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Canon PowerShot S110 2MP Digital ELPH Camera Kit with 2x Optical Zoom

Canon PowerShot S110 2MP Digital ELPH Camera Kit with 2x Optical Zoom

List Price: $599.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: WARNING for Win2000 PowerShot users
Review: Several friends and family have purchased PowerShot 10, 100 and 110 cameras. In general we love them and have been pleased. BUT, there is a fatal flaw with the software supplied for running this application under Win2000. The application appears to work properly, but when shut down after doing a folder update (F5), the application causes your entire Win2000 system to shut down abnormally. In other words an immediate crash of the entire system results. As the application and system crash they corrupt the ZoomBrowser database, and so the application won't restart after a new boot. We found Canon support to be useless in debugging the problem. They deny it exists. (Note, all of our Win2000 installations are on IBM Thinkpads, and it's possible that this failure occurs only on Thinkpads.)

The Adobe software that is/was distributed with the PowerShot also doesn't work with Win2000. Canon admits to that failure, but won't do anything to remedy the situation.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Powershot is the right name.
Review: After watching digital cameras from their inception and early ccd work till the time of this camera's release, I remained quite skeptical till now. Be aware there are some expensive cameras that can give you good resolution and imaging and there are some cheap ones which I wouldn't even use as a snapshot to email to my mother. Recently, I borrowed this camera from a friend to use to take some macro snapshots of an orchid. Next paycheck, I bought the camera for myself.

The S110 offers many things that you'd find in any 2.x megapixel camera. I'm going to skip the obvious benifits of this camera (the small size, the good looks, cheap removable storage, etc.) and focus on the other reasons to get this camera over others.

+ The CCD and the compression are sharp. Really clear. Under all uses of this camera on high res and medium compression, I noticed little to no artifacts (even zoomed in Photoshop) of the compression or the CCD. Further, the images (at any resolution) require little to no post color correction.

+ The camera has a manual mode which lets you move the exposure (+/- 2 stops!), adjust for lighting varience (even tungsten or florescent light), plus several flash modes and a macro & infinity focus. Simple as that. Snap a picture -- twiddle some manual settings -- snap another picture. I can bracket shots! What an happy discovery!

+ The camera also has a "stitch assist" mode, where you can tile several photographs. They aren't actually combind until you download the images and the software realized they need to be stitched by itself. The auto-stitch software works really well...though I'd still go to photoshop for delicate work...but for snapshots and prints it's excellent.

+ The zoom is shallow, 2x max optical, but by doing so the apature is fairly large (2.8f) so you get more light for better pictures (and the camera is small and light too!). After 2x you can digital zoom as much as 5x which loses some effective resolution, but if you just have to zoom it works pretty well. Don't worry either, the flash will shoot to provide the extra light to remove some of the grain.

Like any camera, you have to know how to shoot with it to get used to its behavior, so you'll know when to switch the flash (it shoots a bit bright for some indoor macro work, but hold some tissue paper over the flash and you'll be fine) mode or set the white balance off auto -- but within a day I figured the entire thing out and took some great images with some sharp detail.

The really great thing is, you can just leave the S110 on full auto and get comparably as excellent results.

This camera is worth every penny and more.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent features with small annoyances
Review: For starters, I do not think I could have bought a more perfect first digital camera. Picture quality is excellent, software is reasonably good (takes time to get to learn the ins and outs of any software...), and the portability factor is a big plus. Bottom line - an excellent buy for the approximately ($) street price (and the additional ($) you will shell out for a 128 MB card.)

Faults: Optical viewfinder does not cover the entire image requiring you to switch back and forth between the LCD and optical viewfinder to confirm the picture. Some of the functions are not easy to navigate through the menu (most basic one of changing screen resolution should be one click - no more - period.) No speaker for video playback - though I doubt this is such a big deal to most people. Small LCD display hinders getting a sense of image quality without hooking up camera to an external computer of TV.

Still, bottom line - excellent buy. The faults above are not a big deal given the compact and stylish design as well as the photo quality. One more recommendation - consider investing in an additional battery.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The compact wonder
Review: I spent a long time deciding on a digital camera. I was replacing my trusty point and click film camera, so it had to fit in the camera sleeve of my back pack. It had to have a USB interface and work with my Macintosh iBook. It had to take decent pictures and not go through batteries. So after much consideration I decided on the ELPH S100 and was just about to order one when I realized that Canon had released the S110, so I ordered one and have not regretted it. At the same time, I ordered a 128 MB Compact Flash for $80, as I knew that the included 8 MB card was just too small.

