Which Digital Camera is in Your Pocket?

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

The Canon Powershot S95... will be revved to the S100 in November:

Canon USA Announces PowerShot S100 with Digic 5, GPS at DVInfo.net

Correction, make that late October. Just picked one up today, just in time for a trip to
NYC next week. Can't wait to start playing with it. Battery's on the charger as we speak...

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Correction, make that late October. Just picked one up today, just in time for a trip to NYC next week. Can't wait to start playing with it.

I guess it's time to upgrade to the S100, (even if it was just a few months ago I got the S95). So can you manually focus the S100 while shooting video?

-- peer

[Chris Hurd]

Haven't tried it yet but will report when I do.

My S95 is barely a year old; I gave it to my wife. I always try to "gift" my previous
digicams to keep them from stockpiling around here. The S95 stays in the immediate
household, though, since it does something that the S100 won't, which is time-lapse.
Sure it's kind of cheesy with the "miniature effect" nonsense, but fun nonetheless.
Wish they would have left that in...

[Don Miller]

iphone 4
love the gps feature
I think it's unlikely I will own another dedicated pocket camera

I can't believe Canon DSLR still don't have built in gps.

[Michael Galvan]

I held a S100 yesterday and it felt significantly better than the S95. Those little rubber grips on bot the front and back of the camera make such a difference. The whole camera body also is made of that "rubberized" material that is on EOS cameras.

I think I'm going to fall and get one of these :)

[Norm Rehm]

iphone 4S and a Sony HX9V (great Video).

[Taky Cheung]

I recently bought a Sony NEX-5N.. it's a fun / cool gadget.

Some pictures in my blog
Sample Photos of Sony NEX-5N | L.A. Color Blog

[Dave Blackhurst]

The NEX requires some BIG pockets <wink>, but since it's smaller than a DSLR, it represents a whole new category of "compact" cameras with high end image quality - the NEX7 is going to be another of these...

I figure pocket to mean something I can literally stick in a pocket with some sort of protective case/sleeve... without arousing attention so to speak... so TX10/TX100/WX10 and at the most a HX9. While they all use the same sensor, as does the HX100, all are "pocketable" in size and configuration, and pretty handy for most casual stills/video.

That said, I'm liking the HX100V for the overall design/control/range of features. Good for when a pocket cam is not enough, but the DSLR is a bit too much!

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Peer Landa

So can you manually focus the S100 while shooting video?

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Haven't tried it yet but will report when I do.

So anything to report back yet ... i.e., can the S100 focus manually while you're shooting video?

-- peer

[Chris Hurd]

You cannot manually change focus while recording video on the PowerShot S100.

Not sure why you would want to do that on this camera anyway, considering that
the front control ring (the one around the lens, which can be assigned to manual
focus) makes substantial clicking sounds as it rolls through its detents. You can
zoom during a shot, but a quiet room will reveal the zoom motor noise in the audio.

Think about it -- this is a tiny little digicam that's smaller than a pack of cigarettes.
A person can't possibly hand-hold this little thing and expect to manipulate the front
control ring during video recording without seriously jostling the shot. It would have
to go on a tripod for that, and now we're talking about a different camera. This is a
pocket cam, nothing more. It happens to have a video mode (which has finally
reached 1080 on its third generation). But like all pocket digicams, it is meant to
be first and foremost a stills camera and that's what it will be used for, primarily.

When I had the S90 and the S95, I always set the control ring to adjust ISO. Guess
everybody else did too, because that's now the default operation for the control ring.
It can be set to adjust a variety of operations, but ISO is by far the most useful.

[R Geoff Baker]

I'm a big believer in the fact that a pocket camera is most effective when you carry it -- I own a rather silly number of cameras, but the best of them is no good when it isn't there when I want to use it. My most recent pocket camera, a Sony Bloggie, is just that -- slimmer even than my iPhone -- and adds the unusual but interesting option of full-360 degree video shooting. Follow this link for a video I threw together from shots I got with this real 'pocket camera' while on vacation ... (comments encouraged, the editing of boundary-less frames is a challenge!):


Cayo Guillermo, Cuba 2011 - YouTube

Cheers,
GB

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

You cannot manually change focus while recording video on the PowerShot S100. [...] But like all pocket digicams, it is meant to be first and foremost a stills camera and that's what it will be used for, primarily.

Okay, I guess for now I'll stick with my S95 -- for me to get 1080P isn't worth an upgrade, especially since it still won't do manual focus -- and yes, I primarily use it for video, always keeping it in my pocket as a "notebook camera". But I must say that I'm quite happy how the S95 handles low-light (better than my GoPro). A couple of nights ago I used it while scouting out some back alley locations for an upcoming shoot. The clip below was shot late at night with almost no light available, and I haven't done any light & color grading -- just slapped it together with some Twixtor and a silly sound track:

Palo Alto back alley after dark (with 70s guitar jam) - YouTube

-- peer

[Chris Hurd]

I don't understand why you'd want manual focus in video mode on a tiny
little pocket digicam like this. The whole point of a camera like the S100
(or S95 or S90) is the simplicity and ease with which you pull it out of a
pocket and start recording. The S100 has a dedicated video rec button
expressly for this purpose, in fact. How could you expect to change focus
on such a small little box without upsetting the shot? Or I suppose I should
be asking, if you want to be so involved as to manually change focus in video
mode, why not choose a real camera for that?

These S-series digicams are very nice for making still photos in RAW mode
with full manual control of everything, but as far as video is concerned, it's a
party camera -- due entirely to its ergonomics. For video recording on the
quick draw, it's a lot better than an iPhone. But if you want to control that
video with manual focus or whatever, these were never the right cameras
simply because they don't have the size or the shape conducive for that.

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

if you want to be so involved as to manually change focus in video mode, why not choose a real camera for that?

If my real camera would fit in my pocket, I would.

How could you expect to change focus on such a small little box without upsetting the shot?

Well, the way I have my S95 set up is so that the set-focus is assigned to the S function button on the back -- only need to tap it and it sets the focus -- which wouldn't upset the shot at all if implemented also for recording.

So far the workaround for me has been to quickly pause recoding, press the S button, and then resume recoding -- and then try to sew it together in post to make it look like an unbroken shot. Here's an example (yet another silly blog-video) where I go from a mid-long shot to a close up (of the beer at the end) in one "continuous" shot, using this gnarly workaround of focus-pause-focus to try keeping as much as possible in focus:

Gordon Biersch Brewery -- Palo Alto, California - YouTube

So again, to me it's a bit disappointing to have a 1080P camera yet prone to out-of-focus videos, especially in low light -- the auto-focus on the S95 (and even more so the SD4000IS) is almost useless since it often goes into a focus hunt which is even more annoying.

-- peer

[Dylan Couper]

That video makes good use of the S100's built in speed ramp features.


Has anyone experienced the soft right hand side problem with the S100? I decided not to buy one after reading about it (and I'm a big S95 fan!) At least until it gets fixed.