I have borrowed the Canon PowerShot S410 from a friend for the purpose of writing this review.

The Canon PowerShot S410 is a 4-Megapixel advanced compact camera that features some manual control. I found some of its features and performance aspects useful and powerful whereas others were annoying.

The camera features 3x optical and 3.6x digital zoom (total 11x combined zoom). The camera features Canon's DIGIC image processor and the new iSAPS technology that uses the onboard database of thousands of different photos to come up with the correct focus, exposure and white balance.

The camera uses AiAF 9-point autofocus system and has an autofocus light that helps camera focus faster and better in dark environments. The camera can also communicate directly with many printers and print without having to use a computer.

Body

The Canon PowerShot S410 is pretty heavy for its size as it has durable metal body and the battery is not light either. It is quite compact, however. The lens is flush with the camera body when the camera is powered off and extends when the camera is powered on.

The camera is so heavy that you will need a sturdy pocket to carry it or opt for a camera case. The camera's back houses the 1.5-inch LCD screen, menu (and other) control buttons, the optical viewfinder.

You can see the picture of the camera below.

Click here to see the sample photo I took with this Canon S410 camera

Lens

The camera features a lens with 3x optical zoom (36-108 mm in 35-mm equivalent) with maximum aperture of f/2.8 (wide) and f/4.9 (telephoto). The zooming is a bit noisy and slow (and feels slightly imprecise to boot), at least comparing to Panasonic FZ cameras or Canon's own USM-equipped zooms (e.g. Canon S1 IS). But this camera is compact and generally less expensive, so it is difficult to expect too much.

LCD

The main complaint I have with the LCD screen is its visibility in general. The visibility in sunlight is good, but to achieve this, the overall visibility was sacrificed. To be able to see shadow detail, you have to hold the camera at a specific angle (90 degrees). The more you deviate from this angle, the less detail you see.

Also, the numerous icons on the LCD take up a lot of useful space and do so in a manner that bothers me much more than how Panasonic or Olympus cameras do.

The LCD can display the camera's mode and state and also shows you where it focuses by displaying green rectangles on the screen once you press the shutter release button halfway. The latter is very useful.

Viewfinder

The optical viewfinder can be used to conserve the battery power. When you switch to the optical viewfinder (and turn the LCD off), the camera makes a clicking sound, which is a bit scary. In my tests, I never used the viewfinder - it does not show the useful information about the camera's current state and mode and you cannot see where the camera focuses.

Histogram

The camera can display the histogram, but only after you took the pictures and switched to the review mode and then pressed the Display button twice. The histogram is useful in evaluating the exposure and I could see that some shots (taken before sunset) were slightly underexposed.

Controls

The camera is powered on and off by pushing and holding the “Power” button on the top deck. The sliding switch on the back panel switches it between shooting and review modes.

The camera's controls have pretty heavy feel to them. The rotary mode dial exhibits too much resistance to rotation and the zoom control takes too much effort as well. This, combined with the slightly slow zoom that doesn't stop immediately, gives controls imprecise feel. There is no comparison with Panasonic FZ series cameras.

Furthermore, the menus seem to be the least easy to use I have seen in a while. After using Panasonic cameras, I am less than impressed. Whereas Panasonic menus are very intuitive and easy to use, this camera's menus seem designed for a person who will read the manual first and will have no problem memorizing how to do this and that.

I admit that I never read the manual and still was able to use the camera and adjust various settings through its menus, but it was more annoying than doing the same with some other cameras.

Flexibility

The camera provides amazing flexibility, let alone flexibility for its small size. In fact, some of its flexibility seems a bit of an overkill. For example, there are 12 different combination of resolution and compression settings. You can combine Standard, Fine and Superfine compression with any of the camera's picture resolutions: 2,272x1,704 (Large), 1,600x1,200 (Medium1), 1024x768 (Medium2), 640x480 (Small).

The camera lets you select between Evaluative, Center-weighted average and Spot metering, which is convenient. You can use exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation (+/- 2EV in 1/3EV steps for both).

The ISO can be set to Auto, 50, 100, 200 and 400. The white balance (WB) can be set to automatic, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H or Custom (using white or grey card).

I have to mention that the Automatic white balance does not entirely remove the warm cast if you are shooting in incandescent light the way the Tungsten setting does. But it works better in auto mode in tungsten light than Panasonic cameras that have no Tungsten setting at all.

The camera lets you adjust color saturation by selecting between default mode, Vivid or Neutral. You can also select Low Sharpening setting, Sephia or B&W.

Computer Connectivity

This is where a big surprise was awaiting me. I borrowed the camera without the CD-ROM that had the USB driver on it. Recent Panasonic and Olympus camera were instantly recognized my Windows 2000 computer and I didn't have to supply the CD with drivers for them. Not so with the S410 - I was prompted for the CD with the driver. Which I didn't have at the time.

I tried to find and download the driver for the S410 online, but even Canon's web site doesn't have it.

But now I finally downloaded the photos to my computer.

Battery

The camera uses a proprietary rechargeable Li-Ion battery, which is supplied along with a charger for it. You also get the memory card, camera strap, 2 CD-ROMs with software, an A/V cable and a USB cable.

Media

The media is Compact Flash card, which is larger than SD Card or xD-Picture card, but feels more sturdy. The camera comes with a 32-Mb card, which fits about 14 pictures at the highest resolution and the best quality setting. The number of pictures you can fit on it grows as the quality and resolution decreases up to 340 at 640x480 normal mode. Of course, you can get a larger card relatively inexpensively.

Performance

The camera is pretty fast in operation and the focusing was slow only in dim environments when the subjects were too far for the autofocus illuminator to reach. Such situations are rare and the focusing was generally fast.

One interesting feature/quirk was the fact that the camera doesn't have the pre-programmed scene modes, but has 3 different modes for different focusing situations. One of them, for instance, when activated, displays an icon that looks like mountain on the LCD (upper row of icons) and is well-suited for landscapes, another is used for macro photography.

The flash proved to be on the weak side and its proximity to the optical axis of the lens caused slight red-eye problems.

The shutter lag was virtually unnoticeable when pre-focused. The photos had pleasing, true-to-life colors and excellent sharpness and contrast. A link to a sample photo is provided below. You can see from the sample photo that there is slight purple fringing (chromatic aberration) noticeable (see the roof top in the right lower corner).

The wide angle shots at widest exposure (f/2.8) have some minor vignetting (the corners of the picture are slightly darker that the center).

Unfortunately, some photos taken before sunset turned out to be slightly underexposed. It was visible on the camera's histogram as well as on the computer screen and in Photoshop. Using Levels in Photoshop improved the dim pictures noticeably.

The night pictures at long exposures have very low noise.

Sample Photo

Click here to see the sample photo I took with this Canon S410 camera

Product Rating
(above average)

This review is also available at Epinions.com: Canon PowerShot S410 Digital Camera Review on Epinions.com

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