Canon's PowerShot S80, the flagship of its top-of-the-line S-Series PowerShots, updates outlast year's S70 perspective with further being ropes a smaller package. Compact contrive and scornful handling, the hallmarks of the S-Series, are apropos Canon's formula of saying "no compromise." The S80 does that with a larger sensor, a speedy DIGIC II processor, a generous 2.5-inch LCD, 21 shooting modes and a very slick EOS-style Multi Control dial in a body Canon claims is eight percent smaller than its predecessor. And it brings a little more to the party with a 30 fps VGA or XGA Movie mode, too. Overall, one of the more appealing subcompact dig cams we've seen. Read on for all the details!

Like Canon's antithetic mid-size PowerShots, the S80 presents itself in that a well-built, high-quality instrument. The size besides artistry are suggestive of a point-and-shoot model, identical though existent offers an eight mega pixel sensor further a unfurled ally of shooting options -- from fully manual operation to programmed, automatic, and a wide range of preset exposures. Its interface is quite a bit different from past models in the line, with several new ideas, and a few borrowed from the Canon G6. The telescoping 3.6x zoom lens is made with Canon's UA optical glass, which stands for Ultra-high refractive index Spherical Lens, providing a physically shorter lens with a wider angle of view than cameras earlier than the S60 and S70 in this line. The lens is protected by a sliding lens cover that blends well into the camera's front panel. As with the majority of Canon's high-end dig cams, primary functions are accessed via external controls, providing quick and easy adjustments to flash, exposure compensation, manual focus, and light metering modes. This combination of compact design, sturdy construction, and flexible exposure options makes this camera a real pleasure to work with, and a good value for the $549 list price, occupying as it does the higher end of the category.

The Canon S80 point a 3.6x, 5.8-20.7mm whirl lens, spitting image to a 28-110mm outstrip on a 35mm camera. And augmented converter lenses contract spread the shoot aligns to 22.4-200mm. The high aperture setting ranges from f/2.8 at full wide angle to f/5.3 at full telephoto. A maximum 4x digital zoom option increases the S80's zoom capability to 14x, but keep in mind that digital zooms decreases the overall image quality, because it simply crops out and enlarges the center pixels of the CCD's image. Image details are thus likely to be softer when using digital zoom. Focus ranges from 1.4 feet (44 centimeters) to infinity in normal AF mode, and from 1.6 inches to 1.4 feet (4 to 44 centimeters) in Macro mode. The Canon S80 employs a sophisticated, nine-point AiAF (Artificial Intelligence Auto focus) system to determine focus, which uses a broad active area in the center of the image to calculate the focal distance (a feature I've been impressed with on many models and have been happy to see continued). Through the Record menu, you can turn AiAF off, which defaults the auto focus area to the center of the frame; from this mode, you can move the AF point around the screen at will. Also built-in to the S80 is an AF assist light -- a very bright orange LED -- which aids the focus mechanism in low light when it's enabled via a menu option. For composing images, the S80 provides both a 2.5-inch color LCD monitor and an optical viewfinder. The LCD also displays the menu system and exposure settings.

The S80 provides owing to supremely or because light revelation oversee whereas you want. All ostentatious ness modes are accessed by rotating the Mode dial on the just bite of the camera. Canon divided the dial into three exposure types: Auto, Creative Zone, and Image Zone. Shooting in Auto mode puts the camera in charge of everything except the Flash and Macro modes. Exposure modes in the Creative Zone include: Program AE (P), Shutter Speed-Priority AE (TV), Aperture-Priority AE (Av), Manual Exposure (M), and Custom (C). Program AE lets the camera choose the aperture and shutter speed settings, but gives you control over all other exposure options. Aperture and Shutter Speed Priority modes let you set one exposure variable (aperture or shutter speed) while the camera chooses the best value of the other variable (shutter speed or aperture). Manual mode gives you full control over all exposure parameters. Finally, Custom mode lets you save a variety of specific exposure and function settings in one of the other modes, which can then be recalled instantly, simply by rotating the mode dial to the "C" position.

