Well, if you've been reading my stuff, you'll know that I returned my "first day they were available at Best Buy" S90 about a week ago, because it had a bit more lens distortion than I could handle.
So, after waffling over whether to get another S90 or a G11, and waiting for my local shop (an independent, local shop -- not Best Buy) to get either one in stock, I finally decided to try another S90. Got it last night. So, what are my results so far? Well, let me go over a few things:
1. This one has the little "creak" in the panel behind the flash. My first one didn't. There may be a few other areas that are a bit "flexy" in the new one that I didn't notice in the old one, too. I actually just picked up an SD990IS to add to my collection, and I've got to say that it is far more "tank-like" than the S90, easily. On the other hand, it has a rather slick surface as compared to the S90's more textured surface -- I've dang near dropped the SD990 a couple of times, just like a bar of soap.
2. Optically, it seems to be a bit better. Check out another grid-lines picture:
With a bit less light in the room on this heavy overcast day, I bumped up the levels on this picture a bit, so you could see everything. That said, I think this is quite a bit better. Certainly not "perfect," and I don't think it's possible for a lens to be "perfect." But, this is more like any other camera -- you can see some barrel distortion, but it's not nearly as "noticeable" as the distortion the first S90 had was. And that's the key -- you're just not really going to "notice" anything wrong with this one, as you could with the first one.
3. Pretty much "OK so far" to this point. A creak or two and some "ordinary" lens distortion won't bother me. But, this thing does have a real problem:
The store I bought it from is in a local mall. I had a fully-charged battery and a memory card ready to go, so I just took the S90 to my car, got it out of the box, plugged in the battery and the card, and headed back into the mall and took some sample shots. And HOLY COW -- I was seeing green. Lots of dark green. I wound up going outside, and taking shots of sidewalks, parking lots, and such things, to see if it had some super-wonky colors.
But when I got home, all the shots looked just fine. No huge green cast, or anything remotely close to it. So what the heck??
Well, I got my answer this morning, at the office. I tried taking shots of a map on my cubicle wall, under the typical built-in light above it. Here's a look:
Pretty minimal light, though I actually had the light in the right-hand cabinet turned on, which you don't see here.
At any rate, probably three times out of five, when I held the shutter down to take a macro shot of that map, the on-screen image was very dark and very green or yellowish. Probably one time out of five, I got a very bright, bluish on-screen color. And maybe one time out of five, I got a properly-colored image on the screen. No matter what, though, the pictures all turned out just fine -- in fact, I turned Image Review on, and I could just see how it changed from "wrong to right" as the "live image" gave way to the review image.
It was really as if the "live view" was showing one of the white balance presets -- like "cloudy" to make the dark, greenish or yellowish cast, or one of the fluorescent settings to get the bright blue look. Again, not that it "applied" those settings to the image it captured -- the camera was in AWB -- but it sure looked "on screen" like that.
VERY, very strange. I'm getting tired of taking S90's back, so I'm not sure if this is a show-stopper or not. I didn't notice any problems with any of my other shooting today -- maybe it has to do with fluorescent light. That would explain why the mall lighting triggered it. Though....... The shot of the cubicle was also taken with fluorescent light, so..... Beats me. I suppose I'll make a new thread about it, eventually. In the meantime, I'll try to get a grip on what exactly triggers it.
Otherwise, it seems to be OK as a camera -- here are a few shots:
Red rose:
Indoors at ISO 80:
Also at ISO 80:
Here is that House chamber room again, sweetened with a little bit of levels adjustment, and a bit more color saturation:
And, heres' the S90 at full zoom, at ISO 400:
So, other than the really odd live view color issue, it looks like I could be happy with this S90. I'll have to see what happens with that screen as I move forward from here.
Tom Hoots
http://thoots.zenfolio.com
So, after waffling over whether to get another S90 or a G11, and waiting for my local shop (an independent, local shop -- not Best Buy) to get either one in stock, I finally decided to try another S90. Got it last night. So, what are my results so far? Well, let me go over a few things:
1. This one has the little "creak" in the panel behind the flash. My first one didn't. There may be a few other areas that are a bit "flexy" in the new one that I didn't notice in the old one, too. I actually just picked up an SD990IS to add to my collection, and I've got to say that it is far more "tank-like" than the S90, easily. On the other hand, it has a rather slick surface as compared to the S90's more textured surface -- I've dang near dropped the SD990 a couple of times, just like a bar of soap.
2. Optically, it seems to be a bit better. Check out another grid-lines picture:
With a bit less light in the room on this heavy overcast day, I bumped up the levels on this picture a bit, so you could see everything. That said, I think this is quite a bit better. Certainly not "perfect," and I don't think it's possible for a lens to be "perfect." But, this is more like any other camera -- you can see some barrel distortion, but it's not nearly as "noticeable" as the distortion the first S90 had was. And that's the key -- you're just not really going to "notice" anything wrong with this one, as you could with the first one.
3. Pretty much "OK so far" to this point. A creak or two and some "ordinary" lens distortion won't bother me. But, this thing does have a real problem:
The store I bought it from is in a local mall. I had a fully-charged battery and a memory card ready to go, so I just took the S90 to my car, got it out of the box, plugged in the battery and the card, and headed back into the mall and took some sample shots. And HOLY COW -- I was seeing green. Lots of dark green. I wound up going outside, and taking shots of sidewalks, parking lots, and such things, to see if it had some super-wonky colors.
But when I got home, all the shots looked just fine. No huge green cast, or anything remotely close to it. So what the heck??
Well, I got my answer this morning, at the office. I tried taking shots of a map on my cubicle wall, under the typical built-in light above it. Here's a look:
Pretty minimal light, though I actually had the light in the right-hand cabinet turned on, which you don't see here.
At any rate, probably three times out of five, when I held the shutter down to take a macro shot of that map, the on-screen image was very dark and very green or yellowish. Probably one time out of five, I got a very bright, bluish on-screen color. And maybe one time out of five, I got a properly-colored image on the screen. No matter what, though, the pictures all turned out just fine -- in fact, I turned Image Review on, and I could just see how it changed from "wrong to right" as the "live image" gave way to the review image.
It was really as if the "live view" was showing one of the white balance presets -- like "cloudy" to make the dark, greenish or yellowish cast, or one of the fluorescent settings to get the bright blue look. Again, not that it "applied" those settings to the image it captured -- the camera was in AWB -- but it sure looked "on screen" like that.
VERY, very strange. I'm getting tired of taking S90's back, so I'm not sure if this is a show-stopper or not. I didn't notice any problems with any of my other shooting today -- maybe it has to do with fluorescent light. That would explain why the mall lighting triggered it. Though....... The shot of the cubicle was also taken with fluorescent light, so..... Beats me. I suppose I'll make a new thread about it, eventually. In the meantime, I'll try to get a grip on what exactly triggers it.
Otherwise, it seems to be OK as a camera -- here are a few shots:
Red rose:
Indoors at ISO 80:
Also at ISO 80:
Here is that House chamber room again, sweetened with a little bit of levels adjustment, and a bit more color saturation:
And, heres' the S90 at full zoom, at ISO 400:
So, other than the really odd live view color issue, it looks like I could be happy with this S90. I'll have to see what happens with that screen as I move forward from here.
Tom Hoots
http://thoots.zenfolio.com
Fran