Canon PowerShot S50 Digital Camera

Well, here I go again, reviewing yet another digital camera. Funny, in just the last two months, four new digital cameras have come into my possession, and one has gone out. That one was a Canon S200 Digital Elph, which I had for a year and a half or so, and enjoyed greatly. It was a 2 megapixel, ultra-compact camera that took excellent pictures within the limitations of its automation. This camera satisfied all of my needs until I tried taking some serious portraits with it.

I'll confess, I used to be a very serious photographer, but that was long before digital. Last summer I built-up a nice manual focus Nikon SLR outfit and have had great fun rediscovering photography. Of course, having tasted digital with that S200 (and a cheap Toshiba before that), I yearned for a high-end digital camera which would allow me to express myself creatively.

For creative photography I bought a Canon G3, which I really enjoy. With the G3, the 420EX speedlight and the accessory telephoto and wide angle lenses I have a very compact and lightweight outfit that can do almost everything my high-end Nikon gear can, and many things those film cameras cannot, all while retaining the ability to become a small, lightweight point and shoot camera that anyone can use. I really love the G3.

At work I was issued an Olympus D560 which produces very high-quality images, but has serious focusing issues in low light as it has no focus assist beam. Since I am the evidence custodian and use this camera on search warrants, it needs to function in all lighting conditions, including no light at all. Needless to say, while I carry the little Olympus with me around town, I end up using my G3 for work as well as play.

My wife, in contrast to myself, is not even remotely interested in photography. She has no idea what an f-stop is, and has no desire to learn. She is an artist though, and with my old S200 she took many exceptional pictures. I'm not allowed to lend her the Olympus as it belongs to my agency, and she has no desire to use the G3, even set to full automatic (its too big for her tiny purses).

Now normally I wouldn't spend a lot of money on a THIRD digital camera, but I had a gift certificate from Amazon that was about to expire and her birthday was right around the corner, so I went shopping. Amazon's 5-12 day shipping arrived in 4 days, delivering a bouncing baby Canon S50. The camera was $450 at Amazon, and with my $250 gift certificate, free 64MB CF card, no tax and free shipping, I was able to stuff 5 megapixels into my wife's purse for only $200.

Now, on to the S50. I'll admit that when I was shopping for my G3, the S50 was very high on my own list. I exchanged a few emails with master epinionator Howard Creech, and based on his and other opinions, came to the conclusion that all of the prosumer Canons, from the A80 up through the G5, are of incredible quality and would satisfy all but the most demanding photographers. For my own purchase, I valued the hot shoe and the faster, longer zoom of the G3 (remember, I take mostly portraits) over the compact size of the S50. The A80 just isn't for me as unlike many who extol their virtues, I really dislike AA batteries and prefer those expensive proprietary cells, which while not available everywhere, have cheap generic equivalents and are MUCH easier to carry around.

While the added features of the G3 were important to me, for my wife, compact size and simple operation are far more important. Her camera tends to just sit around the house a lot, grabbed when our daughter does something or she goes somewhere interesting. LiIon batteries are far better for grab and go use, as they hold their charge for much longer periods of inactivity. She also likes the sliding lens cover/on-off switch. The shutter-type lens caps on the A80 and the Digital Elph series are rather delicate, and she always worried when putting the S200 loose in her purse. The S50 seals nicely and just feels like its built to take whatever abuse her cell phone, car keys and who-knows-what-else in that purse can dish out.

The S50 is also an exceptional point-and-shoot camera. The 9-point AiAF system selects one or more of 9 squares which occupy roughly 60% of the field of view, and in every instance I've tried, always picks out and focuses on the subject. Sometimes more than one square is selected, and the camera seems smart enough to close the lens down sufficiently to put both areas into focus. I'm guessing it just ensures sufficient depth of field and then focuses on a mid point. Ditto the automatic exposure and white balance. The only time I saw the white balance get fooled was in a picture of my daughter putting on makeup in the restroom. The restroom has both fluorescent and incandescent lights, and the S50 applied a very slight greenish cast that was easily removed in the bundled Zoombrowser application. I brought up my G3 and the Olympus D560 to see how they did in the same lighting, and the G3 produced the same result, while the Olympus handled it perfectly and delivered natural colors.

I will admit, the S50 was a bit more than a gift. When we go out as a family, my wife prefers for me to take most of the pictures. She loved that S200 because it was always with us, while the G3 can be a bit intrusive when going to social functions such as dinners and parties. With the S50, we can bring a camera, and unlike the smaller Digital Elphs, I have full creative controls.

I'd like to say a word about megapixels. I've blown many of my old S200 images up to 5X7 with excellent results, but at 8X10, things deteriorate quickly. With the G3, 8X10s are gorgeous. In fact, one portrait of my daughter came out so well that I had it printed at 11X14 and it looks just as sharp as a film image. I tried another one with roughly 20% cropping and while acceptable, I could tell I was at the limit of 4 megapixel resolution.

