Performance

In situations where there is no time to take manual control, the auto shooting mode is reliable, producing generally well-metered images with natural tones.

Auto white balance struggles a little when there is a dominating colour in a scene, but this is not unusual and generally it produces accurate results.

In tricky landscape scenes with a wide dynamic range, the evaluative metering generally meters correctly for land but leaves the sky too bright, so I leaned towards using spot metering. Enabling manual control places the emphasis on the photographer, and I am very pleased with the quality of my images, both in auto and manual settings.


Image: Hybrid IS enabled me to shoot this lily in low light, handheld at 1/15sec, with an ISO of 200. Results are sharp with little noise

One of the more significant changes from the PowerShot S90 is the introduction of the HS system (which was introduced to the IXUS series in the 300HS model) and Canon’s first Hybrid IS in a compact camera.

With a 4-stop optical IS combined with the Hybrid IS, the S95 is capable of handheld shooting at 1/8sec even in a macro scene. I found that when shooting handheld without support I could achieve a minimum shutter speed of 1/15sec and, with support such as propping my elbows on a surface, 1/8sec. The same minimum shutter speeds apply for macro scene.

This enables the use of low-sensitivity values even in low light, which is important as compact cameras are less able to avoid noise than DSLRs.

Resolution images: These images show 72ppi (100% on a computer screen) sections of images of a resolution chart, captured with the lens set to its 100mm point. We show the section of the resolution chart where the camera starts to fail to reproduce the lines separately. The higher the number visible in these images, the better the camera’s detail resolution is at the specified sensitivity setting.

The resolution chart shows that images have good detail for a compact camera and this only really drops off at higher sensitivities.

My images are very usable at ISO 200, but noise is recognisable to the discerning viewer at ISO 400 and only really becomes obvious at ISO 800 and beyond.

Autofocusing is generally good, but can struggle to isolate objects, particularly with crowded macro scenes, and the auto-centrefocus option of normal or small size makes little difference. Using manual focus goes some way to helping in such situations. Tracking AF has been introduced in the S95, and after selection it is activated by pressing the shutter button halfway. Movement is then detected and the tracking AF system locks onto the moving subject, represented by a blue box, and follows it. This is a good concept, although I found it struggles, particularly in scenes where there is a lot of movement going on, even once it has already locked onto its target.

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