Brief Review of Canon S90

Canon’s s90 is designed to be an avid photographer’s travelling companion. The S Series was last produced in 2005  and historically was meant to fit in between the Powershot Elph series and the G series.  The size, features and build were in-between that of the Elph and G series.  The s90, introduced in August, 2009 reintroduces us to the S Series and breaks the size mold.  The s90 is fairly compact in terms of length, but is a bit wider than most of the Elph series. This is due to one of its control rings mounted on front around the lense.  Despite the size, the camera has a solid build feel.

As with most other photographers, the first thing I tested was its performance in low light situations.  This little camera performed remarkably well turning out great looking photos.  In more brightly lit scenes, such as the outdoors, the resulting picture had rich color, great detail and low sensor noise.

Another use for this camera is its macro capabilities.  The f2 lense seemed quite adept at taking great food shots with little effort.

The main competitor to this camera is the Panasonic LX3.  A review can be found at dpreview.com.

Basic Specifications
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Good: 
good set of controls for manual and semi-manual shooting
great wide angle (28mm) with f/2 shooting
great low-light shooting
reasonable speed on processor for continous focus and dynamic histogram
allows for shallow depth of field shooting, RAW or RAW+JPG capture
relatively large sensor – 1/1.7″, .43 cm2
Dual anti-noise systems (High sensitivity and anti-noise control)
same sensor 10 megapixel sensor as the G11
fast 2.0 lense, though 2.8 is only available on wide angle shots.

Bad: 
smooth finish attracts fingerprints while being slippery
no HD Video (shoots 640×480 at 30fps)
zoom only goes to 105mm

Overall Rating:  Recommended, 4 stars

Sample Shots