In this review, I'm going to concentrate on using this camera with an iBook. This should apply to using it with any USB capable Mac.

After taking a few pictures, I opened my iBook (a spring 2001 dual USB model running Mac OS 9.1), inserted the supplied CD, installed Canon's software and restarted. I turned on the camera, slid the switch to put the camera into review mode, and plugged the supplied cable into the IO port of the camera and a USB port on the iBook. This cable is most definitely not a standard USB cable, so treat it well. Canon's Image Browser software automatically detected the camera being plugged in and launched.

The pictures in the camera are shown as thumbnails in a scrolling pane which looks like a long strip of film. You can select the ones you like, rotate them, delete them or choose to upload them to your computer's hard drive. Be sure to rotate them if need be before uploading them. Uploading is quite fast for USB. Photos in your photo directory are shown as larger thumbnails in another window. Double clicking on an image opens it up into its own window where you can do simple cropping and exposure/color adjustments. If you want to do anything serious though, I'd recommend finding a copy of Color It! or even spending the big bucks on Photoshop.

I haven't used the movie capture feature extensively, but it works. It generates .AVI files which QuickTime plays easily enough.

Rebooting into Mac OS X (10.1) and plugging the camera in, the Apple provided Image Capture application automatically launches and allows you to download and rotate images quickly and easily.

The pictures it takes are very good. Changing settings take a while to get used to. The neighborhood kids love playing with it. The rechargeable battery is a great feature as it makes picture taking pretty much free.

In sum, this camera fulfilled almost all of my needs and I highly recommend it for general, nonprofessional use.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Expensive camera that's worth the bucks
Review: I recently purchased the S-110 after having a film camera that I hadn't been using much in years. My first and primary concern was size - I wanted a camera that was small enough to carry around with me anywhere. This fit that bill well, and threw in a bunch of features that I love with it.

Positive points:

1. Extremely small - This camera is the perfect size. It's small enough to slip into your pocket and take into a bar or club (I got great pictures at a friend's birthday party at a club in SF), but it's large enough that you can easily hold it to take pictures.

2. Great quality - 2.1 megapixels is the sweet point for digital cameras. The quality looks good on the screen, and looks good printed. You may notice slight quality degradation if you try to enlarge a photo to 8.5x11.

3. Easy to use - Charge the battery and start clicking away. This camera is very easy to use, and you can hit the ground running with high quality pictures as soon as you've taken the time to charge your battery.

4. Rich feature set - This camera has a great set of features for people that want to do a little more with their camera. This includes short video clip recording (more a novelty than anything else), white balance control, zoom, etc. I love the photostitch feature! You can take multiple pictures and stitch them together at the end. The S-110 helps you line up the pictures when you're taking them by showing you a little strip of the last picture you took, and the software does a great job of hiding seams!

5. Good flash - I took pictures all night at a dark night club with no problems whatsoever.

6. Rich supporting software - Both the image organization/download and photo editing software are easy to use and fairly rich.

Negative points:

1. No included case - I'm spending a lot of money for this camera, I think they can/should throw in a $5 (cost) case with it.

2. Not much memory - Buy a 64MB or 128MB CompactFlash card. I went with the 128MB,and now I don't have to carry around an extra card with me.

3. Battery life - You'll need to buy a second battery to complement your extra memory. One battery will let you take about 50 pictures.

4. Poor zoom - Only 2x optical zoom (and another 2.5x digital zoom with loss of picture quality). The S-300 has more zoom, but you pay with a slightly larger camera body and a slightly higher price.

ADDED SIDENOTE (10/13/01): I noticed that another review claims that this product cannot be used with USB hubs or if you have another USB devices attached. This is not the case for me - I have my S110 connected to my PC through the built in USB hub on my USB Microsoft Natural keyboard. I also have a mouse connected to the keyboard. I'm having no problems at all.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: skating very close to fraudulent advertising
Review: Specs on the S110 claim USB connectivity. On purchase, the buyer learns that the camera's driver only works if the S110 is connected directly to the computer: no hubs, no other USB devices. In fact, the USB driver for the S110 cannot even be installed if a hub is in place. This violates the whole reason USB ports/protocols were developed: to permit daisy-chaining of peripherals. There is not the slightest chance the S110 is going to be my only USB connected peripheral.

