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Canon Powershot S20

After having my bag stolen, and losing my eyemodule I decided that if I was going to replace it, I might as well have a proper digital camera - one with a half decent resolution. I mentioned this to my friend Joe who had just decided to upgrade to a Digital SLR. Consequently, he had a Canon S20 he no longer needed.

I did some research on the web, and found out that it was a pretty good camera, and would certainly be a good starting point for me in the digital photography world. So, I bought it off him for the price of a new flash gun.

This camera was a great introduction, and I really did take a lot of photos with it (2000 or so over 18 months). At a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 the quality of the images is good enough to withstanding prints up to 9 x 7 with little or no pixelation. It's also very easy to operate.

The limitation for me was primarily the speed. It was impossible to do anything with action in it as by the time the camera had focussed, the subject had left the frame entirely. Quite frustrating, especially when coupled with my apparent like for taking photos of things like the Lewes Bonfire Night celebrations. Another annoyance was the battery life, it's pretty poor so you'll want to make sure you stock up on spare batteries - I kept a reserve of Panasonic Lithium 2CR5Ms to keep me going between charges.

There is no manual mode with this camera, so you can't select aperture or shutter speed. I didn't know that I wanted this, but having played with the G3, I know the difference it can make. If you're not into photography per se, but just want a decent digital camera which makes a good point and shoot, then add this one to your list of possibles.

Update: I experimented with the different image modes so that I could check the differences in the aperture selections made by the camera. These experiments are displayed here.

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Canon S20
Canon S20

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