Canon PowerShot S2 IS review

[Matchload]

I had the S1IS for a few weeks. I'll tell you one thing. The camera was fun. I still have the movie clips I took with it. They are crystal clear at 30 FPS. The auto focus and the exposure work while in movie record mode. No other digital does that. They have IS like a regular digital video camera. The pictures were fun because you zoom in on someone and it blurs the background -- giving you the feel of a real 35 mm camera look. There are a lot of shots that come out blurry in zoom, but there are a ton that are crisp and clear too. If you know what you are doing, set the camera on fast shutter speed to reduce blurry shots. I took the 30 FPS clips I have and experimented with them in my NLE video editing programs like Vegas, Adobe and what have you. You can zoom in to a certain percent on the 640x 480 clips so that the width becomes 720 like a real video camera. This will crop a little bit of the top and bottom since video cameras are 720x480. Usually, it is hardly noticable. I even convert them to widescreen video. Depending on the amount of the frame that the subject takes up, it is often possible to be creative and not crop out heads at widescreen conversion. You just have to learn how to use your video editing programs. I also have a Canon Optura 300 video camera. When I zoom in and convert the Canon S1IS clips to 720x480 video then convert to Mpeg 2 (DVD) I see, and other people tell me, that the Canon S1IS video looks much clearer than my Optura 300 video converted from original DV format to Mpeg2. It is more vivid and saturated in color than the converted Canon Optura video. However, the original DV format video from the Optura 300 played directly from the tape is more vivid when played from the camera to the TV. But, you give up editing the video and storing on a DVD and playing on a DVD player. Nobody believes me until they see it that the S1IS video could look so good converted to DVD. Maybe because it is a bunch of 640x480 Jpegs to start with from a 3.2Mp still camera. I started with a Canon A-70 and I have about 80GB of video clips from that. That A-70 filled in many gaps in our kids lives when we would not usually have a video camera with us. We wish they were 30FPS now though. I wanted to convert them to DVD for archiving but they look funny going from 15FPS to 30FPS when viewed in MPEG2 format on a DVD player. Motion looks terrible. They look Ok on a computer though. One more thing. If you go online and download virtual dub, a free program, you can import a video clip and convert it to a series of Jpeg pictures. A 30 second clip from the A-70 gives you 450 pictures at 640x480 size. A 30 second clip from the S1IS gives you 900 pictures at that size. Great for analyzing motion. Golf swings, tennis, you name it. I just ordered a Canon 20D and the new Is lens for it. $2,000 bucks. My wife always missed the S1IS after I returned it. Now, I will be getting the S2Is for sure for her birthday. I look foward to playing with the video clips from it. If you want a camera that has a great built in zoom, great video clips, IS, and a lot more, get the S2IS. Learn the thing before you knock it. You will get decent stills and great video clips. If you learn to relax when taking a shot, you will reduce blurr due to muscle shake. I have playeds with many digi cams and the stills from these S1/2IS cameras look more 35mm-ish when zoomed in than any other digital still camera I have ever toyed with. If only it was a small enough package to keep in a purse all of the time.

Problems:

Some blurr and purple fringing at times. Just fire away. Keep the good ones. I save the bad ones just for keep sakes any way. If you want, get the add ons. Lens filters and all.