Canon Powershot S5 IS Review

The Canon Powershot S5 IS is the most high spec super zoom camera I have tested. As well as manual exposure controls it offers more options that its rivals in a number of other areas. These include flash, colour effects and focusing. You will also find a pull out and twist LCD screen and a viewfinder you can focus to suit your own eyesight. The Powershot S5 IS is an 8 megapixel digital camera with a 12x zoom lens and image stabilisation.

Outdoor 1
The first outdoor shot gets my tests off to a good start. Strong colours, sharp focusing and any glare from the sun is handled well.

Outdoor 2
Another good effort. There is plenty of strong colour. This is especially noticeable in the sky. The Powershot S5 IS also produces a sharper focus then most other digital cameras manage with the lens zoomed right out.

Outdoor 3
This is a surprisingly disappointing photo. With the lens zoomed in to its maximum capacity there is a clear loss of sharpness towards the edges of the photo. There is also lot of reddish fringing. This is where a reddish line is added to the edges of objects where they are caught by the sun. Although the fringing is a problem with most super zoom cameras, the problems with this photo are important as one of the main reasons for buying this type of camera is its ability to zoom in from distance.

Outdoor Portrait
This is one of the better outdoor portraits I have taken. The photo is sharply focused and I like the colours and the lighting.

Indoor Portrait
This is another photo where I think the Powershot S5 IS does exceptionally well. Again the colours are spot on, difficult lighting is handled very well and focusing is very sharp. Although the camera has a manual red eye correction facility red eye is not likely to be a big issue with this camera as the flash pops up away from the lens reducing the possibility of red eye occurring.

Lowlight
The lowlight test is another where the Powershot S5 IS does very well. The power of the flash lights the scene well without blasting out all the detail from the shot. Focusing is very good once more.

Colours
The colours throughout all the photos are excellent. They are well balanced, strong without being overpowering and give the scenes a lively feel.

Macro
For close up photography the Powershot S5 IS is able to produce a very clear shot. There is a slight hint of purple fringing where the light source hits the edges of the watch face. This could pose a problem if you wish to produce high quality jewelry photos, but is unlikely to cause too much concern elsewhere.

ISO 400
Quality begins to fall away at ISO 400. Noise starts to show up in photos to a level where larger prints are likely to show the drop in quality.

ISO 1600
Wow! The quality has disappeared at this level. Luckily you are unlikely to want to use this setting for the vast majority of your shots and it is quite possible you will never get around to using it.

Overall
On the whole the Powershot S5 IS does very well. As with most digital cameras shooting at higher ISO levels causes a definite reduction in picture quality. The loss of sharpness away from the centre of the photo when taking a shot with the zoom fully extended is a much bigger worry though. This is especially the case when you consider the main attraction of the camera is its long lens.

I was able to take a single photo in 0.25 seconds and five in 8.22 seconds. These are fairly standard times, although the single shot is slightly faster than standard. With the flash turned on times increased to 0.48 seconds and 13.14 seconds. Again these are roughly as standard.

You can compare this camera to other models by taking a look at the Shutter Lag Comparison Table.

Built like a mini SLR camera it has a good, solid feel in the hand.

117.0 × 80.0 × 77.7 mm (excluding viewfinder-eyepiece & protrusions)

Approx. 450g

4 AA batteries are required to power the camera. Canon estimates a standard set of batteries can deliver around 170 shots.

A 32mb SD card is supplied by Canon with the Powershot S5 IS. I was able to take 16 shots before the card was full. The camera is also compatible with SDHC cards.

Click here to save money on SD cards.

Difficult. The main reason why the Powershot S5 IS is difficult to use is because of all the features the camera has. It can be used as a more straightforward point and shoot camera, but then you will be paying for a lot of extra features you may not need.

Pull out and twist LCD screen - Fast reacting lens - Focusable viewfinder - Range of features

Loss of sharpness towards edge of photo when full zoom used

The Canon Powershot S5 IS has more features than any similar, super zoom digital camera. It is also one of the more expensive models. On the whole picture quality is very good, but it is a concern that my full zoom test showed a noticeable fall off in sharpness away from the centre of the photo.

Front View

Back View

Top View

Sample Menus

Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, please make sure you double check the feature set and specification at the point of purchase.

Canon Powershot S5 IS