Canon Powershot S70 Review

Despite a number of the big boys pledging to give up the megapixel marathon in favour of focusing on image quality issues such as noise, lens resolution, chromatic aberration, and dynamic range, here we have what seems like another escalation in the resolution war. Canon has crammed a 7-megapixel sensor into its ultra-compact, Canon Powershot S70, which boasts sensor dimensions of just 1/1.8-inch. Common sense tells you that the laws of physics might just suggest that something’s got to give, especially when you consider that sticking 8 megapixels into the altogether bigger 2/3-inch sensor did little to improve resolution in real terms, and only brought extra problems with noise.

Canon Powershot S70 certainly looks every inch the finalist-the sleek, black magnesium-alloy casing makes the camera feel exceptionally tough for a mid-size compact.

Feature spec is comprehensive: there’s a RAW option for best-quality images, which is one feature that can’t be taken for granted at this price point and, even rarer, the option to switch back from JPEG to RAW format in playback mode.

Other features worth mentioning include centre-weighted and spot as well as evaluative settings for metering; nine manually selectable AF points; macro shooting as close as 4cm; as well as manual white balance.

A maximum zoom length of 100mm might be limiting for some, but then optical quality is likely to be that much better for the given size restriction.

Cramming 28-300mm odd is more than often a recipe for chromatic aberration, barrel, pincushion distortion, and countless other lens defects. A minus point zoom fanatics are often willing to swallow, but thankfully the S70 makes none of these concessions.

The S70′s layout is a product of Canon’s much-praised sensibilities for logic and speed of use. There’s not the room for placing shooting controls on the backplate, so instead you get a function button that brings up a sub-menu with options – never as fast as dedicated buttons, but it still works okay, albeit for the fact that a half press of the shutter doesn’t switch it off.

At least it’s still possible to shoot and view your images with the function menu switched on and neatly tucked to the side, which means you can play with the exposure compensation setting and see how things look immediately with playback preview, changing again if things aren’t as you’d like. And the same goes for white balance – it almost makes up for the missing dedicated buttons. The main menu houses all of the tool options, and is well specced and very well laid out.

Where Canon Powershot S70 does start to come unstuck is with performance. It exhibits the sort of sluggishness you’d expect from first or second generation digital compacts.

Start-up time isn’t a disgrace at three seconds, but playback is appalling – up to two seconds to move from one image to the next, which is inexcusable.

A product of the extra file size involved for sure, but enough of a hassle to easily outweigh the benefits of those extra couple of MPs. Shutter lag isn’t so bad but still present in large enough amounts to annoy, such as the time involved to move between playback and recording modes, and the time it takes the AF to lock. And while the metering systems comes out around the average mark, the AF system falls hopelessly behind, regularly failing to lock onto subjects in the centre AF point with no good reason at all that we could tell.

Praise needs to be given for the optics. Chromatic aberration is rarely noticeable, which is a triumph for a digital compact; and RAW images appear reasonably crisp. There’s a small amount of barrel distortion at the widest angle, but nothing to really spoil the party.

Tagged with: Canon • powershot • review • S70

Filed under: Canon

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