Canon Power Shot S50

The 5megapixel Canon is practically identical to the 4megapixel Power Shot S45. The two models share many features, including a 35-105mm, 3x optical zoom lens (35mm equivalent), a clear, bright 1.8in LCD display, 32MB of Compact Flash memory and 13 shooting modes accessed via a rotary dial at the top of the unit.

Compared with the S45, this camera squeezes a whole megapixel more of power into its sensor, offering a greater range of image size options from 2,592 x 1,944 pixels down to 640 x 480.

These are accessed using the function button to the left of the LCD, and selected by pressing in the slightly fiddly four-directional cursor at the top of the unit. A second on-screen sub-menu offers a choice of normal, fine or superfine compression.

Switch to manual mode and you can also choose to save your image as a raw file, which eats up storage space but stores the image in its natural state with no compression whatsoever.

It's hard to describe just how impressive the output of the S50 is. Shooting a selection of coins at 10cm in macro mode the Canon produced an excellent shot that showed up just about every scratch and chink, rendering fine relief well.

We had to search hard to find the most minor evidence of chromatic aberration in the outdoor pictures we took, and the S50 was sensitive enough to produce detail in areas of shadow and in hazy conditions which might have stumped other cameras.

There was no stepping whatsoever between areas of similar tone in a sky at sunset and even the most subtle colours were faithfully reproduced.

Contact: Canon 0870 514 3723
www.canon.co.uk

Specifications:

• 5megapixels
• 3x optical/4x digital zoom
• 35-105mm focal length (35mm equiv)
• On, off, auto, red-eye reduction flash modes
• 1.8in LCD display
• 32MB Compact Flash memory
• 260g
• 102 x 58 x 42mm
• USB connection