Canon PowerShot S1 IS: No More Long Lens Longing

Ben Long

A typical point-and-shoot digital camera offers zoom ranges that are well suited to most photographic situations. However, the 35-110mm ranges that you see on most of these cameras is not well-suited to sports or nature photography, or any other instance when you want to zoom in close to far-away action. If typical digital cameras leave you with long lens longing, then you’ll want to take a look at the Canon PowerShot S1 IS, a 3.2-megapixel compact point-and-shoot digital camera with a 10x optical zoom.
The S1 is Canon’s first long zoom camera since the PowerShot Pro90. Eschewing that camera’s large design and long lens barrel, Canon has given the S1 a small body and extending lens that make for a very compact design. However, though the camera is easier on your shoulder when you’re carrying it around, its pictures are not as easy on the eye as its predecessor. The S1 is a fine example of how the latest digital camera is not always the greatest.
Nevertheless, if you’re looking for an inexpensive camera with a long lens, it might be just the ticket for certain types of shooting.
Long and Lean
Just from picking it up, you wouldn’t necessarily guess that the S1 packs a longer lens. Its design and size are fairly typical for a mid-size 3-megapixel camera. The S1 is comfortable to hold, with good control layout and the same type of flip-out screen that Canon uses on the G5 and A80 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The size of the Canon S1 IS is typical for a mid-range point-and-shoot camera but it also includes a flip out LCD.

On the top of the camera you’ll find Canon’s standard Mode dial which lets you choose between full automatic mode, priority modes, full manual mode, and a standard assortment of preset exposure modes (Landscape, Sports, Sand & Snow, etc.). A rocker switch around the shutter button provides zoom control, while a four-way switch on the back provides easy menu navigation.
External buttons let you change metering modes, flash modes, or activate the camera’s self-timer and burst mode. The camera lacks any kind of LCD status display, meaning that if you want to know how many exposures you have remaining, or if you want to check any of the camera’s settings, you’ll have to turn to the camera’s LCD screen.
Like most point-and-shoot cameras with zoom lenses, the S1 provides an electronic viewfinder (in addition to its LCD screen, which can be used as a viewfinder). Electronic viewfinders (tiny eyepiece viewfinders just like you find on a video camera) have several advantages over optical viewfinders. They provide better coverage than most optical viewfinders, and they include status and control readouts.
The S1 provides a fine example of the weaknesses of electronic viewfinders. As with most such devices, the S1 electronic viewfinder has low resolution, making it difficult to see fine detail, and it can be easily washed out when shooting into bright lights. Particularly annoying is the fact that the viewfinder freezes when auto-focusing, which makes it nearly impossible to follow moving objects. Given that one of the primary uses of a longer lens is sports and nature photography — tasks where you want to be able to track a moving subject until a particular moment — the viewfinder on the S1 might be a deal-breaker.
Finally, electronic viewfinders can be very difficult, if not impossible, to use in low-light situations, as it’s simply not possible to discern an image in the viewfinder.
As with most digital cameras, you can also use the S1’s LCD screen as a viewfinder, and it’s hard to beat Canon’s exceptional tilt and fold screen, which allows you to position the LCD screen in just about any orientation, making it ideal for macro photography or for shooting over your head.
Taking Shots
Except for the annoyance of the electronic viewfinder, the S1 is a comfortable camera to shoot with. There’s little perceptible shutter lag and the camera is speedy to write files.
The long, f2.8-3.1 lens is the selling point of the camera, of course, and users looking for a lens with good telescopic power won’t be disappointed. With a 35mm equivalence of 380mm, you get a lot of zoom from the S1. (That is, the equivalent lens on a 35mm film camera would have a focal length of 380mm.)
What’s more, the S1’s lens uses Canon’s excellent image stabilization technology. Though no substitute for a tripod, image stabilization does a very effective job of eliminating the jitter and shake that occurs when handholding a camera. With long focal lengths — where you’re framed very tightly on a subject — image stabilization can make the difference between getting, or not getting, the framing that you want. Image stabilization can also make shooting in dim or low light much more feasible.
Though other camera’s have a wider wide-angle than the S1, it’s 38mm equivalent wide end should do well enough for everyday shooting. The camera offers a full complement of manual controls as well as manual white balance selection, multiple selectable auto-focus points, and the usual Canon options for setting contrast, sharpness, and saturation. The S1 provides multiple ISOs ranging from a noise-free ISO 50 up to ISO 400.
The S1 does a good job with burst shooting — that is, firing off frames in rapid succession — offering full-resolution frame rates of 1.7 frames per second for up to seven frames, making it well suited to sports and nature situations.
Like most auto-focus cameras, the S1 uses a contrast-detecting auto-focus mechanism that can be stumped in low-light situations. We were therefore surprised to find that the S1 lacks an auto-focus assist lamp, an extra light that the camera can shine into a scene to improve auto-focus performance. The camera includes a manual focus mode that lets you set focus using the four-way rocker on the back of the camera. Unfortunately, with only the electronic viewfinder and LCD screen, it can be difficult to see focus.
The camera lacks a dedicated macro mode, but it still does a very good job with macro photos. At full wide angle, the camera focuses to within 10 cm of your subject.
The camera offers an exceptional movie mode that can capture full-frame 640-x-480 video, with sound, at 30 frames per second. Unlike many digital cameras with full-resolution video modes, the S1 is capable of zooming while shooting video, and can capture up to 8 minutes at maximum quality (assuming your CompactFlash storage card is big enough).
Video quality is exceptional, so if you’ve got the space, the S1 is ideal for capturing short clips.
Image Quality
Obviously, with a 3.2-megapixel resolution, the S1 is not going to deliver the same level of detail as other cameras in its price range. Still, 3.2 megapixels is enough for a good size print and fine for Web and electronic distribution (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: The S1 generally produce decent images, with good color fidelity and decent sharpness, though it does suffer from bad noise at higher resolutions.

We were pleased to find that, despite the wide zoom range, the lens suffers from very little barrel or pincushion distortion.
What we weren’t so pleased about was the extreme amount of purple fringing that was often apparent in fairly “normal” shooting situations.
Most of the Canon cameras in this price range have extremely high noise at higher ISO, and the S1 is no different. However, it’s a somewhat fine-grained noise so it’s not terribly ugly. Fortunately, at ISO 50 and 100 the camera delivers extremely smooth images.
Color fidelity is good and just what we would expect from a camera in this price range. Overall sharpness is perfectly acceptable, but you might want to turn down the camera’s internal sharpening, which is a bit aggressive.
Conclusion
The S1 competes very favorably with its major competition, the Olympus C-770. Like it, the S1 is a great camera for the user on a budget who would like some extra “reach” with their camera.
There are other cameras in the same price range that deliver slightly better image quality, though they won’t give you a big image-stabilized lens, so when shopping for a camera in this range, you’ll need to expect to trade off a little image quality and resolution in exchange for the extra zoom power. With those caveats in mind, the S1 is a good choice.