A weekend with the compact Canon s90

above Canon s90 at iso 200 

My friend Ben picked up a Canon s90 camera (now $399 order here) in NY last week and was nice enough to let me look at it for a weekend. I had almost bought the same camera on my way to Sudan the month before but had resisted temptation in favor of a new microphone.

A good point and shoot is just something that you should have as a photographer. I’ve said it before but it bares repeating, it doesn’t matter how good your camera is if you don’t have it with you. If your hulking 25 megapixel behemoth is in the hotel room you aren’t going to make photos…

With the s90 there is no excuse, you can have the camera on you all the time. It is about the size of my iphone. The last few day’s I’ve been carrying it around in a neoprene cf card case. I mean it is SMALL.

It is also well made, metal body, fast (f2.0) lens, a large led screen, built in flash, Image stabilizer, Tv, Av and Manual modes. It shoots both jpg AND RAW files. It records to standard SD cards. There is also a video mode.

The feature that I like the most besides the speed of the lens is the front ring surrounding the lens contolls camera functions. On manual  I’ve set the front to control shutter speed and the back dial to control f stop. Suddenly the camera works a lot like my slr.

Shutter lag, the bane of point and shoots is all but gone. The auto focus is fast and accurate. 

So how are the pictures? Good. It has a physically small sensor, but canon did not try to cram it full of megapixels. Instead af 14 or 18 the s90 has 10. Trust me 10 is PLENTY (I’ve published gatefold photographs in National Geographic with 6 megapixels). Fewer pixels means a quieter sensor and better performance in low light.  

above Canon s90 iso 400 1/4 sec @ f2.0 the image stabilizer is very good

How good? 400 is just fine. No this is no 5D MK II, but I don’t bring my MK II to dinner. I can always have the s90 in my pocket.   

The only real issue that had was the camera only shoots 2 frames in a row, then the buffer fills and it has to wait. But for saving moments from the day you don't need lots of frames in a row. 

boots up, above iso 400 @ 2 seconds! Things get pretty noisy here, but what do you expect?

This is a stunningly good little camera. I'd recommend it over the G11 just because of it size. 

-Stephen Alvarez

Comments

[Charles]

Who is the lady eating oysters? Looks like Becca F, currently at Sewanee?

[cartucho r4i]

The S90 is excellent in low light. I recently took pics of my son's new home at night. I couldn't believe how beautiful the pictures were.

[Andrew Gould]

Nice shots, Stephen. A compact is so useful. I have the G10. Wish it had an f2 lens like your S90.
I'm waiting for Canon or Nikon (or anybody) produces a reasonably fast shooting APS-C size sensor image stabilizer compact with or with out zoom. Sigma and new Leica compact seem to have deficiencies in one or other categories.

[Ira Block]

Yeah, I'm sitting in the Tokyo airport switching planes reading about the s90. I like my G11, but it is large compared with the s90. The small buffer is my major complaint, and the lack of a flip out screen. While we were in Bangkok I used the G11 a lot, and the flip out screen is a great feature when you want to engage your subject. Maybe the perfect combination would be the s90 and the Lumix gf-1, though there isn't any flip out screen in that equation. BTW - shot some video with a side sound track of me and Harvey....