Canon Powershot S3 IS Digital Camera

The Canon Powershot S3 IS is a pretty straightforward upgrade to last year’s S2 IS.  It adds a 6 megapixel sensor and a 2 inch flip out LCD.  Canon really markets this as a “family” camera – a way to capture kids in action, on the sports field, at a concert – but the camera has also made a name for itself as one of the top ultra-zoom cameras on the market.  It’s a camera that has plenty of features to keep an enthusiast happy, but is simple enough to be Point and Shoot when the non-photographer in the family needs to take the shot.

The centerpiece of this cameras it the 12x stabilized zoom lens.  Canon’s lens-shift technology provides image stabilization without a degradation in image quality, like electronics based image stabilization that rely on increasing sensor senstivity.  The lens on the Powershot S3 IS has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 36-432 mm.

The Powershot S2 IS also made a name for itself by its nice movie mode, so Canon added a MovieSnap feature in the Powershot S3 IS.  You can still capture movies at 640×480 resolution at 30 frames per second, or even 320×240 at 60 frames per second.  The MovieSnap feature lets you capture a full resolution still picture during movie capture.

As with the other newly announced Powershots, the Powershot S3 IS includes the enhanced My Colors mode.  Also a 16:9 resolution mode facilitates the creation of panorama style prints.

Availability: May 2006 for around $499

Other Canon cameras from PMA:

• Canon EOS 30D Digital Camera
• Canon’s New Digital ELPHs: Powershot SD600, Powershot SD630, Powershot SD700 IS
• Canon Powershot A700, Powershot A540, Powershot A530, and Powershot A430