Product Reviews

The Canon PowerShot S3 IS compact camera may look like a minor upgrade to the S2 with an extra megapixel, larger screen and gunmetal finish - but there's a lot more. It boasts an image-stabilised optical zoom with a 12x zoom ratio and an equivalent focal length of 35-420mm, f/2.7-3.5.

The S3 IS is wonderfully responsive: the S2 feels sluggish by comparison. Even with the same lens it powers up quickly - we fired off the first shot in less than a second. Back-to-back shooting is respectable, too: we managed six shots in five seconds, although we replaced the 16MB SD card supplied with a 120x 2GB card from Kingston. Continuous shooting is at 2fps, although 3fps would be preferable.

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) sits above the lens on the rear of the camera, but is neither contrasty nor colour accurate. And in spite of dioptre adjustment, we couldn't get the image as sharp as we'd have liked. There were no such issues with the flip-out 2in LCD, although it looks small compared

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with the giant LCDs on recent compacts.

Its general layout follows most digital SLRs. There is a generous number of buttons placed conveniently around the body. Even the excellent macro feature, which lets you focus right up to the front lens element, becomes second nature. We also liked the two-speed zoom control, to quickly change focal length with some precision. Focusing accuracy was very good, but struggled at the longer focal lengths with low-contrast subjects or under low ambient light. One great feature is the ability to focus down to just 1m at 420mm - a bonus for nature photographers.

Images are captured as Jpegs; there's no camera Raw file option. Picture quality is very high. In the default colour mode, colours look reasonably bright; Vivid slightly increases saturation. Indoors, white balance is only passable, so use the custom option.

The S3 IS has a higher maximum sensitivity (ISO 800) than the S2 IS (ISO 400), but noise levels are on a par. However, maximum should be a last resort. Besides, the optical image stabiliser cancels out camera shake. We captured sharp snaps at 1/15-second using the telephoto at its longest setting. The flash is powerful and provides evenly lit, if slightly saturated-looking images. Also impressive are the TV-friendly movie clips. You can interrupt to take stills and the zoom isn't disabled.

The forgiving operation and overall performance makes the Canon PowerShot S3 IS an excellent compact and it beats others in its field, although with Sony models on the horizon, that lead may be short-lived.