Like the S90, the S95's identically 'modest' megapixel sensor indicates that Canon is continuing to call a halt to the race for more megapixels in preference to improving said sensor's ability to perform better at higher ISO settings.
Other specifications of note on the S95 include a 28mm wide-angle setting, optically stabilized 3. More surprisingly for a compact with a width not a great deal broader than your credit card, both RAW and JPEG capture are also offered.
Perhaps more predictably, point-and-shoot user friendliness on the S95 comes in the form of the fully automatic face detection, motion detection and Smart Auto scene detection technologies regularly found on Canon's snapshot compacts.
Something that was glaringly missing from the S90 - HD video capture - has been rectified on the S95, with p movies at x pixels resolution available at 24fps complete with stereo sound. Unfortunately there is no optical zoom available during recording, only 4x digital, and no auto-focus either, which limits what can be achieved and doesn't compare well to some of the S95's main rivals.
Pared down to the essentials, which includes a quick start guide in the box and full manual on provided CD only, there's nothing initially about the S95 that feels extraneous or gimmicky.
The most prominent feature of the S95's clean and rather serious looking faceplate is firstly the lens itself, and secondly the aforementioned control ring that encircles it and turns with a series of satisfyingly audible clicks. In this way, to take one example, users can elect to adjust focus manually, a distance slider appearing on the right hand side of the LCD screen and the central portion of the image enlarged as a further aid to accuracy.
This expands on the S90's options and allows further customisation to suit your own shooting style. Additionally if you opt for the Nostalgic mode hidden within the scene mode options, a continual twist of the lens ring in either direction will progressively de-saturate the colours in your image to give the effect of ageing, with a full twist rendering the shot relayed on screen as black and white.
The clever flash is housed within the top plate so that when it's raised it is at least a centimeter away from the lens in a cursory attempt to avoid the blight of red eye. Select the forced flash option and, technically, rather than popping up, the bulb instead rises majestically from the body with a low mechanical accompaniment… very cool.
Moving to the top plate, we find at its foremost edge a shutter release button, which is a little smaller than the S90's, encircled by a zoom rocker switch with front lip that has been squared off to fall into line with the width of the body and avoid distracting from the clean lines.
There's just enough of it to achieve purchase with a fingertip, the lens traveling steadily and surely from maximum wide-angle setting to extreme telephoto in just under two seconds sound-tracked by a low operational whirr. Press this with a fingernail and the S95 powers up for action in just over a second, rear LCD bursting into life soundtracked by a musical 'sting' and lens barrel extending from its stacked hiding place within the camera's innards to its maximum wide angle setting.
A half press of the nearby shutter button and the camera chooses a point of focus within a second or so, AF point or points flashing in green accompanied by an affirmative 'beep'. Go on to take the shot and there's little if any discernible shutter delay, while full resolution JPEGS are written to inserted optional SD or SDHC card there's no internal memory provided to fall back on in just over a second, with RAW files - selectable in Program or one of the other four creative shooting modes - taking a mere fraction longer.
With the integral flash housed and hidden to the far left of the top plate if gazing down on the camera , to the right is an inset shooting mode dial operated by the thumb.
Rigid to the touch, it clicks into place at each of its nine mode settings, with a more definite action than the S90's dial. The S95's Smart Auto functionality goes further than rivals in comparing common scenes or subjects with not just five or six options, but 28 variables to deliver - in theory - the most appropriate and optimal results. The new HDR mode works well, combining three separate images to greatly expand the dynamic range, although you need to mount the S95 on a tripod to prevent camera-shake and fast-moving subjects appear as ghost outlines.
Click the mode wheel around to each subsequent setting and the name and icons of said mode appears on the camera's LCD with, in some cases, a brief text description of the best application for the particular mode.
This suggests that the S95 can be used as readily by beginners as more seasoned digital camera users, the variety of shooting options to be found on the mode dial allowing first timers to move beyond their initial comfort zone as familiarity with the camera's workings grows over time.
With the back of the Canon S95 largely swallowed up by the 3 inch LCD screen, the visibility of which proves more than adequate both indoors and out, a familiar array of controls is found shunted to the right hand side. Familiar, in that they ape those found on the G11 to a fair extent, including the love it or loathe it scroll wheel surrounding the thumb operated four-way control pad. From the top then is a small piece of moulding extending from below where the mode dial sits on the top plate, a subtle protrusion provided under which rests the tip of the users thumb when gripping the camera for shooting handheld.
This is still the only place on the camera affording much in the way of manually steadying the S95; as mentioned, while admittedly keeping things resolutely compact, there's no grip provided at the front or sides and is one of the few areas in which this model feels truly compromised.
The Pictbridge button can be more usefully assigned a different function, with no less than 20 different options to choose from. In conjunction with the customisable lens control ring, this makes it easy to tailor the S95 to your own specific way of shooting. Beneath this is the control pad and scroll wheel combination. At points north, east, south and west we get options, in capture modes, for adjusting exposure compensation, flash settings, self-timer options, and macro or manual focus, if not already using the front lens ring for the latter.
