Canon PowerShot S5 IS

The Canon PowerShot S5 IS is an 8.0 megapixel bridge digital camera that was announced on May 7th 2007 and launched in June of that same year. It is the fourth of Canon's cameras in the superzoom category, with an integrated 12x zoom lens and image stabilization technology (IS). It has a DIGIC III processor, which has higher performance than DIGIC II used in its predecessor, 6 megapixel Canon PowerShot S3 IS.

Features

• 8.0 megapixel (effective)
• 1/2.5 in (10 mm) CCD Sensor
• Flash Hotshoe (new compared to S3)
• 12x optical zoom and 4x digital zoom
• Optical Image Stabilizer (Shift Type)
• Ultrasonic Lens Motor
• Extra-long Movie Mode with enhanced VGA resolution and stereo sound
• Canon DIGIC III processor with iSAPS
• Running the DRYOS operating system
• PictBridge, PhotoStitch, Canon Direct Print compatible – no PC required
• 20 shooting modes
• Aperture Range: F2.7 to F8
• Macro focus range: 10 to 50 cm (max wide angle); 30 to 50 cm (with a slight zoom-in); 90cm to infinity (with more than about 3x zoom)
• SuperMacro focus range: 0 to 10 cm (forced into max wide angle mode)
• Min. shutter: 1/3200 s, max shutter: 15 s
• 640 x 480 15/30 frame/s movie clips with stereo audio (limited to 4 GB or 1 hour, whichever comes first), and with 320 x 240 mode at 60/30/15 frame/s
• Electronic Viewfinder 0.33" (approx 115,000 pixels)
• Continuous Drive: 1.5 fps
• 2.5" (flip-out & twist) LCD (207,000 pixels)
• Dimensions: 117 x 80 x 78 mm
• Weight: 450 g

Reasons for the exclusion of PowerShot S4

Canon, based in Japan, omitted the number 4 from the range due to cultural superstition.

"The word "four" is read as "si" in Chinese Mandarin and "shi" in Japanese, a close homonym for the word for death in both languages and in the Cantonese dialect spoken in Hong Kong." The EOS 40D, however, is not included in this, as the number 40 is not pronounced the same way, but rather yon-jyuu. [1]

Amateur Photographer magazine also supported this:

"the truth behind the leap from 3 to 5 is one based on cultural superstition — in Japan, the number 4 is considered unlucky. This is because the pronunciation of 4 — “shi” — is the same pronunciation as death. This is the reason why the EOS range jumps from the EOS 3 to EOS 5, and why the latest IXUS digital compacts bucks the trend of the IXUS v2 and IXUS v3 models by becoming the IXUS 400. Indeed, to find a Canon camera with a model number 4 you have to look back as far as the 1950s to the Canon IV."

Extending the S5 IS Capabilities

The firmware enhancement CHDK supports the S5 IS, and is available for both the 1.01a and 1.01b firmware versions.

The enhancements improve greatly on the camera for it includes a battery meter, zebra metering, interferometer, raw (but don't expect a quality dslr photo because of the color compression limitation 8 bits goes to 10 bits as opposed to a dslr which handles 14 bits)

(Note: below links are to external sites.)

How to determine firmware revision; before loading CHDK you must determine which firmware revision your S5 camera has.
CHDK for S5 IS announcement and discussion; Included here is some background of the project, discussion of known issues and bugs, some feature requests, and links to relevant documentation
Binary release for users of rev 1.01A cameras (WARNING: always scan downloads for viruses!)
Binary release for users of rev 1.01A and 1.01B firmware revisions (WARNING: always scan downloads for viruses!)

External hot shoe capabilities

Compatible with most newer flash systems and older flash systems, however communication between the older flashes has a slight delay and extreme overexposure, even with manual adjustments.

Benchmarks

Benchmarks by the benchmark feature:

Screen

• Write: 5346 Kb/s 63 FPS
• Read: 13965 Kb/s 55 FPS

Memory

• Write: 39960 Kb/s
• Read: 56496 Kb/s

Flash Card

This will depend on the type of card you use ( tested with a 4 gig Class 6 )

• Write (RAM): 6688 Kb/s
• Write (Mem): 6237 Kb/s
• Write (64k): 4762 Kb/s
• Read (64k): 7185 Kb/s

External links

• Official press release
• Review at dpreview