Canon PowerShot S45A sleek design, improved electronics and user interface, direct support for a Canon inkjet printer, and four megapixels of resolution!<<Video, Power, Software :(Previous) | (Next): Reference: Datasheet>> Page 12:Test Results & ConclusionReview First Posted: 02/22/2003 |
Test Results
The S45 turned in a really excellent performance overall. Color and tone
were excellent, as was resolution. See the S45's sample
pictures page for the full results of my testing, but meanwhile, here's
a summary of my findings:
- Color: The PowerShot S45 produced really beautiful color throughout
my testing. Colors were bright, hue-accurate, and appropriately saturated,
under a variety of light sources. Even the very tough household incandescent
lighting of the Indoor Portrait test proved to be no problem, with both the
Incandescent and Manual white balance options handling it with aplomb. (The
auto white balance struggled a bit, but I'm content to simply switch to the
incandescent setting.) The only thing I could find to complain about color-wise
was that the bright red flowers in the outdoor portrait shot came out somewhat
oversaturated, as were the bright primary color blocks on the MacBeth chart
in my "Davebox" target. Overall though, the S45 delivered some of
the best color I've seen from a digicam.
- Exposure: The S45's exposure system did very well, surprisingly requiring
no exposure compensation on the Outdoor Portrait shot, a test that often tricks
digicam exposure meters. It did require a full 1.0 EV of positive exposure
compensation on the indoor portrait test, but that seems to be pretty customary
among the cameras I've tested. Tonality was very good, with the camera's default
contrast setting about in the middle of the road relative to competing models.
The manual contrast adjustment is quite handy for dealing with overly contrasty
or "flat" subjects, although I'd like to see a wide range of control
and smaller steps between each setting. Flash intensity was a bit low, but
didn't seem to decrease any, all the way out to the 14 foot limit of my flash
range test. I would have liked to see it a bit brighter overall, but the separate
flash exposure compensation control lets you adjust it to suit your preferences.
- Resolution/Sharpness: The S45 performed very well on our "laboratory"
resolution test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at
resolutions as low as 800 lines per picture height horizontally. I found "strong
detail" out to at least 1,100 lines, and possibly a bit further. (It's
sometimes hard to know just where to "call" the resolution - I generally
peg it where I start to see enough aliasing to obscure the target elements,
but the S45 gives at least a strong impression of detail well beyond
that point. - So I called it as "1,100+".) "Extinction"
of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,450 lines.
- Closeups: The S45 turned in about an average performance in the macro
category, capturing a minimum area of 3.81 x 2.86 inches (97 x 73 millimeters).
Resolution was very high, with strong detail in the dollar bill, coins, and
brooch. The corners were a little soft, but details were sharp throughout
the rest of the frame. Barrel distortion was rather strong in this shot, from
the lens' wide-angle position required for close shooting. The S45's flash
had trouble throttling down for the macro area, resulting in strong overexposure.
- Night Shots: The S45 offers a maximum exposure time of 15 seconds,
which results in excellent low-light performance, especially when combined
with the adjustable ISO setting. The S45 produced clear, bright, usable images
down to the 1/16 foot-candle (0.67 lux) limit of my test, with good color
at the 100, 200, and 400 ISO settings. At ISO 50, the camera captured bright
images as low as 1/8 foot-candles (1.3 lux), though you could use the slightly
dim 1/16 foot-candle image in a pinch if you had to. The S45's usefulness
in low light conditions is greatly aided by its bright autofocus-assist light,
which makes shooting in total darkness possible. (Albeit at short range -
You'll find the AF light most helpful in settings that aren't totally dark,
where it'll extend the focus range significantly.) The S45 automatically employs
a Noise Reduction system at shutter speeds slower than 1.3 seconds, and it
did a great job during my testing. Even at ISO 400, noise was only moderately
high.
- Viewfinder Accuracy: The S45's optical viewfinder is a little tight,
showing 84 percent frame accuracy at both wide angle and telephoto zoom settings.
The LCD monitor, however, was much more accurate. My standard lines of measurement
were just outside the final frame, so the LCD is close to 100 percent
accurate. Given that I like LCD monitors to be as close to 100 percent accuracy
as possible, the S45 performs quite well in this area. At 84% accuracy, the
optical viewfinder is about average among the cameras I've tested, but I'd
really like to see optical finders more accurate than this.
- Optical Distortion: Optical distortion on the S45 is a bit lower
than average at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.7 percent
barrel distortion. (This is slightly lower than average among cameras I've
tested, but I'd really like to see much less geometric distortion in digicam
images than this.) The telephoto end fared much better, as I couldn't find
even one pixel of pincushion distortion. Chromatic aberration is present,
but not too objectionable, at least to my eye. There's about 5-6 pixels of
coloration on either side of the target lines in the corners of the image,
but the extent is mainly due to the softening in the corners, and the coloration
is fairly slight. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe
around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)
- Battery Life: Not having the external power adapter for the S45,
I couldn't test its power drain directly. It does appear to have better than
average battery life for a mid-sized camera, with a worst-case runtime of
roughly 110 minutes, based on direct observation of the camera running in
capture mode with the LCD display turned on. (While this is very good battery
life though, I still highly recommend purchasing a second battery along with
the camera, and keeping it charged so you'll always have a spare.)
Conclusion
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