Canon S2 IS Review
Here are the best of the sample photos I took - the last 5 were with my Canon G3, the rest were Canon S2 IS.
And here’s the review I’m going to post to Amazon:
I currently have a Canon G3 that I love, but I’ve had it for a couple years now, and I’m interested in an upgrade. I use my camera mostly for macro nature photography and everyday around the house photos. Most of the time I use automatic settings and come out with decent results. I’ve been wanting a better telephoto lens for birding. This is what I was comparing the Canon S2 IS against when I took it out for a test drive this weekend. I will be returning the S2 - it wasn’t worth it as an upgrade to me.
There are a few design features that I did not like. The S2 uses the LCD to show what features are enabled. I prefer how the G3 has two seperate screens - one as a viewfinder and one for displaying settings. That way, if the LCD is closed, I can still see what settings I have selected. The eyepiece viewfinder is digital, not optical. When I’m zoomed in all the way, I will use it to track an animal, where I can see more of the scene, but the S2 eyepiece displays the same picture as the LCD, and when zoomed in all the way it was too blurry to see anything.
I loved the image stabilization and the telephoto lens. I was able to stand in my house and get decent photos of squirrels and birds in trees outside. I could get clear basketball players at dusk from a distance. The colors did not seem as rich as my other camera, but the image quality was just as good. The camera focuses quickly and the pictures are quick.
The macro lens is what I was very disappointed about. It’s true that you can get a photo with the lens directly on the object - I got a shot of the newspaper with the lens touching, but no animal or insect is going to let me get that close for a photo anyway. The part I disliked the most with the macro is that you cannot zoom in that mode. Usually I get as close as I can physically and then zoom in, but not with the S2.
Personally, I still want a camera that can do a telephoto zoom as well as this one, but not lose the macro capabilities I have with my current camera. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any available right now that meet my needs, without me going to SLR.
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I’m not a professional or anything, but the last five are much clearer and stuff then the other cameras… You really do take nice pictures.
Telephoto *and* macro — yep, you want two different ends of the spectrum and I think your suspicion is probably correct — it’ll be tough (if not impossible) to find a point-n-shoot style camera (even the high end ones) that will perform well at both ends.
Is there a reason you don’t want to go SLR? The prices are really coming down on ‘em. I’d recommend the Rebel XT, or if you don’t mind used there are lots of used Rebel 350Ds out there for sale. Of course you’d then want 2 lenses — a macro and a telephoto — but it’d get you what you want.
Anyway. :) (I’m Becca’s friend, by the way.)
What does macro mean in photography?
Well, it means very close up. When I take my macro shots of flowers or bugs, I usually have the lens just a couple inches away from them. With the S2 that I was using, it advertised as being able to be directly on the object and still focusing, like on the newspaper shot.
Well, I found this site while searching on google for canon s2 stuff and just thought I should give me 2 cents, even though this post was from so long ago.
You will require macro lens to take close ups of flowers or bugs. The supermacro function is just something for fun, not to take anything that moves. The macro lens, or the cheaper alternative close up lenses allow u to zoom and take the flowers and bugs. Eg, the min distance for 12x zoom is about 90cm i think. With a +1 close up, the distance is now 45cm. Good enuff to take really huge photos of whatever u want without scaring them off
I have a canon S2 IS and I love it. It takes great macro photos, I use the super macro mode.