Canon PowerShot S100 - The best photographs from any camera that fits in a pocket

Canon PowerShot S100 is still the smallest camera you can buy that delivers good photo quality with a full set of manual capabilities and a wide-aperture lens. And it's a great little camera--well designed and comfortable to shoot, albeit with a couple of caveats. The lens may start out with a wide aperture, but it gets narrow pretty fast as you start to zoom, so make sure that's not going to drive you nuts; if it will you may want to check out a slightly more expensive model like the Olympus XZ-1 or Fujifilm FinePix X10. It's also not terribly fast--probably fine for street shooting, but it'll never keep up with unpredictable kids or animals.

The good
A great little camera with advanced features, the Canon PowerShot S100 builds on the strengths of its excellent predecessor.

The bad
As a trade-off for extending the zoom range to 5x the lens' aperture narrows very quickly as you zoom out. And there's no improvement over the S95's so-so performance, despite the price increase.

The bottom line
The Canon PowerShot S100 is a generally great little camera for advanced shooters who don't mind slowing down a bit from a dSLR.

CNet Reviews. Review date 11/17/2011. Read the review

Quick Specs

General: Type : Point and shoot
Zoom : 5x (optical) & 4x (digital)
Aperture : f / 2 - 5.9
Focal length (zoom) : 5.2 - 26 mm
Focal length (zoom, 35mm equiv) : 24 - 120mm
Focus distance (min) : 1.2 inches
Sensor: Resolution (effective) : 12.1 megapixels
Sensor type : CMOS
Sensor size : 1 x 1.7 inches
ISO modes : 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400
LCD: Screen size : 3 inches. 461,000 dots
Screen type : LCD (Active, Color)
Storage: Memory card : SD (SDXC, SDHC)
Battery: Battery life (CIPA standard) 200 shoots
Battery type : Li-ion (Removable)

Flash: Flash : Internal
Flash modes : Slow sync, Red-eye reduction
Shooting: Focus : Autofocus (9 points), Manual
Autofocus features : Tracking, AF assist lamp, Face / smile detection
Shooting speed : 9.6 fps (max), 2.3 fps (continuous)
Shutter speed : 1/ 1 - 2000 secs
Video: 1080/24p. H.264 QuickTime MOV. Stereo
Connections: USB : 2.0 (Mini-USB port)
Video output : Yes
Video outputs : HDMI (1 outputs), RCA / composite (1 outputs)
Size & weight: Dimensions : 2.34 x 3.9 x 1.05 (HxWxD inches)
Weight : 6.98 ounces
General info: Manufactur warranty : 1 year
Official site : www.usa.canon.com

What others say?

Gizmodo
It's tiny, fast, takes great photos, and has awesome functionality at a very reasonable price. None of that matters if the camera won't turn on. ... If you go for it, keep the battery on the charger, pack a spare, and be ready to babysit—because this Canon PowerShot S100 is not quite grown up. Nov 10, 2011. Read the review

Digital Photography Review
Cannon PowerShot S100 combines the best qualities of a pocketable point and shoot and an enthusiast compact camera. It provides well thought-out full manual control in a form factor approaching the size of Canon's Elph series. Dec 1, 2011. Read the review

DigitalCameraInfo
Canon once again strikes gold with Canon PowerShot S100. It’s a camera that fulfills the promise of every ultracompact: to cram an astounding level of power into a tiny, portable body. From now on, it is likely the S100 will be the point-and-shoot by which all others are judged. Nov 11, 2011. Read the review

DC Resource
Overall, Canon PowerShot S100 is a well-designed camera whose best attribute is its image quality. It obviously can't compete with a digital SLR (or mirrorless camera), but it is way better than your typical compact camera. Dec 1, 2011. Read the review

Imaging Resource
The Canon PowerShot S100 is an excellent pocket camera for photographers. It didn't jazz me as much as the first and second iterations of the line, but I eventually grew to rely on it for quality photos and video when I needed to travel light. It's a certain Dave's Pick, and an excellent... Mar 13, 2012. Read the review