Anyone use a Canon Powershot S3?

[DEADhead]

My wife recently purchased me a Canon Powershot S3 IS for my birthday. Any users on here have one? What are your thoughts? I have an older S1 IS at work, and have been pretty happy with it over the past three years. Even though the S3 is a 6.0mp camera, it seems that the S1 (3.2mp) was taking a little higher quality photo. A few of the photos I've taken with the S3 were a little grainy, something I've never experienced with the S1 (I've set both cameras to the same settings). Also I got used to having the auto flash on the S1 automatically popup when I needed it, on the S3 I need to manually raise the flash. The one nice thing is on the S3 is that it has a focus light on the auto focus. It bounces a green light of the subject to determine focal distance.

Anybody have any good tips for the Powershots? We can't all be good photographers like stfcatfish, I need the dummy auto settings on camera like the image stabilizer (IS) otherwise all my photos would be blurry, even with a tripod .

Thanks.

[Steve Foss]

Dead, thanks for the compliment.

You probably notice a little more grain or digital noise on this one because, assuming the S1 and S3 sensors are the same size, Canon packed twice as many pixels onto the S3's sensor. That means more heat when recording an image, and heat causes digital noise.

Just the way things go, but your image qualit at 6 Mp is still going to be pretty darn good, I figure, and if it comes time for you to want some enlargements, you can go a little bigger with your new camera.

I'm not much of a P&S fella, but one tip I'd give you is to keep iso at or below 400. That'll keep digital noise to a minimum. Don't worry about using the so-called "dummy settings." Cameras on automatic settings are might smart these days, and nine times out of 10 that's just fine.

And have fun with the new baby!

[WifeKidsandDog]

I have one and I really like it. I wanted a smaller cam for the times I don't want to use my DSLR and something my kids could use. The AF is fast, pics are sharp and it's fun to use.

I find the noise quite low on it compared to other cameras, but as Steve said, I'd keep it under ISO 400.

I honestly can't think of anything negative to say about it. The S5 was already out by the time I got mine but I thought the image quality of the S3 was better.

[fishinchicks]

I have an S2 IS, and really like it. I have been playing with the different settings, to get out of my dependence on the auto features. I would agree that the higher the ISO, the more noise. The S2 is a 5 mega pixel, so it is right in between yours.

[DEADhead]

thanks for all the advice so far. I mainly notice the noise in low light conditions: I would assume the camera automatically bumps up the ISO to probably 800 or higher to compensate. I'll have to monkey with that.

I know the S5 is out right now, my wife got a pretty good price on the S3. For what I'm using the camera for I told her that 6mp was fine enough for the size prints we normally develop, and didn't need anything much higher. The nice thing is that the camera has a 12x optical zoom.

I've already gotten a few nice pictures of my daughter snowshoeing. I'm sure I'll have plenty more to come.