Canon PowerShot S5 IS

OK – Good but not great. I would be hesitant to try the new S1IS after my experiences with this one. I think once you get used to this one and get frustrated by it's weaknesses, it's time to move onto DSLR. Good to have the usual digital camera features and such a large zoom all in one camera. Excellent colour replacement and colour highlight features that work well without the need for Photoshop. 400ISO VERY grainy, and in two seperate S5ISs this has been the case. Best to skip from 200ISO to 800ISO.

Long exposures take long time to process before able to view them - so if I take a 15sec exposure, it takes 15 secs to process it before appearing on the screen. A 10 sec takes 10 secs to process, and so on.

Also focusing on subjects can be tricky - example a grasshopper on a blade of grass - the camera struggled to focus on the grasshopper, took a lot of fiddling and moving different distances and zooming to get it to stop focusing on everything else around it.

Good – great all round camera. takes very nice photos (as most canons do) a sound camera. gets my vote looks the goods! great photos could have 5+ frames per sec (only shoots at 1.5 fps) similar cameras in this field have much higher count. find the rechargeable batteries a bit of a pain. and a extra cost