Richard Baguley

Canon PowerShot S230 Digital Elph

The latest model in the popular Digital Elph series packs a lot into a small package. It has a 3.2-megapixel image sensor, a 2X optical zoom, and a tough aluminum case that should protect the camera if you ever accidentally stuff it into a pocket that already holds your keys. The camera has two metering modes (spot and center-weighted) and an innovative nine-zone autofocus system so you can focus on subjects that aren't right in the middle of the frame; the camera picks one of the nine zones surrounding the center of the frame to focus on. This helps get everything in focus when objects lie at different distances in the frame, but you can use a focus lock if it fails. Unfortunately, using the focus lock involves holding down the shutter with one hand and simultaneously pressing another button with the other hand. The camera produced very appealing images, with accurate colors on both indoor and outdoor shots. Shots using the built-in flash looked good, too, and the camera helps prevent red-eye by using a bright LED illuminator, which many subjects find more comfortable than the preflash technique (where the camera flash goes off twice). The S230 also has an excellent panorama-building mode, which shows you part of the previous image so you can ensure that everything is lined up properly in the subsequent shot.
The amount of information that the S230 displays on the menu simultaneously can be intimidating: on a typical screen, eight different icons show things like the auto or manual mode, the flash setting, and the white balance setting. Fortunately, you can remove these by pressing the display button. There are a lot of buttons on the back, too, and again these can be rather confusing. The placement of the zoom control--at the front of the camera next to the shutter button--is well designed for one-handed use, but you'll need two hands to use the menu buttons or the four-way control buttons that set the flash mode and metering.
The S320 has plenty of other nice touches. For instance, you have to hold down the on/off button for a second to turn the camera on; this is long enough to prevent it from powering on when it gets jostled in your bag, but quick enough to let you start up the camera on and begin taking photos within a couple of seconds. To recharge the included lithium ion battery, you have to take it out of the camera and put it into the included charger. We found that this battery lasted for just over 70 minutes of use--acceptable, but by no means the longest we've seen. This translates into a day or two of moderate use, so carrying a spare battery ($40) on longer trips is advisable. The separate battery charger would allow you to use one battery while the second is recharging.
The Powershot S320 Digital Elph packs a lot of features into a small package, making it suitable for people who want a convenient way to take pictures with more control.

Buying Information

Canon PowerShot S230 Digital Elph $ http://