Canon PowerShot S50 5-megapixel digital camera

General Features
Recording Images
Displaying and Editing Images
Supplied Software

General Features

Recording Media: The Canon PowerShot S50 camera records on a Type I and Type II Compact Flash cards. A 32MB Compact Flash card is supplied with the camera. The camera is also compatible with the 1GB IBM Microdrive.

Image Recording Format: The camera records still images in JPEG and RAW formats, and records moving images at 15 frames per second in Motion JPEG with monaural audio in WAVE format.

Camera Body: The camera features a black brushed aluminum alloy body.

Viewfinder and LCD Monitor: This camera features an real-image optical zoom viewfinder and a 1.8" low-temperature, polycrystalline silicon TFT color LCD monitor (approx. 118,000 pixels). Picture coverage is approximately 82% through the viewfinder and 100% through the LCD monitor. The LCD monitor allows you to view images being taken as well as review stored images. You can display detailed information on camera settings, shooting modes and replay modes through the LCD monitor.

Lens: The lens has a focal length of 7.1mm to 21.3mm, which is equivalent to 35mm-105mm in 35mm photography.

CCD Imager: The camera uses a 1/1.8" pixel CCD imager with approximately 5.3 million gross pixels and 5 million effective pixels.

Compression: The PowerShot S50 allows you to choose from three compression ratios for image quality: Superfine, Fine and Normal. 

Resolution: Still images can be recorded in JPEG at one of four resolutions: Large--2592 x 1944 pixels, Medium 1--1600 x 1200 pixels, Medium 2--1024 x 768 pixels, or Small--640 x 480 pixels. Images recorded in the RAW format are at a fixed resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. Motion JPEG moving images can be recorded at 320 x 240 pixels or 160 x 120 pixels.

RAW Format: When shooting in the JPEG format, the camera processes the images to produce optimal results and compresses the images to fit them onto the Compact Flash card. The compression is irreversible, meaning the original data captured by the CCD imager cannot be recovered. Images shot in the RAW format are recorded without processing. These RAW images are also compressed, but the compression is reversible with the supplied software, so that a high-quality image can be obtained from the decompressed file without any loss of image quality. Even though the RAW file is larger than an equivalent JPEG file, it is still only about one-fourth the size of an uncompressed TIFF format file.

9-point AiAF (Artificial Intelligence AutoFocusing) and FlexiZone AF/AE: The PowerShot S50's 9-point AiAF uses a broad metering field to calculate the focal distance with precision, so the camera can focus on your subject no matter where it appears in the viewfinder. For more freedom, FlexiZone AF/AE lets you select which part of the frame you wish to focus on, without moving your camera; the FlexiZone AF/AE feature can be used only when the camera is in the P (Program AE), Tv (Shutter Speed-Priority AE), Av (Apeture Priority AE) and M (Manual Exposure) modes .

DIGIC Imaging Processor and iSAPS Technology: The camera features a DIGIC (Digital Imaging Integrated Circuit) chip, a dedicated image processor developed by Canon, designed to be very fast, produce improved image quality, faster autofocus, faster JPEG compression, better battery life and faster continuous shooting. The camera also features Canon's iSAPS (Intelligent Scene Analysis based on Photographic Space) technology, which uses a database of thousands of different photos to achieve precise exposure and true color rendition.

Multi-Controller: The PowerShot S50 features a multi-controller on the upper right side of the back panel of the camera. The multi-controller is used to select choices, images and menus on the LCD monitor. The button rocks up, down, left and right to navigate through menu choices, and presses down to set or confirm your choices.

Zoom: In addition to the 3x optical zoom, the camera has a 4.1x digital zoom which, in combination, results in a total 12x zoom. Since the viewfinder will only show the optical zoom, the LCD Monitor must be on to use the digital zoom feature. The monitor will display the zoom values beyond 3x, indicating 3.8x, 4.9x, 6.1x, 7.6x, 9.3x and 12x as you advance through the settings.

My Camera: The PowerShot S50 has a My Camera Menu which allows you to customize your camera with your choice of camera theme, start-up image, start-up sound, operation sound, self-timer sound, and shutter sound. Each menu item has three choices. You can also transfer images and sounds recorded to the Compact Flash card to use as your start-up image and sound. The supplied software can assist you with the custom settings.

