Comments on the Canon PowerShot S95 camera
Part two

Some photographers have written in disdain that camera body design of the S95 is akin to that of a bar of soap. Considered out of context this might be true; however, the whole point of this camera is having RAW capability with complete photographic control in a truly pocketable package. In my view, the S95 is currently the only camera that has achieved this design objective, and the alternatives offered by the competition (Panasonic LX–5, Nikon P7000, etc.) are not in the same league in terms of pocketability because of the overall bulk (the Nikon) or the protruding lens (the Panasonic). The S95 is truly small and pocketable—sometimes I even forget which pocket I left it in! From this perspective, I personally very much welcome the "bar of soap" design.

To at least partially address the handling compromises ensued by the "bar of soap" design, the body of the S95 boasts a rubberised coating that improves and reassures handling of the camera; another important benefit of the coating is that it does not attract fingerprints, so that, unlike cameras with metal body surfaces, the S95 always looks clean. Despite the improved handling, however, it is nearly impossible to use the camera with one hand. When photographing landscapes I often carry tripod in my left hand while keeping a compact camera in a right pocket so that it is ready for quick or casual shooting. The S95 has changed that habit—I have to put tripod down to take a shot or use the camera for pre–visualisation of a scene.

The benefit of having a camera in your pocket—image taken with the Canon S95
while flying somewhere over Northern China

User interface is very well thought out and allows exercising complete photographic control without delving into menus too often. In fact, I had to extensively peruse the menus only once when initially setting up the camera the way I intended to use it; after that was done I could mostly forget about the existence of the menus altogether. User interface is simple and straightforward enough, too—to the point that I figured out how to use the camera almost without reading the manual (this being said, I still do turn to it every once in a while to clarify some finer points). Not all is perfect, however—there are two important aspects of photographic control that I found poorly implemented.

Being a camera for serious photographers the S95 offers overexposure warning during playback, and overexposed areas of an image flash in Detailed Information Display playback mode. The problem, however, is that image area in this playback mode is only slightly larger than a forth of the area of the screen, which is too small to show overexposed areas accurately, as well as for smaller overexposed areas to be noticeable (or even shown). This is further exacerbated by the fact that overexposed areas flash in an animated manner, which, contrary to the intent, makes them more difficult to see. I would certainly prefer no–frills flashing of overexposed areas in full–screen images.

The second poorly implemented feature is the Auto ISO function. The S95 allows choosing the maximum ISO sensitivity between ISO400 and ISO1600, which is fine and as expected; however, instead of setting the slowest acceptable (minimum) shutter speed as is done in most cameras, the S95 offers you to choose between Fast, Slow and Standard "rate of change". I have no idea how this "rate of change" came about or what it means, and the manual has nothing to say about it, too. Nonetheless, a simple test indicates that the camera starts increasing ISO sensitivity at a relatively fast shutter speed in "Fast" rate of change, at a slower shutter speed in "Standard" rate of change and at a yet slower shutter speed in "Slow" rate of change. This appears to further depend on the current focal length setting, as well as the camera's seeming preference not to go beyond ISO800 too soon. In the end, it is difficult to guess what shutter speed and ISO setting the camera is going to use in a given situation. In my view, this is not the best possible implementation of Auto ISO function, and, at the very least, Canon should have properly documented it to know what exactly the camera is doing. As mentioned in the first part of the article, I prefer to set maximum ISO sensitivity to ISO640; further, since image stabilization of the S95 is quite impressive, I use "Slow" rate of change most of the time. In this particular combination the camera's minimum shutter speed is 1/15 seconds at all focal length settings.

Canon S95: handheld at 1/5 seconds and tack sharp!

The S95, generally, is fast and responsive, and I am particularly impressed with how swift shooting in RAW format is for a compact camera. Quite strangely, though, the camera is not equally responsive in everything it does—some aspects of its operation seem snappier than others. The difference is not huge, but one can clearly feel it, especially over a longer period of using the camera. Psychologically, the snappier aspects of operation (e.g., browsing menus or changing settings in a given shooting mode) create an expectation as to what overall speed and responsiveness shall be. However, when you run into something that is slower than expected (e.g., changing between shooting PASM modes, changing focal lengths, etc.), it tends to be quite annoying, especially when you are tying to shoot quickly.

Battery life, well, leaves a lot to be desired—I get about 200 exposures with a fresh, fully charged battery without using flash. Consider buying and carrying a spare battery an inescapable necessity. Then again, though, this is not surprising given the size of the camera and the battery.

The lens, while not perfect, is very good for a compact camera, especially given that it is fairly fast (f/2 at the wide end and f/4.9 at the long end). Vignetting and flare do not normally present any problems. Although you can see some softness in the corners at some settings, it is not a major issue and the lens is generally plentifully sharp. Chromatic aberration can be very noticeable in some instances, but it is of the lateral kind and thus can be effectively dealt with in post processing if you shoot RAW. Distortion can be very pronounced, especially at the wide end at close distances, but it tends to have a relatively simple, mostly non–curved, signature and thus can mostly be corrected for, too. In short, most of the optical imperfections can be dealt with in post processing.

At lower ISO settings and if exposure is properly taken care of, image quality is very, very impressive; I think that it easily rivals image quality produced by some cameras with larger sensors. When dealing with compact cameras photographers tend to be mostly concerned with and first look at image noise characteristics. As previously mentioned, when shooting with the S95 I unreservedly use ISO640 (and ISO800 if necessary); furthermore, I like the look of the noise produced by the camera, as well as how it cleans up in post processing.

As it turns out, the Achilles' heel of the S95 is not noise—it is the rather narrow dynamic range and very limited highlight headroom in particular. In my experience, the S95 tends to blow highlights very easily, and they often cannot be recovered in post processing even if you shoot RAW. I have seen this occurring even in relatively low contrast scenes and when images were overall well exposed. In fact, over the longer period I have become more concerned with this issue than that of noise. I would rather err on the side of underexposure and, as a result, dial in a minus compensation often enough that it has almost become a habit. The tendency of the S95 to blow highlights must be watched out for.

Canon S95: watch out for those highlights

In the final analysis, and despite the nitpicking concerns outlined above, I have to reiterate that I have been immensely enjoying using the S95—it is small, well built, fast and produces images of very high quality if used with care. I carry it with me most of the time, and, to be honest, I am no longer certain I need a compact camera with a large sensor. Highly recommended!

Back to part one