Canon s90 goes to New York (update)
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I just got back from my New York trip, I brought my new Canon S90 to see how well it performs. You might have already read my previous post/review about buying Olympus e-p1 and returning it for Panasonic gf1 but I decided to return that as well for the s90. This is a great camera to have for vacation since it is so tiny and I can carry it in my pocket without feeling like a tourist. I am not going into the details of the camera but I will just briefly explain how I took each photos.
outside of rockefeller center, angels and tree & columbus circle shops in new york -
iso320 1/25 f/2 iso400 1/50 f/2
– The camera takes excellent night shots but I wish the dynamic range a lot higher, you can see that it has trouble collecting information from the brighter area.
iso200 1/40 f/2
time square in new york, raining – I use photoshop in many of the night shots to calm down the lights so they are not so washed out. It really difficult to get shot like this without using multiple exposure shots and stitching it back, the digital billboards would all have been washed out.
iso800 1/50 f/2
New york night scape on rockefeller observatory – In photos like this, you can see a lot of noise in the background but it definitely does way better than most other P&S camera.
iso640 1/640 f/4.0
statue of liberty from staten island ferry in new york – S90 has a decent zoom range, I was able to get pretty close to the statue of liberty from the Ferry ride.
smoky manhole in new york – I love the color inherited by the smoke from the background, and s90 did a great job in capturing that!
f800 1/50 f/2
cathedral in new york – My friend who was with me during the trip has a GF1, he was struggling to hold his camera still for a difficult shot like this one. But I had a easier time holding the small and light S90 during long exposure shots.
Grand central station in new york – This shot was taken from three different exposure, S90 can not retain the detail on the window, it would just show up as pure white when the rest of the scene is properly exposed.
iso640 1/15 f/2
devine bar in new york – A candid shot of my friends in a bar/restaurant. The restaurant was really dark but I was still able to get a clear shot of their faces.
iso800 1/50 f/2
MOMA museum, starry night by van gogh – new york – I do not understand why people are so bothered by the lose rear ring dial, I don’t think it was that lose and never once did it interfere with my picture taking experience.
cemetary in Trinity church in new york – A thing I do not like about the design of this camera is the way the flash pops out, my finger is usually covering that portion of the camera, sooner or later I will drop the camera because of it.
f800 1/50 f/2
cathedral in new york – Unfortunately the S90 is not wide enough so I had to stitch three different photo to show the entire cathedral.
iso80 1/60 f/4.5
fruit stand in china town, soho of new york
time square in new york (done in multiple exposure)
iso800 1/6 f/2
saint paul cathedral in new york
iso800 1/15 f/2
Overall the Canon S90 did a great job, I love the night shots but it is difficult to get good dynamic range without multiple shot and that is not always possible when traveling with other people. The battery life fairly decent, I was able to get 200-300 photos all with the Raw+Jpg combo, many times flash was used and I spent a lot of time using the preview feature too. However, I was able to carry my S90 at all time while my friend with the GF1 often has to think twice about carrying it with him. I like to hear your feedback on what you saw here and hopefully it helped those of you who are still debating about which camera to get. As you might already know, I am still an amateure photographer, please critique my photos to help me take better photos in the future!
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Tags: camera, canon, central, circle, comlumbus, e-p1, gf1, grand, liberty, new, new york, olympus, Panasonic, review, rockefeller, s90, square, statue, time, york
Posted by San under Product Review | Permalink
Nice pics! What photoshop tool do you prefer to use for toning down the highlights?
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Thank you Jesse! I will try to make a tutorial for that soon, but basically you need to use layer effect to darken everything while masking out the area you do not need to be darken.
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Too bad you’re hiding the shooting settings – they’d make these examples a lot more useful.
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I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.
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Beautiful pictures. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
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Great post, love the sample photos!
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Hey, was convinced by this post and got my S90, love the cam. However I wonder if it is possible to have ‘no DoF’ when shooting images, I am not sure what settings need to be done in P mode. (sometimes its good to have more details than bokeh or soft backgrounds subjects.) I have bookmarked this as a reference site and keep up the good works. Cheers!
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having no DOF is only possible on larger sensor, s90 has a point and shoot sensor so it is difficult to get that same effect. You can get some blur effect if you step back and zoom in to your subject really tight.
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I think I’m going to get one too!!
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Nice pictures! Did you use a tripod for the night shots?
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most of the shots were hand held excpet the cathedral and skyview photos, I placed the camera on a flat surface. I didn’t have to bring tripod with me,
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