Canon, a leader in photographic and imaging technology, today releases the 8.0 Megapixel PowerShot S80 the new flagship to its S Series PowerShot range. The camera's rich feature set provides a wide angle 28 100 millimeter f2.8 5.3 (3.6x) optical contact lens incorporating Canon's UA lens technology, similar DIGIC II processor located in Canon's professional series digital SLRs and an oversize 2.5 inch LCD. A striking, contemporary finish complements the compact body of this camera, that may be considerably small compared to its predecessor, the
PowerShot S70.
For when within the digital compact, an EOS style Multi Control Dial is introduced to allow quick setting of menu and shooting functions, and even rapid scroll through images during playback. Advanced features include real time histogram display, FlexiZone AF/AE which has a freely movable focus point and manual focus override, 21 shooting modes, XGA quality videos as long as 1 GB in dimensions, and also a new and improved gui with a newly designed and positioned mode dial.
Quality build, quality optics
The sleek looking S80 appears to have been redesigned allow it a compelling, excellent build and also a more ergonomic, compact body that would be over 8% smaller than its predecessor despite the camera's improved performance. Its 28 100mm f2.8 5.3 (3.6x) optical zoom lens features Canon's advanced UA (Ultra High Refractive Index Aspherical) lens technology, allowing you for true wide angle capability without increasing camera size. The focal length range expands to approximately 22.4 to 200 millimeters considering the new optional wide and tele converter lenses.
The power of 8.0 megapixels plus DIGIC II
With a sensor that features a massive 8.0 megapixels, the digital camera produces images for photo quality 16 x 22 inch prints, and provide photographers more freedom to crop images.
Canon's advanced image processor, DIGIC II, have been incorporated to improve the camera's speed and responsiveness, while also improving image quality. Auto focus speeds are nearly 20% faster, and focusing performance in low light has improved by around 1 stop, offering better control in dim conditions. DIGIC II drives a 1.8 fps continuous shooting speed, and supports 9 point AiAF for fast, accurate focusing whether subjects usually are not centerd. FlexiZone AF/AE allows free scrolling anywhere in the frame's auto focus area to decide on the specified subject, which is why exposure is weighted accordingly. Manual focus selection will also be possible.
Hi Speed USB 2.0 compatibility offers faster communication with computers, accelerating file transfers.
High level control and straightforward to use
The camera's smaller size has never compromised ease of use. A different large 2.5 inch LCD is adjustable to just one of 15 brightness levels and it has a Quick bright function to facilitate shooting in sunny conditions. A real time histogram, which appears to the LCD monitor, continues to be incorporated to allow anyone to gauge exposure easily when composing. The selectable grid line display supports composition and levelling horizons.
With a newly designed program, the S80 offers faster and others intuitive operation. The Multi Control Dial allows quick setting of menu and shooting functions, and rapid scroll through images during playback. Conveniently, the mode dial is now positioned so that it are generally better viewed when composing shots. The camera's Shortcut function increases flexibility by allowing the Print/Share button being assigned to any one to a combination of still image or movie shooting setting functions.
For enhanced image review, the jump to folder button now allows jumping to the first picture of specified folders. Folders might be defined to remain created automatically as specified through the user, for example every week, and so posesses a capacity as high as 2000 images per folder.
Modes, My Colors...and movies
The S80 incorporates an overall of 21 shooting modes: in addition to the full Manual mode together with other creative zone modes that photographers would expect while on an S Series camera, nine new special scene modes have already been incorporated. Helping anyone to effectively handle an array of situations, these scene modes include Snow, Portrait, Underwater and Digital Macro, plus others. Custom mode allows users allocate preferred shooting settings.
My Colors located over the mode dial allows the expansion of creativity in digital photography. Effects, which include Color Swap or Custom Colors, that allows users to choose their preferred color balance for the given shot, can be in camera and viewed for the LCD while shooting stills and movies. These effects could previously only be performed using PC software after shooting.
Extended movie shooting functions feature during the S80, including catastrophe with the market: a high resolution (1024 x 768, 15 frames per second) XGA movie mode, made possible by DIGIC II's processing speed. Movies within this mode is usually about 1GB sizes and are generally suited to viewing full screen on the PC or TV. High quality VGA (30/15 frames per second) movies with sound or QVGA movies (30/15 fps) are possible, along with compact mode allows short clip capture at 160 x 120 for quick e mailing.
Advanced printing
When used by in conjunction with Canon's new Compact Photo Printer Selphy CP710 and Ink and Paper Set (KP 108IP), prints are generally produced very inexpensively. Printing by way of a Selphy CP Series Printer also allows an individual to print handy ID Photo Prints and Movie Prints.
When attached to the latest variety PictBridge compatible PIXMA printers, users might take a look at image enhancement features just like Noise Reduction, Vivid Photo, Face Brightener and Captured Info print, which prints shooting data like shutter speed, aperture and shooting mode within the photo border.
Printing images and never have to connect with your personal computer is kept simple in the Print/Share button, this acts just as one easy upload button for Or windows 7 and Mac OS X.
Software
The S80 comes bundled using a comprehensive software suite, including Canon's browsing and image management software ZoomBrowser EX 5.5 (Windows) and ImageBrowser 5.5 (Mac), easy printing software PhotoRecord 2.2, and PhotoStitch 3.1 for creating stunning panoramas. There is also the photo manipulation software, ArcSoft PhotoStudio.
Purchasers with the cameras meet the requirements for membership of Canon iMAGE Gateway, that offers 100 MB of online space for uploading and sharing images.
Supported systems are Windows 98 (SE), Me, 2000 (SP4), XP (SP1/2) and Mac OS X v10.2 v10.3. The cameras support PTP for driverless transfer to supported Or windows 7 or Mac OS X systems.
What's inside the box
PowerShot S80 body, Lithium power supply NB 2LH, charger CB 2LW, 32 MB SD memory SDC 32M, wrist strap WS 300, Camcorder Solution CD ROM, USB interface cable IFC 400PCU, audio video cable AVC DC300
The 12.2 megapixel APS C size CMOS sensor employs large microlenses over each pixel to help reduce noise and enhance sensitivity as much as ISO 1600, although 14 bit Analog to Digital (A/D) conversion process means the Rebel XSi camera records approximately 16,384 colors per channel and allows the camera to provide images with finer even more accurate gradations of tones and colors.