Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5 IS 8.0MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

Purchased this camera for my father after my son had purchased an earlier model. I had an opportunity to use it while visiting this past week. I wasn't dissappointed with the functionality or picture quality. I was very impressed with the response time of the camera. It powered up instantaniously. I also liked the feature that allowed you to review photos in the playback mode and immediately switch to taking pictures by depressing the shutter button. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to play with all the features, but liked the functionality, clarity, speed and ease of use. Even my father was impressed and that's not always an easy task.

This is my second Canon camera. I had an SD500 which I gave to my husband recently when his camera broke. I didn't want to part with that one because it took such great pictures but I wanted a camera with a bigger zoom lense. I went with another Canon not only because I knew the quality but also because I figured my learning curve would be shorter since I would already be familiar with a lot of the settings. You can take this camera out of the box and immediately start to use it. It takes great pictures. Quick, fast focus, the outdoor shots are amazing. Indoor shots with the flash are also great. So far I have no complaints. It is a little bigger, it won't fit in your pocket. My only complaint is the lense cap... it doesn't stay on. I see lots of reviewers have mentioned that. I don't know how that got past Canon quality control.

I purchased this for $299 and feel like its worth the price. I experimented different settings in the manual mode and I got very good pictures with it. It has good focal length settings starting from f/2.4 to f/8.0 and a variable shutter speed from 1/1600 of a sec to more than 5 sec. Also the variable ISO settings gives you flexibility in getting good pictures under different lighting conditions... I have not yet tried the video mode in this and so no comment on that front. Also the "Stitch pictures" mode along with the software provided in the cd help you make good pictures which cannot be taken in one shot. I like that feature as well. Overall, it is a very good camera and I recommend it.

-Uresh Kuruhuri

I have this camera for about 6 months, it started out great, great pictures. Went to NY took over 2000 pictures and than the camera just went dead. nothing works, tried new batteries, everything. camera went back to best buy and i am lucky i got an extended warr. for four years, have not got it back yet, so I do not know what is wrong with it. But if you buy one get an ext. warr.... Will follow up when camera returns to me repaired or replaced with a new onw.... The pictures where great they all came out, I also have a 4GB extreme 3 card with it.

As promised, cannon did a very nice job w/ this camera.
my dad wants one!