Canon PowerShot S90 - Test Shots - Detail and Lens Performance

A range of general test shots are shown over the next two pages. In some cases, the full size image has been reduced for bandwidth purposes, and a crop taken from the original full resolution image has been placed below it to show the overall image quality. Some other pictures may be clicked to view the original full-size image.

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Here's the usual detail test shot of the West Window of Exeter Cathedral, for you to compare with other cameras. See below for a full res crop, or click to see the whole picture. The downloadable file is approximately 3.3MB.

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The lens and sensor work well together to produce tons of sharp detail, and the low compression makes sure it's clearly visible.

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The lens produces very little wide-angle distortion.

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Centre sharpness is superb.

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Corner sharpness is also very good, although there is a hint of chromatic aberration.

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16 comments

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joose

4:54 PM on 19 November, 2009

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Just one thing I want to mention before the comments fill up is the lack of any grip on this camera. I tried it out and it was as slippery as a bar of wet soap! Canon should take a leaf out of Ricoh's book here and put some rubber around it!

Score:

jopey

8:05 PM on 19 November, 2009

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This is priced way too close the Lumix G1. There is no reason for it to be so expensive. No compact camera should be more than £200-250 these days.

Noodles

12:26 AM on 20 November, 2009

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I know I shouldn't get hung up on ratings, but how on earth does a near £400 P&S camera made completely of plastic, with a "slightly confusing" and awkward" control bezel, an "awful" rear dial, and not having any kind of viewfinder (not even an optional one) get 9/10 for build quality, and a perfect 10 for features?!

Luis

3:48 AM on 20 November, 2009

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This looks like the best small compact available today, though for the price it does seem strange that they didn't add HD video, for example. I also with the lens would be more like f/2.0-f/3.8, because as they are they only have an advantage at the widest angle (I think at 60mm. equiv. it's already f/3.5 max, similar to other compacts).

Ah, and I've seen the lens produce a very big barrel distortion at wide angle. It is the software that corrects it.

Wedge

7:41 AM on 20 November, 2009

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@Noodles It says on page one that it the S90 has a metal body.

I've been nursing my S70 for ages because there wasn't a decent Canon replacement. Now I guess I can relax a bit as this looks ideal and a nice step up spec wise.

CliffSmith

11:06 AM on 20 November, 2009

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Noodles - Sorry if I wasn't completely clear on this point, but the body is mostly metal, it's just the top and bottom panels that are plastic, and they're still quite strong and well fitted.

Mircea

11:58 AM on 20 November, 2009

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@Cliff: If you were to buy one today for yourself, what would you pick - the S90 or the LX3?

Spec-wise, the LX3 has the edge with the ultra-wide 24mm lens, on-the-fly AR change (including real 16:9) and 720p video, plus the outstanding build quality. The shorter zoom doesn't really bother me. Distortion is present on both cameras, but it can be fixed in post-processing, so no big deal. Based on your samples, I would say that image quality at base ISO (up to ISO 400) is better on the Panasonic, but the Canon seems to have the edge at ISO 800-3200.

I really want to buy one of these cameras as a Christmas gift (for myself :D) and at the moment I would go for the LX3. Please advise.

1:40 PM on 20 November, 2009

Teaches me not to skim read the first page to get to the juicy bits!

I still think it's a ridiculously overpriced style over substance camera, with terrible handling, and one that looks more obsolete by the day, with the hugely successful Micro 4/3rds and APS-C compacts swallowing up it's market share...

3:15 PM on 20 November, 2009

@Mircea: I'm also thinking about one of these two cameras. You summed up the pros and cons really good, but I look at it this way: At ISO 100-400 the LX3 might have a small advantage, but this is very small, hardly noticeable. Besides, at ISO 100-400 many cameras can have a similar IQ to these ones. What should set these cameras apart from the rest is high ISO / low light performance, and there I've seen the Canon having a very big advantage. The 24mm wide angle is great, but 28mm is not too much worse. 720p is nice too, but using MJPEG codec (vs. H.264). The LX3's lens is a bit faster at 45-60mm, which is good too, but being limited to 60mm is a noticeable disadvantage (vs. 105mm).

So the two advantages of the Canon (high ISO performance and 105mm zoom) do seem more practical to me than the advantages of the LX3 (which are all small compared to the Canon).

Anyway, I think both cameras are a great buy.

10:46 PM on 25 November, 2009

Please note that I've made a correction to the review. The S90 does in fact have optical image stabilisation, not sensor shift as I had been led to believe. Apologies for the confusion.

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