The S100 was my first digital camera, and it’s still in heavy use. (Editor’s note – since replaced in 2003 by a Canon SD110 and in 2007 by a SD1000…) I bought my S100 in 2000 while on contract to a client in San Diego. I was looking for a camera to take pictures of my travels and looking for something to kill time in my hotel room. The Powershot S100 (or Digital Elph, as it was known) has spawned cameras with higher resolution, cameras that take Secure Digital cards, longer zooms, and more sensitive CCDs. The S100 still has a place in my heart, though. It’s easy to use, small enough to take everywhere, and the controls fall easily to hand.
The S100 has an all-metal body, 2x optical zoom, 4x digital zoom and somewhat limited exposure controls – white balance and exposure compensation only. The camera produces jpeg images in 1600×1200 fine and superfine resolution and 640×480. The camera uses a small, proprietary Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries, which is almost a requirement in a camera this small. Fortunately, Canon has used the same battery in other cameras and batteries are available reasonably from Canon and third-party manufacturers.
I’ve been happy with the resolution of prints made from my S100 at 1600×1200. Since most of my photos end up on the web, I use the the 640×480 mode for street shooting. I can fit an ungodly number of shots on a 128 megabyte compact flash card.
S100 Specifications (From the Canon web site)
Image Capture Device
| Type | 1/2.7 inch Charge-Coupled Device(CCD) |
| Total Pixels | Approx. 2.11 million-pixel |
| Effective Pixels | Approx. 2.02 million |
| Focal Length | 5.4 (Wide-angle) – 10.8 (Telephoto) mm |
| (35 mm film equivalent: 35 – 70 mm) | |
| Maximum Aperture | F2.8 (Wide-angle) – F4.0 (Telephoto) |
| Focusing Range (measured from front lens) | Standard: 57 cm – infinity (22 in. – infinity) Macro: 10 cm – 57 cm (4 – 22 in.) (Wide-angle) / 27 cm – 57 cm (11 – 22 in.) (Telephoto) |
| Focusing Control System | TTL 3 point AiAF |
| Optical Viewfinder | 5.4 (Wide angle) – 10.8 (Telephoto) mm |
| LCD Viewfinder | 1.5 inch low-temperture polycrystalline silicon TFT LCD |
| LCD Pixels | 117,600 ( 490[H] x 240[V] ) |
| LCD Coverage | 100% |
| Aperture Range | Maximum: f/2.8 to f/4 (Wide-angle) Minimum : f/4 to f/5.6 (Telephoto) |
| Shutter Type | Mechanical shutter and Electronic shutter |
| Shutter Speed | 1 – 1/1500 sec. (1-sec. for Slow-Synchro mode and manual mode with flash set to Off) |
Exposure Control
| Sensitivity | Equivalent to ISO 100 |
| Light Metering Method | Center weighted metering |
| Exposure Control Method | TTL program AE |
White Balance
| White Balance Control | TTL auto/ manual |
| Flash | Built-in (Auto, On, Off, Red-Eye Reduction, Slow-Synchro) |
| Flash Range | wide angle : 27 cm – 3 m (11 in. – 10 ft.) telephoto : 27 cm – 2 m (11 in. – 7 ft.) |
| Recycling Time | Approx. 10 sec. |
Shooting Specifications
| Camera Modes | Shooting/ Replay |
| Continuous Shooting Speed | Approx. 2 images/sec. (when the LCD monitor is off.) |
| Digital Teleconverter | 2X, 4X (Maximum 8X digital zoom is available combined with optical zoom) |
| Self-timer | 10 seconds |
Image Storage
| Storage Media | CompactFlashTM card (Type I) | |||||||||||||||
| Image Format | Design rule for Camera Format (DCF **) (Images/ Thumbnails: JPEG) |
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| Print Order Format | Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) | |||||||||||||||
| Image Quality |
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Image Storage Capacity * (with 8MB CF card)
| Super-Fine/ Large | Approx. 4 images |
| Fine/ Large | Approx. 12 images |
| Fine/ Small | Approx. 46 images |
Interfaces
| Computer Interface | Universal Serial Bus (USB) |
| Video Out | Video out |
| Other | CF Card Slot (Type I) |
Power Supply
| Power Sources | 1. Battery Pack NB-1L 2. Compact Power Adapter CA-PS300 (with DC Coupler DR-300) Click here for important safety information. |
Physical Specifications
| Operating Temperature | 32 – 104 degrees F (0 – 40 degrees C) |
| Operating Humidity | 10 – 90 % |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) | 3.4 x 2.2 x 1.1 in. (87.0 x 57.0 x 26.9 mm ) (excluding protrusion) |
| Weight | Approx. 6.7 oz. (190 g) (excluding batteries and CF card) |
Computer System Requirements
| Mac Requirements | Please install the software on a Macintosh computer that meets the following system requirements. |
| Hardware | Power Macintosh, PowerBook, iMac or iBook |
| OS | Mac OS 8.1 through 9.0.4, Quicktime 3.0 or higher (QuickTime 4.1 is in the CD-ROM “DIGITAL CAMERA Solution Disk” included with the PowerShot G1 standard kit) (Please see our Mac OS X Compatibility Statement.) |
| CPU | Power PC |
| Interface | USB: Cable connection via camera’s USB port is limited to genuine Apple Computer brand models with a built-in USB interface (Power Macintosh NEW G3/G4, PowerBook G3, iMac, iBook). iMac computers running OS 8.1 require installation of “iMac Update 1.0” and “iMac Firmware Update 1.0” or higher. |
| RAM | 20MB or more of application memory |
| PC Requirements | Please install the software on a PC computer that meets the following system requirements. |
| Hardware | IBM PC/AT compatible |
| OS | Windows 95/98 (including the Second Edition) Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 3 or higher required) Windows 2000 Windows ME (Please see our Windows XP Compatibility Statement.) |
| CPU | Pentium 133 MHz or better |
| Interface | USB: Cable connection via camera’s USB port is limited to pre-installed Windows 98, Windows 2000 and pre-installed or upgraded Windows ME systems. |
| RAM | 32MB or more (Windows 95/98) 64MB or more (Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/Windows ME) |
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