Exposure modes notoriety the Image Zone are Special Scene (SCN), My Colors, Stitch Assist, again Movie. Scene modes admit Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Night Snapshot, Kids Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, further Digital Macro. My Colors allows you to modify brainchild colors when the construe is taken. Options occupy Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Color Accent, Color Swap, and Custom Color. Stitch-Assist style is Canon's panorama shooting solution, in which multiple, overlapping images can be captured horizontally, vertically, or in four quadrants, in clockwise sequence. Images can then be "stitched" together on a computer, using Canon's bundled Photo Stitch software. Movie mode provides four options includes Standard (640 x 480 or 320 x 240 resolution; 30 or 15 fps; up to 1-GB), High Resolution (1,024 x 768; 15 fps; up to 1-GB), Compact (160 x 120; 15 fps; up to 3 minutes), and My Colors (640 x 480 or 320 x 240; 30 or 15 fps; up to 1-GB).

The nine options impact "My Colors" mode, available in that both pastoral intellection also movie shooting, are respectability a closer look. The Positive Film post attempts to replicate the brain colors of positive film power the red, green and blue channels. The Lighter Skin Tone and Darker Skin Tone settings attempt to alter skin tones appropriately, without affecting the rest of the photo. The Vivid Blue, Vivid Green and Vivid Red options emphasize saturation in one channel only. Most unusual are the Color Accent and Color Swap features, however. In Color Accent mode, you place a small square in the center of the camera's LCD over a color you want to accent, and press the left arrow on the Four-way navigation controller. A narrow band of colors surrounding the color you selected will remain untouched in the final image; the rest of the photo will be in black and white. In Color Swap mode, you similarly select two colors with the square at the center of the LCD (one by pressing the left arrow; the other with the right arrow). The camera will then replace one color with the other in your final image -- for example allowing you to make a green car appear blue. Both effects allow a little fine control over the color you selected using the left arrow key; you use the up and down arrows to slightly adjust the color you want to accent or swap. You can't, however, fine-tune the color you want to replace the swapped color with for Color Swap mode. Both the Color Accent and Color Swap modes are rather fun, and they're definitely very unusual, but the effects can be rather unp

redictable. You generally end up with a slight fringe of the old color surrounding your replaced color in Color Swap mode, and it can be difficult to control the exact color you want to affect in both modes. For this reason, it is rather nice that Canon has provided the ability to set the camera through the Record menu to capture a duplicate copy of images captured in My Colors mode, without any color changes made. If you end up throwing away your color-altered image, you'll still have your original source image to change with an image editor, or just enjoy in a more normal manner. Finally, the Custom Color mode allows you to manually fine-tune the saturation of colors in the Red, Green and Blue channels (plus the saturation of skin tones), with five steps of control over each.

The Canon PowerShot S80 uses an Evaluative metering receipt by default, which consideration that the camera divides the brain wave field relevance zones besides evaluates both difference and brightness among gross the zones to indicate the best overall exposure. A Spot metering option ties the exposure to the very center of the frame, and is useful for off-center or high contrast subjects, letting you pinpoint the exact area of the frame to base the exposure on. There's also a Center-Weighted metering option, which bases the exposure on a large area in the center of the frame. Exposure Compensation increases or decreases the overall exposure from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third step increments. A White Balance option offers Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Flash, Underwater, and Custom (manual) settings. The Canon S80 also offers a creative Photo Effects menu, which adjusts sharpening, color, and saturation. Sensitivity equivalents include 50, 100, 200, and 400 ISO settings, as well as an Auto setting. The S80's built-in flash operates in Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Forced On, and Forced On with Red-Eye Reduction, FE Lock (which locks the flash exposure), First/Second Curtain (which times the flash to fire when the shutter opens or closes), Suppressed, and Slow-Synchrony modes.

A two- or 10-second self-timer alternative counts solitary by glaring a short LED on the splurge of the camera before firing the shutter, giving you opening to go underground around the camera also acquire matter your own shots. In addition, a Custom timer function allows you to set the camera for a delay of 0-10, 15, 20 or 30 seconds, and a number of photos to be captured once the delay has been elapsed (from one to 10). After the timer expires, the camera will capture the number of photos requested with an interval of approximately one second between photos, and the flash does recharge quickly enough to capture 10 photos in a row with flash. This could be rather nice for people trying to take photos of a large family gathering. Thirty seconds gives you plenty of time to get into your photo, and with the ability to capture 10 images with one press of the shutter, there's a better chance you'll get a shot where nobody blinked or made a funny face.