I've not made any giant enlargements from the S50 yet (I've printed a few 8X10s), and honestly doubt I'll go larger than 11X14, which is well within the capabilities of a four or five megapixel camera. Where I think the extra resolution will help, however, is cropping. The lens on the S50 isn't as long as that of the G3, and the S50 does not accept accessory lenses, at least not officially. With a G3 and teleconverter in the house, that is my pick for serious photography, but like all compacts, the S50 is perfect for actually having when you need it. If the lens isn't long enough to reach my subject, I'm glad that I can crop to what I want to print and have sufficient resolution for enlargement.

Directly comparing 8X10s from the G3 and S50, it is impossible for me to see any significant different in resolution. I'm sure that I would have to either heavily crop or blow-up larger to see the resolution difference. I've also not seen any of the purple fringe or noise problems some others have mentioned with the S50, but then again, I've not taken any long, low-light pictures with it yet.

In the end, the 4 vs. 5 megapixel difference means little to me. I bought the S50 over the S45 only because Amazon was selling them for the exact same price (the S50 was on sale). Had the S45 been $50 or $80 cheaper, I probably would have bought it. Even with the 5MP sensor, it does not replace the G3 as my serious, creative camera.

Other "electronic" aspects of the camera are almost the same as the G3. The menu layout is all-but identical (a good thing), as is the operation of the mode dial, and every other aspect of actual picture taking with the singular exception of the autofocus system. The G3 gives the option of continuous AF (useless) and allows the focus point to be moved anywhere in the frame (terrific when on a tripod), while the S50 allows the selection of one of nine points (almost as good as the G3's variable point), or the AiAF function mentioned above, which is outstanding for point and shoot use. The S50 does duplicate my favorite AF mode, which is just focusing on the center and then locking focus with a half-press of the shutter release.

Physical elements are obviously very different. The LCD doesn't swivel and the 4-way rocker switch with center "set" button is difficult to use, though I'm already used to it. The camera actually feels sturdier than the G3, and not having any lens cap to lose is a nice design element. The 1.8" LCD is large and bright and the menus are easy to navigate. Canon even put in a metal tripod socket, which on a camera this serious should see a lot of use.

In conclusion, I am glad that I bought the S50. There are many times when I don't want to carry the G3, and in those times, the S50 doesn't force me to settle for total automation. Now if only they could cram this much function into the next S400. Perhaps I'm only dreaming.

*** Update 02/10/04 ***
I bought my S50 almost 6-months-ago, and since then it has become my constant companion. Initially I thought I would really go digital and bought a G3 with all the accessories, but honestly the extremely wide depth of field, even when zoomed in tight and with the lens wide-open, is simply too much to truly isolate the subject and throw the background into a haze. The S50 is even more limited than the G3 in this respect, but as a point and shoot it wasn't really intended for serious portrait work.

What the S50 does provide, is perhaps still the best combination of high image quality, outstanding control over metering and white balance, and a level of creative versatility that is lacking in other cameras this small and convenient.

For serious photography I use my Nikon F3 film SLR. For photographing outings and events, I use my smaller Nikon FM3a film SLR, but for photographing spontaneous events or things that just catch my eye, the S50 is a fantastic tool.

***Update 7/20/04***
Well here we are, about a year since buying the S50. As I gradually got more and more into portraiture, I found the G3 sitting in the bag while I burned a lot of film, and so the G3 is now in the happy hands of my brother-in-law, who is using it to capture truly amazing images.

The result is also that the S50 is now the "serious" digital camera in the house, and the more I've played with it, the happier I become with its capabilities. I've shot fireworks with the S50 on a tripod, experimented with slow shutter flash photography and second curtain synch (no real curtains on a digicam, but thats the effect), and played around a lot with white balance and metering.

Really, the only things that limit me on the S50 are flash (the G-series rule for flash photography) and depth of field, as in there is always too much. Within those limitations, however, resides far more creative potential than anything this small has any right to possess.

I am consistently astounded by the clarity, color and sharpness of my S50 5MP images, which usually enlarge about as well as the Ilford 100 ISO B&W negative film I usually load my Nikons with. 11X14s are so good (chosing a good lab is a HUGE part of the equation) that very few people suspect the use of a compact, "point-and-shoot" camera.

One other limitation that is more to do with the digital format than the S50 itself is that digital images lack the dynamic range of film. This means that in scenes with both bright light and dark areas, there is always a very real danger of "blowing out" the highlights. This is something that just has to be considered in composition, and proves that no matter how advanced the technology becomes, it remains the photographer who creates the image.