Canon PowerShot S30

gestaltent

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Price Paid:  $50.00 from classifieds

Summary:
The first digital camera I ever owned! Saw it on an online classifieds for the bargain price of $40 so decided, why not: A digital camera that's so cheap there's no reason not to take the plunge. Have used it for people photos and parties where I normally use 35mm compact point and shoots.

Strengths:
Good looking.Overall, Solidly built feel for point and shoot. Cheap. Sharp Canon lens. Enough Megapixels for decent sized prints. Nearly full manual override available. Wide and useful range of exposure modes. Built in autobracketing.
Can tell you focusing distance.

Weaknesses:
Battery life is too short and proprietary. Controls are non intuitive and for a point and shoot , somewhat complex: can take some getting used too. Not as easy as say Kodak Easyshare 433 . Not as compact as some other models. Heavy for its size. Green full white balance auto mode doesn't adapt correctly to all light sources. Telephoto side of zoom is slow.

Similar Products Used:
Sharp, Minolta, Fuji, Kodak and other digital point and shoots.

Customer Service:
N/A

bones

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
2-5 years

Price Paid:  $750.00 from visions

Summary:
3 seasons with this camera and counting. What a fantastic product. It took a few weeks to get used to the shutter speed and the differences between a digital picture and a film picture. The manual functions are a big plus. The ability to take hundreds of "practice shots" has greatly improved my photography skills.

Strengths:
Ease of use, Relatively sturdy build, color settings, fast shutter speed, amazing image qualiy.

Weaknesses:
terribly undersizezd memory card. lens closure is cheaply done. Would love to be able to have a manual shutter control option for long exposures.

Similar Products Used:
none

Customer Service:
no experience

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5,
1 votes

Price Paid:  $400.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
Great camera, despite the 3.0 megapixel limit, I haven't had any clarity problems for either web use or printing 4x6 hardcopies (should be able to do an 8x10). I do alot of landscape shots, but the F-stop is limited compared to an SLR, so alot of my skies get bleached out. Really portable and excellent for taking on hikes or mtbiking.

Strengths:
wider F-stop range (up to 8) than any other P-S digital I've seen, lots of features, software easy to use, performs almost like an SLR

Weaknesses:
needs a larger F-stop range (up to 32), but then again that would be equivalent to a digital SLR, manual focus difficult to use

Customer Service:
haven't had to use so far, had the camera about 10 months now

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5,
1 votes

Price Paid:  $600.00 from Henrys

Summary:
My experience with digital cameras is limited, but the quality of these pictures is absolutely stunning. I've had prints made on many occasions and you couldn't tell it apart from the best 35mm film! The choice between vivid mode or neutral mode is invaluable; I would suggest neutral for people pics (flash or no flash) and vivid for landscapes and all that. This camera also has features that only large SLR film camears have; including control over aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings. That right there my friends is killer. The digital noise isn't taht bad if you make a 4 x 6 print at the camera's highest resolution (2046 x 1800..something like that)

Strengths:
- 3.2 megapixels means great enlargements up to about 8x10 - 30 second 320x240 Quicktime movie with sound (it's not the greatest quality but trust me its nice to have this if you dont have your $1300 Sony camcorder with you) - Contrast, Sharpness and Saturation modes...you can get a Fuji Velvia look with super saturation or the toned down look like Portra NC. And of course black and white or sepia tones. Beauty! - full manual mode with an aperture range of f/2.8 to f/8.0, and shutter speesd between 15 seconds and 1/1000th second. Versatile? You bet!!

Weaknesses:
not really a weakness but just a warning...be sure to use "neutral" automode with people pics...using vivid will make (caucasian) skin tones look incredibly red and unflattering, worse than Fuji's Superia line.

Similar Products Used:
Never have I seen a digicam this good, not that I claim to be the most experienced digital camera user but I've seen alot of digicams that kind of sucked

Customer Service:
none needed

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Price Paid:  $399.00 from etronics.com

Summary:
I did a lot of online research before testing cameras, and found very favorable reviews of this camera. I've used it for over a year now and have no qualms that I've got a quality product. I did take the time to read most of the instruction manual, and I have used most of the available features including the adjustable white balance, manual focus, shutter speed and exposure settings, etc. Adjusting these can correct for nearly any situation, but the "auto" mode usually works great to produce vivid pictures. I didn't see the need to get a camera with more than 3 megapixels, since the highest resolution monitor anyone I know has is 1600x1200 (2 megapixels), although I had heard that a 3 MP camera can print flawless 8x10 prints. I've only ever printed one 5x7 as the largest print and honestly you couldn't tell it was even taken with a digital camera. I've seen pictures from several other cameras including Fujifilm, Sony, and Olympus and the Canon seems to put them away at least in certain situations. The Fuji doesn't take great pictures of people but is great at landscapes adn the Olympus was just the opposite. This could've been model-specific, but all I know is that I love my Canon.

Strengths:
Excellent picture quality, easy to use in "auto" mode, wide host of settings to feel like a super-user, extremely sturdy feeling metal casing, software allows to resize and compress to many levels for emailing or posting online.

Weaknesses:
somewhat heavy (compared to Canon Elph, at least), software may be a bit slow...but I'm never in that much of a rush anyway.

Similar Products Used:
fuji, sony, olympus (sorry i don't know models)

Customer Service:
never needed - i guess that's the best possible kind.