Canon S120 Field Test

The opportunity to shoot with the Canon PowerShot S120 gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with a line of premium compact cameras I've liked ever since I reviewed my first S-series PowerShot, the S45, way back in 2002. In that bygone world Facebook wasn't even a dream and the iPhone and Instagram were still years in the future. The new PowerShot S120 is chock full of features for the modern world of 2013, but I'm happy to say that the basic idea of its predecessors -- a very compact, well-built camera with advanced features -- survives unchanged.

The Canon PowerShot S120 manages the nice trick of being very compact and lightweight while still feeling very solidly built, with a premium fit and finish. On three different days, I carried the camera around New York City on foot and by bicycle, and it fit easily in a jacket pocket. I don't typically carry cameras in my pants pockets, but if you do, the PowerShot S120 is small enough to do so comfortably. It's not much different than carrying a smartphone.

Smartphones are dramatically undercutting the compact camera market and a large part of their appeal is the easy connectivity they offer to all those things, like Facebook and Instagram, that didn’t exist when I reviewed the PowerShot S45 a little over a decade ago. In the last year, it’s become crystal clear that the camera companies know they need to get their cameras connected, so I was especially interested in trying out the new, improved Wi-Fi functions of the Canon PowerShot S120, which Canon is prominently promoting.

I delved into the Canon PowerShot S120’s Wi-Fi system as soon as I got the camera unpacked. It consists mainly of a control interface on the camera -- kind of an overarching app -- which lets you set up (and easily recall later) various destinations for your photos. These could be services like Facebook and Flickr, or Android and iOS devices like your smartphone or tablet. The camera can connect to Wi-Fi networks and send images directly to a service like Flickr (routed through an online portal called Canon iMAGE GATEWAY) or it can connect to your smartphone (or tablet) and send images to its camera roll or photo app.