Canon PowerShot S300Canon makes a major update to their original S100 "Digital ELPH": More zoom, more controls, and better photos. Hard to beat!<<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 4:ViewfinderReview First Posted: 4/5/2001 |
ViewfinderBoth an optical viewfinder and an LCD monitor bedeck the S300. The real image optical viewfinder is just left of center on the back panel and features center target marks for autofocus and exposure. No parallax correction marks are provided for closeup shooting. The optical viewfinder has a reasonably high eyepoint, which should accommodate most eyeglass wearers, but the camera's small size precluded the provision of a diopter adjustment. Two LEDs on the left of the viewfinder report the camera's current status. For example, when Macro mode is enabled, the bottom LED lights solid yellow. The top LED lights green when focus and exposure are set. A flashing green LED indicates that the camera is accessing the CompactFlash card. If the top LED lights orange, the flash is fully charged and ready to fire, while a flashing orange LED warns that a slow shutter speed is in use and to keep the camera still.
The 1.5 inch, low temperature, polycrystalline silicon, TFT LCD monitor comes on automatically when the camera is turned on, but can be canceled by pressing the Display button (you can also set it to remain off when the camera is powered on, simply by turning the LCD monitor off before turning the camera off). The LCD monitor displays a variety of camera information such as the white balance setting, flash mode, the number of available images, image quality, and others (this display will actually turn itself off after a few seconds, but can be recalled by pressing the Display button twice or by pressing any of the control buttons). In Playback mode, the LCD monitor offers both a multi-image index display mode and a playback zoom for close-up examination of captured images.
An Instant Review function is controlled through the Record menu, which automatically displays the last captured image on the LCD monitor as it's being recorded to the CompactFlash card. You can set the review time to two or 10 seconds, and you have the opportunity to instantly delete the image. This is a nice feature for checking your exposure or framing. If you're not happy with the shot, simply erase it and start again. Like other record-mode camera functions, you can shoot again immediately by pressing the shutter button, even if the current "review" hasn't ended.
Despite its small size, we found the S300's LCD to be very sharp and readable, and it did exceptionally well under bright outdoor lighting as well. (Even in full sunlight.) Overall, it's one of the most readable LCD's we've seen yet on a digicam.
In our testing, the LCD viewfinder performed very well, showing just over 99% of the final image area at all focal lengths. Unfortunately, the optical viewfinder didn't fare nearly as well, showing only about 79% of the image area at the wide angle end of the lens' zoom range, and 84% at the telephoto end. An accuracy figure of 85% is fairly typical for optical viewfinders on digicams, so the S300's doesn't do too bad at the telephoto end of its range. We do feel it's a bit too "tight" at wide angle focal lengths however. (Personally, we like to see optical viewfinders with closer to 90% coverage, but 85% has been an accepted standard in the film-based point & shoot camera world for years.)
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