Canon PowerShot S60 Review

Despite the ‘60′ in the name, the Canon PowerShot S60 is in fact a 5-megapixel digital camera, just like its predecessor, the S50. There have been a number of improvements, though, to increase its photographic appeal.

Most important among these is a brand new lens. The old S50 had a 3x zoom covering a focal range eguivalent to 35-105mm. When camera makers extend a lens’s zooming range, they usually add the extra range to the telephoto end -it’s the easiest thing to do, optically – despite the fact that what most photographers actually need is extended wide-angle capability.

The S60 offers just this, with a 3.6x zoom covering the equivalent of 28-100mm. The difference between a 28mm and a 35mm lens might not sound much, but it makes a great deal of difference, allowing more effective photography in cramped interiors, sweeping landscapes and strong perspective effects.

An optional teleconverter doubles the lens’s focal length to offer the equivalent of 200mm -handy for medium-range sports and wildlife photography – while there’s also a waterproof housing for depths up to 40m. Canon PowerShot S60 even has a new white balance preset, ‘Underwater’, for precisely this purpose.

Canon PowerShot S60 photographic specifications are impressive. You get full PASM exposure modes, plus a small selection of scene modes, three different metering patterns, a shutter speed range of 15sec to 1/2,000sec and simultaneous saving of RAW and JPEG files. This is a handy feature for serious photographers. While the old S50 enables you to save RAW files, this meant you had to spend some time converting your files to TIFFs and JPEGs later on your computer. This way, you have access to a JPEG image straightaway, and you can produce a higher-quality version from the RAW when (or even if) you need to later on.

The S60’s macro mode goes right down to 4cm; you can shoot continuously at 2fps; there’s a VGA-quality 640 x 480 pixel movie mode; and an impressive-sounding nine-point AiAF FlexiZone focusing system.

Some of these features, though, prove slightly less impressive in practice. Canon S60 can indeed focus down to 4cm, but many of our close-up test shots displayed focusing errors, a trait carried over from the previous S50.

The 2fps shooting mode is handy, but it’s hardly fast by today’s standards, and the high-resolution movie mode comes at a price – a jerky lOfps frame rate and a maximum movie length of 30 seconds.

The camera can automatically select which of the nine AF points to lock onto, or you can scroll around to choose the focusing point manually. When you do this, the AE system weights the exposure automatically.

The problem with this is twofold. First, clever though it is, the S60’s AF system isn’t particularly fast. For action or ‘grab’ shots, you’re really better off using the manual focus button on the side of the camera, and the distance scale this displays on the LCD. Second, systems like FlexiZone just take you further and further away from basic and “The S60 has ergonomic advantages over the old digital camera, but the construction and materials are altogether cheaper”

There may be some instances where the FlexiZone system will help, but you’ll have to hope that when these instances do arise you remember how to use the feature.

Canon PowerShot S60 Handling and controls

The S60 has ergonomic advantages over the old camera, but the construction and materials are altogether cheaper. Your fingers grip plastic where once they gripped metal, and the controls have a more cost-conscious feel. The S60 does replace the S50’s awkward zooming/navigational buttons with a proper navipad, and the big mode dial on the top is easy to see and to use. The S60 will slide into your pocket readily enough, thanks to its streamlined design, but it’s not a particularly small camera.

The control layout is good, especially Canon’s trademark Func button, which offers quick access to practically all the routine photographic adjustments you need.

On the other hand, the camera doesn’t feel particularly responsive. We’ve already mentioned the fairly leisurely AF system, but the S60’s in no great rush to start up, either. It’s apparently 20 per cent quicker than the S50, but that’s hardly saying much, and you still have to wait around three seconds before you can start taking shots.

Once you do, though, you’ll be pretty pleased with the results. Canon’s DIGIC image processing system once again demonstrates its ability to turn out sharp, contrasty, saturated images in a wide variety of conditions.

The only problem is the freguent appearance of magenta/blue fringing, or highlight ‘blooming’. You could tolerate this on a cheaper snapshot camera, but the type of user Canon’s aiming the S60 at is likely to be rather more demanding. There are ways and means of reducing this effect in Photoshop, but none of them are particularly easy.

It’s this that takes the edge off the S60’s ‘professional’ appeal. Shooting images in RAW mode is all very well, but the ultimate qualify you can obtain will be limited, and notjust by the 5-megapixel resolution.

But then what are the wide-angle alternatives? Nikon’s CoolPix 5400 is more expensive and even Olympus’s C-5060 will cost you around $30 more-and neither will fit in a jacket pocket. The fact is that even though it’s now a plasticized version of its former self, far from compact and far from perfect, Canon PowerShot S60 nevertheless gives you more for your money than you’ll find anywhere else, especially when you consider that handy wide-angle zoom

Tagged with: Canon Powershot • DIGIC • Exposure Modes • Macro Mode • review • Teleconverter • wide-angle zoom

Filed under: Canon

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