Product Description
PowerShot S3 IS is equipped with an approximately 6.0 million camera effective pixel 1/2.5-inch Charge Coupled Device (CCD). Also, with DIGIC II, higher resolution and high-speed processing were achieved and the startup time and response time were shorten
Customer Reviews:
Very good pics but some usability issues.......2007-08-30
Early reviews claim you can not use more than a 2GB SD cards well you can because I use a 4GB card. The camera is pretty good and I went on safari with it and a 2x tele lens that was needed to frame the photo on animals without having to crop in post production as the 12x optical zoom was not enough. The major flaw with this camera is that it is all too easy to accidentally change the ISO from Auto to Hi ruining many of my early photographs with Elephants... damn I hate ISO and I was not happy at all because I had done this before. Another problem is the fiddly manual focusing especially in Macro mode. Yet another was it had problem with light... for example in a very sunny shot it either over saturated the light or made the dark area very dark... this is unlike my Canon Ixus but I have a feeling this is user error and i need to read the manual. In video mode I had a few lines on areas of fast moving fire.
In auto I love the ability to flip down the flash to force a slightly long shutter speed in the heat of taking nigh time shots. Many people complain about the lens cap falling off... I think it is a feature of the camera enabling it to fall off when you extend the lens for use.
I am happy with it.
great camera.......2007-08-28
this is the best camera i have ever owned...as a motorcycle racing fan I have taken some fantastic pictures using the sports mode....its so easy to use and the results are more than satisfactory....friends have told me I should be selling the photo's that I've taken with my S3....Great camera for the price.....
Almost perfect.....almost.......2007-08-14
When looking for a camera there are a number of questions you need to ask.
For this camer, the following applies
Is it good for beginers - Yes
Is it good for the serious user - Yes - plently of options to fiddle!
Does it have image stabaliser - Yes
Does it have zoom - Hell yes! 12X
Is battery life good - Yes - on holiday in Italy useing 4 X rechageable AA with full quality pictures on a 1gb card i took 300 + pictures plus 2 videos and did not have to change the batteries at all. Use the viewfinder instead of the LED and it is astonishing
Is the LED good - Yes, not as big as some others, but its swivel ability gives you so many options. But you should not use it all the time when you have an electronic view finder. It folds away and so does not get finger marks
Are the resulting pictures good - Yes. Minimal tweaking on editing progs like Picasa2 will sharpen and boost the contrast a little.
Is it good in doors - Not bad, could be better, just be sure to keep the flash on
Action shots - Yes - very good.
Panorama shots - Yes, and the Canon stich program and editing software is blinding!
Video - Superb, with sound, more than enough for the casual takes.
Heavy - Not really, nice balance if held properly.
Down side (hence the 4 star and not 5) - Lens cap keeps falling off. Although a big improvement on the S1, the zoom is still a little slow on focusing. Unlike the S1, you have to manually raise the flash.
Summary - a lovely camera, with more than sufficient pixel (6mp) any more and you probably would not gain anything. Zoom of 12X is brilliant, no need to even think of digital zoom. Handles well, and over all as an owner you would not be feeling you have wasted your money. You would be hard pushed to get this much packed into any other camera with such a superb inbuild software.
Good multipurpose camera.. great video function.......2007-06-25
It has been just over 7 months since I bought this camera from Amazon, and the price has not changed so much as you would expect with electronics these days. Well the rating gives a clue why ;)
Good points:
- Good, if not great, photos.
- 12x zoom a very distinct advantage.
- I love the one-touch video function. I know some people complain about the 1GB limit, it doesnt bother me because you can restart recording once it stops! Simple. Ok, you will lose a second or 2, but... go get a camcoder if you can't live with it! And the quality is good too.
- You can even take pictures while taking a video - not of best quality, but its just a function provided! All you do is press the shutter release button while rec video.
- Option to attach a wide-angle lens to cover a larger area in photos.
- And yeah - GREAT battery life! I use 2500mA rechargeable batteries and they last for whole length of my day trips (and more)!
- The "twistable" LCD screen is useful while holding camera close to ground or high up above (street festivals, for eg.)!
Not-So-Good points:
- Noisy zoom function. Sometimes can be heard in the recorded video!
- The "Funct" button on the back of the camera is a short-cut to changing photo dimensions and I once ended up pressing it by mistake. All the photos that followed were 640x480!! I have since learnt to be cautious and also check the settings once in a while.
- Option to use SD cards higher than 2GB would be useful for recording video.
I am not a professional to comment about the pro use of camera, but for person like me learning about the manual control functions its great!
PS: I wanted to give something less than 5 stars, but did not have the heart to knock off one whole!
Great camera - but a few shorcomings .......2007-06-08
This is great camera with a long focal range and with accessory lenses to make it even wider - the TC-DC58B adapter makes it over 600mm !
In using long zooms turn off the IS ( Image Stabilisation ) and use a tripod for best results.
I have one major complaint with this camera - no REMOTE facilty, either infra-red or cable. This is disappointing. You can use the timer set to 1 sec, but thats's no substitute.
Also the Aperture range is a bit limited - f8 is the maximum - but that's ok, and the motorised zoom is a bit slow.
It has a movie facility - you can get 7-8 minutes of avi on a 1 GB SD card - use a fast card like Sandisk Ulta or Extreme for this. 1 GB is the maximum - using a 2 GB card won't get you a continuous 15 mins movie.
All in all it's a good camera and gives loads of options from auto to manual. It uses 4 x AA batteries that's great !
I would have liked a manual zoom instead of a motorised one , but ... ok.
The S5 is due out in JUly - still no remote and no RAW files.
It uses the same chip as the S3 but just crams more pixels into it - but you can record an hour of continuous movies with a 4 GB SD card.
I won't be upgrading to the S5 - buy the S3 whose price should come down - the S5 is no massive upgrade to the S3. A few extra pixels aren't worth the extra.
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