6-megapixels of resolution, a high-quality image-stabilized 36-432mm zoom lens, very good image quality and industry-leading support for moving images, the S3 IS offers a compelling combination of quality and versatility. It will please both the beginner and the advanced photographer with its consistently well-exposed and sharp results. The S3 IS presents a worthy alternative for consumer digicam users considering an upgrade to a consumer dSLR. While its image quality, responsiveness and viewfinder quality are not quite up to dSLR standards, the S3’s versatility, especially its movie mode and articulating LCD viewfinder, is unmatched by any dSLR available today.
If you have a need for megazoom focal lengths, the S3 IS also represents a terrific value; while dSLR image-stabilized long focal length lenses sell for thousands of dollars, the S3 IS can be had for much cheaper, image-stabilized zoom lens included.