[godzookie2k]

Hey art_director, I just joined the club. I like it, still a little on the fence. I posted this little review of the camera at another board I frequent more often, but I figured I'd post it here for general knowledge anyway.



Background:
I'm a very analog person as far as photo/video is concerned. I still love my 35 mm canon eos, and I shoot hi8. My old olympus d600 L recently got hosed, and I was in the market for a new digital camera. After the 1000 dollar loss on the olympus I had no intents on buying another top of the line. (If I spend 1000 dollars on a 35 mm camera tomorrow, I'm damn sure I'd get more that 3-4 years of use, maybe 3-4 decades of use)

Before:
So, being in the market for a new camera I made a little list of what I needed.

It had to be compact. The mistake I made with the olympus was not realizing the potential of digital cameras and foreseeing their taking off, and I'd *love* to be able to carry one around 24/7. So I needed something portable, but still carried a good shot.

I didn't need an amazing billion megapixel resolution, anything about 2.0 megapixels would do, if I'm shooting something for print I'll still shoot 35.

I wanted a built in rechargeable battery. Digital cameras eat batteries for breakfast, and being one who can burn off a 36 exposure film in about 5 minutes, I needed a camera that didn't require me swapping batteries every few seconds, so battery life and thoughtless recharge were one of the tops on my list.

I wanted a camera with speed. Digitals usually piss me off because I need to wait a few seconds between turn on and first shot, in addition, I need to wait between shots for a few while it saves. This was a major concern, I wanted a digital that could keep up with my very fast shutter finger, not to mention it needed to be fast to start up and switch between review and shooting modes.

It needed to be color accurate for print without much hassle.

To top it all off it needed to fall under my US400$ budget ceiling.

OSX compatible, as a must.

Review:
All that being said, during my research I became convinced that the casio Elixim series was what I wanted. It had the speed I wanted and more, picture quality was good, and it was wicked small. When I was finally convinced that it was the right camera, I found out it wasn't osx compatible. Disappointment of the week. I always had a crush on the elph series so I decided to try one out. It had the speed I wanted, osx compatibility, and everything else. The Elph supershot DOES hold strangely though, which is annoying. Its like holding a book of playing cards to your face and trying to look through it. Very annoying, but as far as fulfilling my requirements, it fit the bill perfectly. So I bought it. It is very disappointing in low lighting, which is the case with most digital cameras. Also it is very shitty in the macro shot department. Nothing closer than 3 inches need apply. I am hoping that I can strike all my gripes off to the fact that I've only had it for a day and that I've only just looked at the 6 manuals, not to mention actually reading then. Maybe its just that I have to get used to the whole point and shoot thing. My last digital camera was an Olympus D600-L. Great camera, held well, amazing zoom, and like 3 years later still shot real well. My other cameras include a Sony hi8, a Bell/Howell super-8, and a 35mm canon EOS. So maybe its the simplicity thats just taking getting used to. This is the ultimate touristy camera. Fits in your pocket with room to spare, fast enough to whip out snap a picture and shove back in your pocket in under ten seconds.

Pros:
This thing is exactly the size of a pack of smokes, so it is the perfect size, the quality is good. Full ISO control. Control for long exposure time. Good timer, Tripod ready, great resolution, great battery life. The controls are simple yet and lastly, aesthetically its ****ing gorgeous to behold, all brushed aluminum and just screams 'slick'.

Cons:
Needs work in the zoom lens department, but maybe I'm too comfy with the 135mm telephoto lens on the front of my canon that lets me grab a close-up portrait shot from across the street. Night time or low light performance without the flash needs work, its just no where remotely color accurate in those situations. Something about the form needs to be worked on to make it easier to hold. LCD screen needs a slide-away cover or something to protect it, I can feel my finger kind of squish it sometimes in my pocket. iPhoto works great unless I'm downloading more that 50 pictures, then it crashes, but aside from that its fantastic for organizing and simplicity. I wish its export function had more quality controls, and I wish the program didn't move like frozen mollassas. I'm pleased with the camera, but not yet 400 dollar pleased. I'm still figuring it out though. We'll see.