The new Tracking AF mode focuses on the subject in the centre of the frame and tracks them if they move, useful for keeping up with fast-moving or unpredictable subjects like children. If the camera is in playback mode, points north and south allow a series of captured images to be leapfrogged if hunting down a particular shot saved to card in a hurry, or alternatively deleting a duff capture.
Press this, and as we're used to from recent Canon compacts a toolbar appears down the left hand side of the screen, options highlighted or de-selected dependant on whether the user is in auto capture or one of the more fully featured creative capture modes.
In Program mode, for example, selecting the ISO icon provides a slide rule across the bottom of the screen with ISO speeds set out incrementally in the following order: Auto, 80, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , The user simply utilizes the scroll wheel or tabs between them to select the desired setting. Returning to the camera back, and below the control pad we find a final pairing of buttons for Display and the self-explanatory Menu. I made mine a little thicker than his to see if I could make the finger grip inside, for the balls of the fingers, which I did, but they don't really work the same on this scale.
Regardless, all you need is a little more confidence with a front grip, and your thumb raises up on the back, away from the loose Control Dial, as another reviewer pointed out.
Without it, you want to move your thumb down to better oppose the fingers on the front in a tighter pinch. Either way, I've had a better experience, but with the grip, the problems I had with the S90 are a distant memory, and I whip the Canon S95 around with more confidence.
Oh, and the regular-strength Command strips come off cleanly every time. But you don't have to get out the craft supplies to make the Canon S95 yours: Canon has given you at least two easy ways to make the S95 work the way you'd like. The Shortcut button and at least the front Control Ring are quite customizable. Custom White Balance. Cameras often come to me with unusual settings from the Lab. I accidentally pressed the Shortcut button when I was first playing with the Canon S95 and was annoyed when it automatically set the Custom White Balance.
I went straight to the Set Shortcut button Menu item and set the button to "Not assigned. It wasn't five minutes later when I went back to the Menu item and turned Custom White Balance back on. It's actually incredibly handy for today's constantly changing light sources. With so many types of fluorescent lights in my house alone, Auto White Balance systems are quite challenged.
But if I encounter a light source the Canon S95 isn't handling right, I just find a scene with some white in it and press the Shortcut button. That takes a reading, momentarily blanking out the screen, and sets the White balance to Custom.
So long as there's something neutral in the scene toward the center of the frame, the setting is nearly always right. Step zoom. One of the options for the front Control Ring is Zoom, which brings up a focal length rule onscreen, covering five common focal lengths: 28, 35, 50, 85, and mm equivalent. I like that there are fewer than are on the Panasonic LX5; but strangely the camera hesitates like a nervous kid playing musical chairs, not sure whether to move on to the next position, even when I've already clicked to the next stop.
It wastes time, unfortunately, but it's not a deal breaker. It's nice to have the presets available when I need them, and I can still zoom to a random focal length with the regular zoom toggle around the power button, so you can have quick access to both features without having to commit to either.
Frustratingly, though, EV Compensation remains the standard choice for at least one of the controls in Program mode; never is "EV Off" an option. That's all I'd like, is a checkbox that disables either the rear Control Dial or else both dials, for the person who doesn't want to be bothered with either.
Thankfully, as I've mentioned, my experience has been considerably better, so I'll let it go. Just be aware that if you accidentally turn either of these dials, you might adjust something you didn't intend, so be sure to check your status icons often. Canon's new Hybrid IS works pretty well, and while I haven't had the surreal experience I had with the LX5 of watching the image lock in space while the camera moved, I've been able to take handheld shots in some pretty low light.
Hybrid IS is new technology from Canon that compensates for both shift blur and angular or tilting camera motion point your camera at the sky then the earth to understand what I mean by tilting. I call the S95's IS a success. It works so well that I don't even think about it. I was also pleased to find bracketing in the Canon S From there, just turn the dial or use the left and right arrows to expand the options. My favorite part is from there it's automatic: just frame your image and press the shutter button and the Canon S95 will capture your three images and get ready for the next shot.
You don't have to remember what shot you're on or even press the shutter three separate times while trying to maintain the framing. I'm not really a fan of the overblown use of HDR that's rampant in the photo world, but I've also too often been in places that defied capture thanks to bright skies and deep shadows. I happened to try it on a day when the sky was filled with fast moving, mostly dark clouds, with the Sun peeking through now and then.
The sky was interesting, but it wasn't possible to properly expose the scenery while maintaining the texture and shape of the clouds, even though they were darker. Because it's a Scene mode, you're offered no control over the span of exposures captured in HDR mode, nor how they are combined. The Canon S95 takes three shots and combines them in-camera, taking about two seconds to capture the images, and four to combine them.
