Canon PowerShot S2 IS-Easy Camera Review

The Canon PowerShot S2 IS builds off of the S1 IS to provide strong movie and still imaging features.  The newer S2 has an impressive 12x optical zoom lens that is supported by an image stabilization system.  The 5-megapixel CCD is combined with this 12x zoom, and can be combined with optional wide angle and telephoto conversion lenses.  The excellent movie mode provides options simply not found on competing digital cameras within its $450 price range. 

 

The camera body is silver colored but constructed of plastic. While the camera is not the most durable or overtly stylish, the rounded edges and simple SLR-inspired design are comfortable to handle and navigate.  The camera weighs just under a pound with batteries, and has measurements of 4.5 x 3.1 x 3.0 inches. The in-camera flash must be manually opened, which is a quirk that’s easy to forget.  The camera is equipped with an electronic color viewfinder with 100 percent image accuracy, so what you see is what you get.  The camera is also equipped with a 1.8 inch, 115,000-pixel LCD screen that folds out and rotates 270 degrees and can be stored facing in or out of the camera body.  This is an improvement upon the S1 IS’s 1.5-inch LCD.

 

The PowerShot S2 IS has 10 preset shooting modes such as Foliage and Snow.  Canon also included a unique “My Colors” mode that allows users to add or change colors directly to images (stills and video) before exporting photographs from the camera itself.  The S2 IS also has numerous manual control options.  Manual focus may be altered through a digital interface, metering has three selectable options, and exposure provides a scale from +/-2 EV with 1/3 step increments.  Other manual controls include a customizable white balance (along with presets), ISO settings from 50-400, and shutter speeds ranging from 15-1/3200^th of a second.  An appreciated manual control inclusion is the aperture control priority mode with a maximum aperture setting of f/2.7. This is a bit wider than usual and should provide a slight edge when photographing in low light.

 

 

The Canon S2 IS’s colors are accurate and rich.  We tested the S2 and its images aren’t as sharp as they should be with 5 megapixels, so photographers should be wary of printing enlargements and cropping too tightly. The S2 IS was able to shoot its first image 2.28 seconds after the camera was turned on. In the burst mode, the S2 captured two images every second – and did so until the memory card was full.  This is very impressive for a digital camera at this price.

 

The movie mode on the Canon PowerShot S2 IS is highly marketed because it offers much more than most cameras’ movie modes.  The S2 IS can shoot at a clear 640 x 480 resolution in 30 smooth frames per second, and stereo audio recording is available while shooting movie clips.  The long 12x optical zoom lens can be used during movie recording, an uncommon and welcome option. It may not be worth it though; the zoom is especially noisy and will be easily picked up on the stereo audio recording.