powershot

tl;dr: A great pocketable camera that shoots RAW, gets pretty good low-light results, and has a sharp new HD video recording mode.

After having used an excellent RAW-capable point and shoot, the Canon PowerShot G11, for about 6 months, I sold it on eBay and bought the new Canon PowerShot S95, the G11's smaller sibling. I had originally been looking into buying the S90 (another excellent camera), but thought the G11's flip-screen and handling would be worthwhile assets.

Unfortunately, I had bought the G11 to be my pocketable 'vacation-cam,' and though it worked pretty well, it wasn't quite pocketable. I had to keep it in its case, and it was another item of luggage to carry around wherever I took it.

The S95's form factor allows me to truly pocket this camera, and not sacrifice the quality of image I can get with it too much. It's a heck of a lot better than my iPhone 4's camera, but still nowhere near as amazing as my D90 SLR paired with a good lens. To better convey a sense of how the S95 works in my life, I'll break down this review into a few relevant categories.

tl;dr: Is this the SLR owner's dream pocket camera? Almost! It will do for now, but a tiny bit better lens and image sensor would make it perfect.

The Canon PowerShot G11 comes from a long line of G-series advanced-amateur digital cameras, and is very much like the most recent PowerShot G10 in all the best ways, but differs a little bit by improving on one of the G10's greatest weaknesses: the image sensor. Another major win for the G11 is the fold-out swivel screen, which comes in very handy at many of the events at which I (and many other SLR owners) will be using the camera.

Relevant Features

Let's start with a brief overview: