Canon S90

joniverson wrote:

I have owned this camera for a couple of weeks. It was NITB, so felt that, for the price, I got a decent deal. However, I am not all that impressed with this camera.

One thing I find annoying is that the menu buttons are flaky. Very easy to get a setting you don't want. I've had this happen several times while trying to hone in on a specific setting.

I've also had a time maintaining power when powered with an external adapter. I've also noticed that when it goes off, sometimes upon power up, I end up with settings where I haven't a clue as to how I got them! Face recognition focus for one; I never set this originally!

I think the biggest negative with this camera though is the lens. I've been using it a lot of course. I find that it has more CA at the edges than my ultra cheap Samsung S630. I also find the Samsung's lens sharper. I had read in the archives here about using close up lenses for better macro, so I got some this week. They are the 3 lens R set made by Kodak supposedly made for a camera in the past- Kodak Retina Close-Up Lens Set Type R. While they do work, I am finding a LOT more CA along the edges with the lenses. I am actually getting better results with an unused Minolta 35mm lens, but the working distance is very small and almost unusable which is a shame.

My final gripe is RAW files. At low ISO, they actually seem noisier than my Samsung JPGs!

Oh well, sorry for those who won't agree, all of this is just my personal opinions. I've always been leery of Canon ever since trying to use one of their DSLR's for astronomy. To use it properly required removing the IR filter from the CCD and then adding special filters to enhance astronomical objects. However, an old Pentax KX was already astronomy ready out of the box. Much cheaper and has always performed well.

In a pinch, I wanted something better than the cheap Samsung and not at a horrendous price. The Canon, in my opinion, does not meet this requirement and it was a good thing that the price was low.

Raw files will generally look noisier than JPEG files from any camera, because JPEGs have noise reduction applied and raw files don't. You can apply noise reduction in PP software to your taste and it will generally be much better than that applied in the camera.

It's a similar thing with CA. Your Samsung is likely processing out the CA in its JPEGs before you see it. If the S90 is anything like the S95 (think it's the same lens?), then yes it has some CA but it's fairly well-controlled. You tend to get the most at the wide end. You can pretty much remove it quite easily in an appropriate raw editor. If you're using add-on lenses then that's another matter - they will no doubt increase CA and it may not be easy to remove.

As for sharpness, I have found the S95 lens to be pretty sharp - sharp enough for 10MP in most cases, though I haven't used it that much for close-up work. This, of course, is copy-dependent, but I wouldn't say Canon's quality control is particularly bad - subjectively I'd say it's better than most.