SteveClifton
Well-known member
I took the new Canon S95 for its first trip out yesterday. I’ve had it for just under a week, and despite the on-line hype about it, I am surprised that so little has been posted here about the camera’s digi-scoping potential.
I spent some time earlier in the week familiarising myself with the camera’s features, and so far I’m very impressed. It seems intuitive and easy to use, and so far I have only needed to refer to the manual to see how long the battery takes to charge!
My old digi-scoping camera (Fuji F31fd), while still delivering decent image quality, is starting to feel a bit long in the tooth, and, having become accustomed to using a DSLR over the last 2-3 years, I was keen to try a high-end compact camera that could hopefully produce similar image quality and functionality.
In particular, I was keen to get a camera that could deliver improvements over some of the Fuji’s shortcomings; in particular the following:
• No Raw shooting, and jpegs can be a little artificial looking, especially at higher ISO’s
• Slow to refresh and write pictures to memory card. The Canon writes to card very quickly though there is still a second or so delay after taking the picture.
• Inability to manual focus. The Canon can do this, and also has an enlarged section in the centre of the screen to aid manual focussing (either by the scope's focus ring, or using the camera)
• Auto focus can fail to lock on, sometimes resulting in a set of out of focus shots of the same subject
• Inability to fully save personal settings. When switched off, the Fuji retains most settings such as ISO, aperture etc, but the Canon can do this too, as well as retaining your preferred zoom position, so that upon switching on the camera, it is instantly ready to ‘go’
• Relatively poor video quality. The S95 has HD video with stereo sound
Other useful features I’ve discovered so far include:
So far so good. Can't wait to get out and use it again.
First few jpegs taken in late afternoon low light, ISO 640, 1/30 sec, timer mode, f4 (two ducks) Swan at ISO 640 1/80 sec, f3.5. Zoom was between 1/2 & 3/4 out
All taken through Swarovski ATS80 HD, 20-60 zoom at lower end of the zoom, DCA and adapter
All birds here were close, between 5-10m away
All have been tweaked a little (a little cropping, sharpened etc), but original of female Mallard has just been re-sized for posting
I spent some time earlier in the week familiarising myself with the camera’s features, and so far I’m very impressed. It seems intuitive and easy to use, and so far I have only needed to refer to the manual to see how long the battery takes to charge!
My old digi-scoping camera (Fuji F31fd), while still delivering decent image quality, is starting to feel a bit long in the tooth, and, having become accustomed to using a DSLR over the last 2-3 years, I was keen to try a high-end compact camera that could hopefully produce similar image quality and functionality.
In particular, I was keen to get a camera that could deliver improvements over some of the Fuji’s shortcomings; in particular the following:
• No Raw shooting, and jpegs can be a little artificial looking, especially at higher ISO’s
• Slow to refresh and write pictures to memory card. The Canon writes to card very quickly though there is still a second or so delay after taking the picture.
• Inability to manual focus. The Canon can do this, and also has an enlarged section in the centre of the screen to aid manual focussing (either by the scope's focus ring, or using the camera)
• Auto focus can fail to lock on, sometimes resulting in a set of out of focus shots of the same subject
• Inability to fully save personal settings. When switched off, the Fuji retains most settings such as ISO, aperture etc, but the Canon can do this too, as well as retaining your preferred zoom position, so that upon switching on the camera, it is instantly ready to ‘go’
• Relatively poor video quality. The S95 has HD video with stereo sound
Other useful features I’ve discovered so far include:
- F2 Lens instead of F2.8 = double the amount of light reaching the sensor
- Improved sensor for low light, high ISO performance. This was actually one of the Fuji’s strengths, though some images looked rather over-processed and artificial because of over aggressive in-camera anti-noise settings
- Ability to set the self timer for anything between 0-30 seconds, and then fire off up to 10 shots of a bird in sequence. Especially useful for fast moving or preening birds that always seem to have their heads down when using the 2 second timer of the Fuji!
- Hybrid IS system. This even seemed to be effective today, in damping the buffeting effect of a strong breeze on the tripod-mounted scope-an unexpected benefit
- Battery life is not as good (nothing like in fact) as that of the Fuji, which literally ‘lasts for ever’ on a full charge
- The zoom range of the Canon isn’t as digi-scoping friendly as that of the Fuji. Significant vignetting occurs with the Swarovski zoom lens, until the camera is zoomed to about half way out, when it virtually disappears. I think with a fixed 30x this will be less of an issue, but personally I think I can live happily enough with the zoom eyepiece for digi-scoping, as I usually use at least 50% camera zoom anyway for most of my photography.
- So far the few jpegs I’ve taken on the AWB (automatic white balance) setting have had a strong orange cast in natural light. Switching to tungsten seems to correct this, but perhaps this indicates a fault?
So far so good. Can't wait to get out and use it again.
First few jpegs taken in late afternoon low light, ISO 640, 1/30 sec, timer mode, f4 (two ducks) Swan at ISO 640 1/80 sec, f3.5. Zoom was between 1/2 & 3/4 out
All taken through Swarovski ATS80 HD, 20-60 zoom at lower end of the zoom, DCA and adapter
All birds here were close, between 5-10m away
All have been tweaked a little (a little cropping, sharpened etc), but original of female Mallard has just been re-sized for posting
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