Canon S90 Performance

Slow to average speed for a consumer camera.

About average startup and shutdown times here (about the same as the G11, though slightly faster startup because of the smaller lens), but pretty fast buffer clearing with a fast card.

Mode switching times are about average (a little faster than the G11, except Record to play, which is identical).

Full AF shutter response in the default AF mode is about average at wide-angle, at 0.43s. Full AF shutter lag is a bit faster than average at full telephoto, at 0.49s. Enabling the flash increases lag quite a bit to 1.15s, due to the preflash metering involved. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure results in a lag time of 0.088 second, which while fast, isn't quite as fast as some. Times for continuous autofocus and manual focus are also about average, at 0.52s and 0.41s respectively. The Canon S90's performance here is similar to the G11, with some times being slightly faster (full AF, continuous AF and manual focus), and some slightly slower (full AF with flash, and prefocused).

Shot-to-shot cycle times are a bit on the slow side, and slightly slower than the G11, at about 2.43 seconds for large/fine JPEGs.  When shooting RAW, cycle time slows to 2.96 seconds per frame, and for RAW + large/fine JPEG it stretches to 3.87 seconds. The camera does seem to capture frames indefinitely at these rates, though. (That is, given a fast enough memory card, it doesn't have to pause every few frames to wait for the card to catch up.) The Canon S90's continuous shooting modes were also slower than the G11, capturing large/fine JPEGs at about 0.94 frames per second vs the G11's 1.11 fps. This rate slows to 0.70 frames per second with RAW (vs 0.84), and 0.47 frames per second (vs 0.79) with RAW + large/fine JPEG. Buffer sizes were good, though, at over 20 frames in any quality with a fast card. (Note that slow memory cards may force the camera to stop and wait for them after fewer frames.) The flash takes 6.8 seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, which is noticeably slower than the G11's 4.5 seconds.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, download speeds are very good. (A bit faster than the G11.)

Bottom line, like the Canon G11, the PowerShot S90 won't be a good choice for fast-paced action, especially if shooting RAW, but should handle typical non-speed-critical shooting situations fairly well.

Battery
Below average battery life for a lithium-ion design.

The Canon PowerShot S90 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Since battery life is below average, we recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Canon PowerShot S90 accepts SDHC/SD/MMC memory cards, and does not include any built-in memory or a starter card. Canon recommends using a card with Speed Class 4 or faster for capturing VGA movies.

We strongly recommend buying a large capacity SD/SDHC memory card at least a 2GB card, preferably a 4 or 8GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings, RAW files or video. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)