Canon PowerShot S300

It's not about size, that's for certain. But after all, who said that the bigger they are the most powerful they should be? As small as a cigarette packet, with a very well-conceived compact design, the new Canon PowerShot S300 can perform very well despite its reduced size.
Its body, almost completely made in stainless steel, gives a pleasant feeling of robustness not usual with plastic-made cameras; the PowerShot is very handy, as it can easily be carried in a pocket of one's jacket or even, although we wouldn't advise it, of one's pants.
The S300 comes with a very good 3x (35-105mm) zoom lens, resulting in photos with remarkable colours and sharpness. When the camera is switched off, the lenses are retracted inside the body for greater protection. Differently from many other digital cameras, the S300 does not require any delay in switching on: a simple pressing of the on/off button on the top side of the body in enough to make the machine ready for use.
The S300 is a 2.11-million pixel camera that can reproduce pictures with a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 pixels. An intuitive control panel allows the desired resolution to be chosen, e.g. to store as many shots as possible in the CompactFlash card equipping the camera. One of the limits of this machine is, in fact, the 8-MB CF card, which reduces the number of available shots. A real shame.
Archival times at maximum resolution are quite satisfactory, but the S300 can also capture two images per second, on Continuous Shooting mode, with no delay between two consecutive shots. The built-in flash offers a series of options that are normally found in any camera. Perfect to fill the images in good lighting, it can be more than enough in interiors, provided the subject is not too far away.
The S300 is powered by a Lithium-ion rechargeable battery, which is included in the box, along with a plug-in charger that takes up very little space. The average battery life is very good: I managed to archive over 200 shots before needing a rechar-ge.
The Canon camera is perfectly compatible both with the Mac and the PC platform, provided the computer is equipped with a USB port. The Audio/Video port can also be used to see the pictures on a TV set.
In addition, the S300 offers a number of new and improved features, including direct print capabilities with the new Canon Card Photo Printer and the possibility of recording a movie clip at a maximum resolution of 640x480. This is an interesting feature but its value is reduced by the limited capacity of the CF card.
The S300 is very easy to use and freely settable. The camera is also bundled with a good series of software utilities that will help you in manipulating your photos after downloading on your computer.
The $849 CDN is the right price for this compact and powerful camera that you can hide in the palm of your hand.

For more information visit: www.canon.ca

Publication Date: 2001-09-09
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