Digital Home Thoughts: Canon Launches a Trio of Powershots

"MISSISSAUGA, ON, August 19, 2010 - Furtherelevating the “Power” in PowerShot, Canon Canada, a leader in digital imaging, today announced three new high-performance PowerShot cameras - the PowerShot S95, the SD4500 IS and the SX130 IS Digital cameras. These cameras achieve photographic brilliance with Canon’s HS (High Sensitivity) SYSTEM for improved low-light shooting in the S95 and SD4500 IS cameras, High Definition (HD) video recording, High Dynamic Range (HDR) in the S95 camera and a more intelligent Smart AUTO mode, among a range of others."

Canon has announced a trio of new compacts, led by the Powershot S95. The update to the year old S90 does not add much. The main feature is the ability to shoot videos in 720p at 24 FPS. The other main addition is the ability to do in-camera HDR, not too dissimilar to what Sony compacts have been doing lately. The S95 retains the S90's 10 megapixel resolution, fast f/2.0 to not-so-fast f/4.9 28-105mm equivalent lens with improved image stabilisation. It's not much of an update, so if you have a S90, don't worry about your camera being obsolete. The other two cameras are featured after the break.

The SD4500 IS (also known as the IXUS is an an update to the SD4000 IS. The main selling point is a 10x zoom lens in an ELPH/IXUS form factor. Unfortunately the lens starts at 36mm equivalent, and not a more interesting 28mm or 25mm like the Panasonic TZ cameras. I'd have though Canon was past introducing its better compacts at such a "long" focal length. Like the SD4000 IS, there is a high-speed shooting feature at 9 FPS, and a video mode that shoots 240 FPS videos at 320x240 resolution. The camera also now shoots 1080p videos at 24 FPS.

The last camera in the group is an update to the budget SX120 IS. The replacement gets a bump in resolution to 12 megapixels, and the lens is now a 12x zoom starting at 28mm equivalent. Users who like using AA batteries will be thrilled that the camera uses two of them common batteries.

More photos and specs at DPReview and DCResource:

DPReview: Powershot S95, Powershot SD4500 IS, Powershot SX130 IS

DCResource: Powershot S95, Powershot SD4500 IS, Powershot SX130 IS