The sleek PowerShot S3 IS digital camera offers you high resolution, an extra-long zoom, advanced yet easy-to-use movie functions plus great new shoot
The sleek PowerShot S3 IS digital camera offers you high resolution, an extra-long zoom, advanced yet easy-to-use movie functions plus great new shooting options. Also, with Image Stabilizer technology, images and movies taken with the S3 IS are sharp and smooth, even when the camera gets jostled. It's everything you need to capture the fun, excitement and beauty of your active life - wherever it takes you!
Uses AA Batteries.
Made in Japan (so it says).
As good as the the photographer (I) can get it to work. I am still learning tricks, specially in the shutter speed area. Example: Tv.
12x Zoom meets my needs.
Features such as: L-M2-S-W are very great awesome. The color density or opacity, brightness, and et cetera et cetera.
Video does not make noise like the Konica Minolta 10x I had.
Microphone & voice recording feature.
6x MegaPixels meets my needs.
Cord to connect to TV for quick viewing very handy for quick show with friends and family, just to mention a few.
Weaknesses:
I wish it had a bigger flash. The flash gets shadowed over by my zoom protector--- more of a problem with close range shots.
I still can't figure out how to get the best of low light environment, specially with people moving about.
Similar Products Used:
Konice Minota 10x--- they said this is not made anymore, but I did see a display of the same one I had, when I had it, at the guinness museum in Gatlinburg. I felt pretty proud of it then. The video wasn't that good as it recorded the zoom in-and-out noise. Camera still works till present, but have problems with zoom---it works when it wants and when it doesn't wants.
The S3 tries to be a Swiss army knife camera, with everything from a superzoom to a movie mode to a swiveling LCD. However, it's ends up being more a Jack of All Trades that does many tasks well but never truly exceeds.
Strengths:
12X zoom with image stabilization
A swiveling LCD that allows photos from around corners or over a crowd, but to be honest I rarely used it like that.
A base ring can be removed to mount an adapter tube and accessory lenses. I used it with a 1.7X Sony and the results were good but not spectacular.
Movie quality is surprisingly good, with clips limited at 1GB in file size. This takes 8 minutes at the maximum standard definition (640X480) setting. Lots of people complain about how "short" these clips are, but that's only the length per single clip, you can record multiple shorter clips all day as long as there's enough batteries and memory. Long lengths per clip really only matters if you're trying to record a concert or presentation, in which case you'll likely be using a real camcorder.
It has a special 60FPS second mode that is good for very fast action, and adds a smooth fluid quality to clips that would otherwise be jerky or hard to see. However, the 60FPS is only for 60 seconds per clip, and that is getting short.
About the "right size" to be small enough to be easily carried and still big enough to operate the controls.
A decent flash considering the size of the camera.
Weaknesses:
It uses the same general internals as contemporary Canon compacts, so there's lots of noise at high ISO, although 400 is more useful than on the a540.
It uses not two but four Nimh batteries. They don't hold their charges for very long in storage, so always charging up a fresh set right before you go is best. Even still, they may just run short on you, and the shelf life is not very long, about 1-3 years. I personally hate Nimh batteries, although other people like the convenience of just buying them at the store. I'd take a lithium-ion any day.
Lots of extra "features" like color swapping or movie clip trimming that you can do on your PC and seem mostly like just gimmicks.
Compared to DSLR cameras it has a dismal burst rate, autofocus, and general speed of operation. While the price was good for a new camera, at this point a used Rebel 300 DSLR would be a good alternative. The difference in being able to capture fast action or shots indoors is amazing, and makes a "superzoom bridge" camera like this useful mainly for the movie mode.
The Canon PowerShot S3 IS has 6 megapixels and the 12x optical ulta zoom plus additional digital zoom. It's an alright camera for the not so serious photographer. Does good for scenery but not so much for portraits.
Strengths:
Strong body, good resolution, good color, great optical zoom, cool body design, awesome moving LCD screen
Weaknesses:
not great manual features, takes 4-AA batteries, poor low light image quality, poor viewfinder.
Rating Reviewed by: cesar garcia(Unregistered User)
(Intermediate)
Review Date September 29, 2007
Overall Rating 5 of 5
Value Rating 4 of 5
Used product for 3 Months to 1 year
Visitors rate this review 2.50 of 5,
2 votes
Review 4 of 13
Price Paid:
$300.00
from ebay
Summary:
i have had this camera for quite a while, it came with the converter a telephoto,wide angle, and few filter... i have to say i love this camera!!! hands down this is probably the best camera for $$ and features in its class! if you are looking for a camera with allot of features but don't want to buy an SLR or want to get into photography this is definitely a good start!
Strengths:
very good 12x zoom lens,image stabilization,nice features like color assent,swap,manual,nice color choices,good contrast...a very powerful flash, good battery life. swivel screen is very handy especially when taking very low to the ground shots. has manual focus, super macro (best macro i have seen) button layout is simple and easy to use. the converter and lens work fairly well, plus you can take infrared shots!
Weaknesses:
Anything over iso 200 is too noisy to use, no hot shoe, wish there was a bulb feature, longest exposure is 15 sec, the auto focus is not always spot on(thank god for manual focus)
I have had this camera for a very long time. It did not support raw format, but now there is a firmware update for experienced users that supports capturing to this raw format.
Strengths:
12X optical zoom
great quality lens
adapter and lenses available
long battery life on 4AA's
supports sandisk 4gb sandisk sd card that I have
many many shoot modes
great video quality capturing
Weaknesses:
due to high quality video recording, file size is huge, which is time consuming when transfering video and have to convert video to diff. format for smaller file size.
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