Pixiq

Do you remember back in July when I had that hunch that Canon would be replacing the S95 sometime soon? Yeah? Turns out I was right. They’ve just announced the S100, in matte black or titanium silver. I’m feeling a tiny bit proud of myself for sniffing out that one. Anyway… If you’re wondering how they’ve managed to improve on the already stellar S95, well, have a read and see what you think.

First, they’ve upped the megapixels from 10 to 12, but switched from a CCD to a CMOS sensor. And they’ve replaced the DIGIC 4 processor with its DIGIC 5 iteration. It’s supposed to be all groovy in low-light and even manages ISO 6400.

There’s a new lens there, too. Gone is the 28mm f/2.0 lens that was, quite honestly, pretty damn good, to be replaced with a 24mm f/2.0 lens with 5× optical zoom. There’s image stabilisation a-plenty crammed in there, too, with seven different IS modes, from panning to powered, which is what you use when you make a video.

Ah yes, video. Full HD (1080p) video at 24 frames per second, along with stereo sound. The zoom works whilst you’re videoing and some of that exciting IS technology will kick in to help with the camera shake. There’s also an HDMI-CEC port so that you can play your images back on your HDTVs using the TV remote.

You can still shoot fully manually and in RAW, but for anyone who’d rather let the camera do it all, there’s a full gamut of 32 shooting modes (Juno how do they think of all those variables?) as well as area-specific white balancing. Yep, two different white balances can be applied in the same photo, say if you’re using the flash but are under incandescent lighting, too.

And finally. It has GPS. It’ll record where and when you took a photo and the GPS Logger facility will record whatever journey you make and then you can hook up the map utility to Google Maps and chart your travels.

So. Price. Canon’s saying £439 (€509) including VAT, and it’ll be available from November. Just in time for Christmas, wouldn’t you know. But is it worth it? Am I going to rush off and buy one to replace my S95? Well, I can’t say that I will. I’m not sure that the extra £120 is warranted for two more megapixels, a slightly wider lens, and a GPS unit. What do you think?