Unlike Sony's HDR and low light modes, the Canon S95 does not microalign each image, and it won't intelligently delete objects that have moved between exposures. So you need a tripod at least, and it's preferable to have a static scene.
I tried several subjects, and enjoyed the results enough that I also added a few color options. With this particular target, the rebuilt Woodstock Train Station, these effects added a nice touch. It's another thing I don't normally do, but since I've taken this shot probably 50 times, it was a nice change of pace. The HDR mode controls just about everything else, including white balance. Menus are mostly Canon's standard design, and thankfully Canon has returned to the far better Function menu, rather than the slot-machine style that they had on some of last year's high-end PowerShots.
Each tab in the main Menu has more items than can fit on the screen, and you can either scroll up and down with the arrows or use the Control Dial. If you use the arrows, the menu wraps to the top when you reach the bottom of the list; if you use the Dial, it stops. To move to the next tab, you have to either scroll to the top to highlight the tab, or use a little-known PowerShot trick and use the zoom toggle, which jumps from tab to tab regardless where you are in the menu.
Low light. I didn't get as much low light shooting in as I did with the LX5; just the luck of the draw in terms of family events and such. But where I did shoot it, the Canon S95 did quite well.
There's some noise even in low ISO images, especially in the shadows, which is strange for a Canon product. When I printed the images in question up to 11x14, though, I didn't see the noise.
It was mostly luminance noise, and it just blends in. Many indoor shots are a tad soft, thanks to noise suppression, but again they make good prints, so it's hard to complain about that. I wandered in to get some shots of my daughter sleeping in her crib. With just the light on from the bathroom some 20 feet away--not direct light either, light you could fall asleep in, she looks like she's in daylight at ISO 3, with a 1-second exposure, braced against the top rail of the crib.
At least onscreen and in our thumbnails. But zoomed in it's pretty mottled. I found better quality at ISO 2,, with fewer yellow blotches. The Low light mode, indicated by a candle on the Mode dial, didn't even come close to what ISO did, and it was a 2.
Clearly that mode is meant for more light than this, and even then it's fairly soft detail compared to what I remember 2-megapixel cameras putting out. I prefer to shoot at full resolution with some kind of help from a tripod or other brace to get a better shot.
Incidentally, 1 second was the limit in Program mode, but I could have done 15 seconds in Shutter speed mode. The camera held the image steady, thanks to Hybrid IS, but very often my subjects moved. Autofocus takes a little longer than the Panasonic LX5, about twice as long, at 0.
That's a little slower than average for most pocket digicams, but telephoto is 0. Prefocused shutter lag is 0. Cycle time is pretty slow, taking 2. In RAW mode, it's 2. In Continuous mode, the Canon S95 turns out 1. Continuous RAW, though, dips back down, at 0. Flash recycles in 6 seconds, a little slower than average, but not badly.
Movie mode is improved, now with p HD resolution, but unfortunately you cannot zoom optically while shooting a movie, and autofocus is locked. Given the zoom motor noise, it's understandable that you'd not be able to zoom, but still unfortunate. There are three "effects" modes available when recording movies, including Miniature Effect, Color Accent, and Color Swap. One aspect I didn't like about using the Canon S90 was that it didn't update the auto exposure information until you half-press the shutter button.
For example, if I was in Aperture priority mode adjusting aperture, I didn't see a preview of what shutter speed the camera was going to choose until after I pressed the shutter button.
It's only then that you find out that the camera might have to set a shutter speed that's outside the camera's ability, in which case the maximum or minimum shutter speed is shown in red. So essentially you don't know whether you've exceeded the available shutter speed or aperture until you half-press the shutter. Relative resolution. In the crops below, the Canon looks like it starts out on top and stays just ahead most of the way. However, what you're not seeing in this first set of crops is the very difficult red swatch in our Still Life target, which on the S95 starts out quite blurry at ISO 80, yet the LX5 handles it quite well.
See the two crops below. The biggest gain that the S95 has over the previous model is HD video recording p at 24fps with stereo audio. While there's no manual control for movie mode, white balance and colour mode adjustments are available. The S95 also adds Canon's new Hybrid IS technology, which corrects camera shake from a number of different directions thanks to a built-in accelerometer. Seasoned photographers will value the bracketing options: HDR-ready, which takes three shots at different exposures; and focus bracket, which takes three shots at different focal distances.
Note there's also an automatic HDR mode accessible from the scene mode menu. The S90's big strength was its image quality, and the S95 consistently matches it beat-for-beat. Colour rendition is accurate with particularly strong blues and greens. The camera seems to cope well with difficult exposures even in automatic mode, choosing to under- or overexpose using the exposure compensation accordingly.
The image stabilisation system does do well at slow shutter speeds, but it can't compensate entirely for shaky hands or low-light use without a tripod. Like the S90, the S95 is very competent with macro shots and the lens sharpness is very impressive, capturing clear detail across the frame. Video quality is really very impressive for a compact of this class.
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