I am so disgusted with Canon, Inc. over this issue that I will never again trust anything Canon publishes or manufactures.

So, if you never intend to use any other USB device -- go ahead. Buy the PowerShot S100. Otherwise, find another camera.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nice Camera
Review: I have the APS elph too, and this digital camera is a little bigger, but this way I won't have to spend [money] every time I get the pics developed. I recently got hooked on digital photography, and this camera satisfies my need for convienience with performance.

I like the size alot, but the case from canon is not that great. If you have the extra cash go to Tumi and get their ballistic cell phone case...the camera fits **perfectly**...looks really classy and is a little more compact..its [not that much], but I've already spent enough on the cam, a little more won't hurt.

I'll still use the APS ELPH alot, especially when I go to places where the elements might damage the cam (i.e. splash mountain, the beach, etc), but I am going to carry around the s110 all the time since its so small and I won't have to pay for film or developing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The little engine that could.
Review: Life, in many ways, is a cycle of expansion and contraction. The last thing I want to do during the last half of my days on earth is get weighed down by more stuff. Reduction and compression being my mantra, I couldn't help but be struck by the understated boldest of a Canon Elph, nestled among all of its bigger brothers and sisters at my local retailer. Then, when I read the Amazon editorial reviews for the S100, I figured this miniature marvel would be my choice for the last camera I hope to own. The "movie mode" of the S110 seemed gratuitous, like a kids' novelty add-on. But then I went to Canon's website and noticed that the S100 had been released in May 2000 and had been replaced a year later by the S110 which, it is claimed, also has a slightly better lens and longer-lasting battery. Given the negligible price spread between the two cameras...along with the identical weight and dimensions, common sense dictated taking the S110 over its older but not bigger sister. This Lilliputian actually fits in my shirt pocket. The next smallest models--a 3.1 megapixel Sony (at more[money]!) and a tempting 2.1 megapixel Olympus--would have made the pockets of my blazer, but hey it's summer.

As for picture quality, I'm frankly amazed. Whether it can compare to 8X10 prints by other 2.1 cameras, I'll leave to the experts.

The only "down side" so far: controls on the camera are made for a munchkin with pin-point vision, so I'm constantly taking off my glasses to see them better. But I usually pIay the piano with my eyes closed, so I certainly should be able to do the same with a point and shoot camera.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Welcome digital!!
Review: First, this camera is incredible. I was a sceptic being from the home of Kodak. Never did I think digital would produce pictures as stunning and vibrant as this (if you're a manual 35MM SLR user you'll be impressed). Second, the size of this camera is worth the price. It literally fits in your front pocket!! Third, I'm not a techno-file, but using this is easy. I read the manual, took about 15 minutes, and started snapping photos and AVI files to email to grandma and grandpa.

I purchased a few extras: San-Disk Imagemate Compact Flash (CF) Reader USB-SDDR-31, extra battery NB-1L, extra 64MB CF, and a Canon soft leather case #40....

One negative, no pun intended, the battery does give off heat. I have had problems with this in other Canon products. Hopefully it won't affect anything. Worth the investment, The black and white capability and movies(AVI) with sound (although monophonic) really won me over to this camera vs. the Olympus D490. If you're looking for digital you won't be disappointed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Extreme niftosity!
Review: After struggling to get a different digital camera to talk to various PCs and Macs over the years and not having much success, what a relief to buy a camera that quickly and easily downloads pictures. All you have to do is install the software from the included CD-ROM, restart your computer, and, when you're ready to copy over your photographic masterpieces, connect the USB cable to the camera, then to your CPU, and turn the camera on. The Canon software recognizes the S110 and immediately displays your shots in a little browser of its own. From there you can alter (e.g., rotate) the pictures, discard what you don't like, and keep the rest. Plus, you get a limited edition of Photoshop to resize and otherwise manipulate your work. What else could you want? Of course, the fact that the S110 takes great pictures--and at various sizes and qualities, depending on your preferences--and looks oh-so-chic doesn't hurt, either. I love it that you can put this cool unit in your pocket and take it anywhere. And it has a zoom. Turn it off, and it even protects its own lens! If you're looking for a great starter-to-mid-level digital camera, this is the one to get.


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