Here are some sample shots. some low light, some long exposure fun, some daytime. http://www.concaf.org/towork/

[scottiB]

Which one did you purchase? S230? I have the S230 and love it--a perfect complementary camera to my Pro 90IS.

[godzookie2k]

s230. I like it. Not totally in LOVE with it yet.

[art_director]

my wife has an older s110 and i have the s230. we love them both. she's a stylist so she can carry the elph with her when she's out prop shopping and then can e-mail options to her clients. i'm a camera junkie and love just documenting the things i see in life. for that purpose the elph is tops in my book. sure, there are camers that do a better job but none that are so compact. let's not forget it is a point and shoot.

if anyone is interested there's a great site where you can post pics for free (1 per day). you can also pay a small monthly fee and post up to 6 shots per day. the place is www.fotolog.net. check it out.

my user name there is shockdaddyd.

enjoy.

[art_director]

hey zookie:

for the past two weeks i've been on a shoot in nyc. one of the photographers i was working with is a pinhole junkie. i love to shoot pinhole stuff as well but have been doing so with a little camera that holds a polaroid back and i use the polaroid type 55 b&w positive / negative film. it's a wonderful setup but the polaroids, fix, back, etc. can be a pain to lug around. the nyc photographer showed me a great camera ( found at http://www.zeroimage.com/camera1.html ) that will take 120 film. the camera's not cheap, i got mine for $170 through camulet in nyc, but it's a beautiful piece and it takes great shots.

thought i'd mention it.

later.

[Old Toad]

I have an S100, my daughter an S110. We love them! You're absolutely right about the low light issue. You must follow the flash guidelines to the letter or you're in for some grainy shots.
I find the delay between pressing the shutter button and taking the picture a pain, don't know if it's better on the newer models, but have learned to anticipate.

My main spec for buying was size! Yes, size does matter. I can take it everywhere and I do. Was able to document an accident I saw last week and email the pictures to the police dept. As I said, I take it everywhere, everytime.

I use it for making family iPhoto books, i.e. one for each grandchild's first year, etc., and our family website: Toad Hall

I'm eyeing the S400 and am trying to convince my wife that I absolutely need it. She almost believes me, ain't that a kick.

On uploading from the camera, I use a card reader, upload to a folder, title the folder with the date and other pertinent info, and then upload into iPhoto. This assures me that iPhoto (or the camera) won't shut down early and lose my images. I also never let the computer reformat the memory card. Always in the camera so that it's done right.

All in all, my experience with the camera has been more than satisfactory.

[NYCFarmboy]

My love story with the Canon Digital Elphs:

I have the S110 and the S230. Just got the S230 two days ago..

The S110 Digital Elph I have I purchased in December of 2001.

I bet I made over 20,000 photographs with it...minimum.... I finally just about have wore it out. The lense does not want to go all the way back in and I have to give it a gentle nudge to get it to go back in and shut down.

But.. other than that it works great.

And the movie mode..that has been the most exciting part of the Digital Elphs... it shoots in 640x480 at 15 frames per second. Only about 5 or 6 seconds, but the sound quality is actually pretty good and I've actually used the movie files made with it for commercial video work.

The way the cameras are made allows for the handholding of video work to be done without a tripod. The images are very stable because of how close the lense is affixed to the digital receptors.

I was all set to go with the S400 Canon at 4 megapixel but it does not shoot at high quality for video..its highest video is at 320x240. Which is too fuzzy to use for commercial work.

The S230 will do a 30 second avi file at 640x480.

And now that finally iMovie 3 accepts AVI files from Canon cameras it makes it a BREEZE to use with iMovie.

So.. I ABSOLUTELY love my Canon digital elphs. I plan on keeping the old S110 as a backup, but the S230..wow.. what a camera.

Since I have been using the Canon cameras my three sisters have gotten them, my nephew has got one (a 230 as well), my mom, and two of my brothers.

So that is a total of 9 Canon Digital Elphs in my family. (it make sharing cards and batteries very easy at get togethers etc.)

[RoofusPennymore]

I have the S100. As far as I can tell it does not have full ISO controls, just exposure controls. I'm just learning how to use the manual controls on this thing so hopefully someone can enlighten me.