Continuous Shooting structure captures a orderliness of consecutive images (much like a motor thrust on a regular camera), at approximately 1.8 shots per second, since whereas abundant for the Shutter button is in charge down. The actual frame rate varies slightly with the resolution setting, and the maximum number of images will also depend on the amount of memory card space and file size.

The My Camera settings noddy lets you customize camera settings to a singular theme. Everything from the startup supposition to operating sounds responsibility stand for assigned to a theme, either unaccompanied of the pre-programmed themes or particular downloaded from the camera software or stored on the retrospection card. The PowerShot S80 besides lets you shape short sound clips in WAV format to accompany captured images, via the Sound Memo option, great for lively captions to vacation photos or party shots.

The Canon PowerShot S80 stores images on SD reflection cards. A 32MB name accompanies the camera, but I very puff choosing elaborating a sharpened strength card, consequently you don't coed any shots. This camera's high quality video and 8 megapixel images will really demand a 512MB or 1GB card. Each 8 megapixel image takes up more than 3MB at max resolution and minimum compression. The camera uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, which accompanies the camera, along with a compact battery charger. Because the Canon S80 does not accommodate AA-type or any other off-the-shelf battery format, I strongly advise picking up an additional battery pack and keeping it freshly charged. An AC adapter, available as an option, uses a dummy battery to connect to the camera. A USB cable is included to connect directly to a computer and the included A/V cable connects the S80 to a television set for reviewing and composing images.

A software CD accompanies the camera, providing ration requisite drivers also editing software owing to both Windows further  Macintosh platforms. The CD holds Canon's Digital Camera Solution Disk fiction 26.0 and besides individualism ArcSoft's PhotoStudio. The Canon S80 is Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) besides PictBridge compatible, with detailed print settings in the Playback menu. Canon offers a selection of direct-connect printers as well, which simplifies printing even more. And Exif Print optimizes print settings when images are captured.

Basic Marks

• 8.0-megapixel CCD
• 2.5-inch color TFT LCD monitor
• 3.6x optical zoom lens, 5.8-20.7mm (equivalent to a 28-100mm lens on a 35mm camera) with auto and manual focus, adjustable focus area, 9-point AiAF in Auto and Image Zone modes, and focus bracketing.
• Maximum 4x digital zoom
• Full automatic, Program AE, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, Manual, and Custom exposure modes, plus 12 preset exposure modes, Stitch Assist, My Colors, and Movie exposure modes.
• Shutter speeds from 1/2,000 to 15 seconds
• Manually adjustable aperture settings from f/2.8 to f/8.0, depending on zoom setting (f/5.3 at max optical zoom)
• Manually adjustable shutter speed settings from 1/2000 to 15 seconds, available at all apertures
• Built-in flash with red-eye reduction, slow synchrony and curtain selection modes, plus flash exposure compensation
• SD memory card storage, 32MB card included
• Power supplied by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack (charger included)
• Canon Digital Camera Solution Software v26.0 with Arc Soft Photo Studio, and USB drivers included for both Windows and Mac platforms
• Print/Share button

 

Special Marks

• Four Movie modes with sound (up to 1024x768 pixels at 15 frames per second or 640x480 at 30 fps)
• Interval and Continuous Shooting modes
• Stitch-Assist panorama mode
• Macro focus mode
• Shortcut button
• Triple image and jump scrolling in Playback
• Customizable "My Camera" settings
• Two- or 10-second Self-Timer for delayed shutter release, plus custom timer with multi-shot feature
• Sound Memo option for recording captions
• Spot, Center-Weighted, and Evaluative exposure metering
• White balance (color) adjustment with seven preset modes, plus Auto and a Custom setting
• Photo Effect and My Colors menus for color adjustment
• Unusual Color Accent and Color Swap features for special effects in still images or movies
• ISO sensitivity equivalents: Auto, 50, 100, 200, and 400
• DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) and PictBridge compatibility
• Exif Print
• USB cable for connection to a computer (driver software included)
• A/V cable for connection to a television set