Auto Power Down: If you do not operate the camera for approximately 3 minutes while in the shooting mode (or 5 minutes in the replay mode), it will turn itself off automatically. When directly connected to a printer, it will power down approximately 5 minutes after the last control is accessed on the camera or something is printed on the connected printer. The Auto Power Down function will not activate while the camera is in slide show mode or while connected to a computer.

Lithium Ion Battery: The PowerShot S50 comes with an NB-2L Lithium Ion rechargeable battery pack and a CB-2LT battery charger. Since Lithium Ion batteries do not develop a "memory effect", it is not necessary to completely discharge the battery before recharging it. It takes approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes to fully charge the supplied battery pack. To protect and prolong the life of the battery pack, it should not be charged for longer than 24 hours at a time.

Battery Performance:

Optional AC Power: The camera is compatible with the optional ACK700 Power Adapter kit (item #280ACK700). This allows you to use the camera for extended periods without worrying about running the batteries down.

Recording Images

Shooting Modes: The PowerShot S50 offers 12 different shooting modes, plus a custom mode, arranged in two zones (Image Zone and Creative Zone) plus Automatic. The modes are selected by turning the Shooting Mode dial, located on top of the camera, to the desired mode. The Shooting Modes are as follows:

• Automatic: The camera automatically selects the settings.
• Image Zone:
  • Portrait: Subject appears sharply focused against a blurred background.
  • Landscape: Use for shooting expansive landscape scenes.
  • Night Scene: Use for capturing human subjects against the backdrop of an evening sky or night scene.
  • Fast Shutter Speed: Use for shooting fast-moving objects.
  • Slow Shutter Speed: Use for shooting slow-moving objects to make them appear blurred (example: river rapids)
  • Stitch Assist: Use when taking shots to be combined into a panorama.
  • Movie: Use for shooting movie frames (at approximately 15 frames per second).
• Creative Zone:
  • Program AE: The camera automatically sets the shutter speed and aperture to match the brightness of the scene.
  • Shutter Speed Priority AE: When you select the shutter speed, the camera automatically sets the aperture to match the brightness of the scene.
  • Aperture Priority AE: This selection helps adjust the depth of field for your shots. Setting a lower aperture setting allows you to fade or blur the background. Setting a higher aperture setting brings the entire range from foreground to background into focus.
  • Manual Exposure: You can manually set the aperture and the shutter speed to achieve a particular effect. It's a convenient way to capture images where it's difficult to set the correct exposure.
  • Custom: Frequently used shooting parameters can be saved to the Custom Mode. Settings that can be saved include shooting modes and menu settings, zoom location, and manual focus locations.

Movie Mode: The movie mode can be used to shoot movie clips in Motion JPEG format. The movie resolution may be set to 320 x 240 pixels or 160 x 120 pixels. Each movie clip can be up to 3 minutes long. Recording times will vary with the subject and shooting conditions, and recording will automatically stop when the maximum clip time is reached or when the CF card runs out of memory space.

Estimated Image Capacity of Compact Flash Cards:

Flash Modes: The flash can be set to the following modes:

• Auto: Flash automatically fires as required by the lighting level.
• Red-Eye Reduction Auto: A separate lamp located next to the flash glows brightly prior to the flash to reduce pupil size and therefore the red eye effect. The flash and red-eye reduction lamp fire as required by the lighting level.
• Red-Eye Reduction Flash On: The flash and red-eye reduction lamp fire with every shot.
• Flash On: The flash strobes with every shot.
• Flash Off: The flash will not fire.

Flash Range: When the sensitivity is set to Auto, the flash range is 1.1' to 15.7' in Wide Angle and 1.15' to 9.8' in Telephoto. When the sensitivity is set to ISO 100 equivalent, the flash range is 1.8' to 13.1' in Wide Angle and 1.8' to 8.2' in Telephoto.

Flash Exposure Lock (FE Lock): You can lock the flash exposure so that the exposure settings are correctly set for a particular portion of your subject.

Flash Adjustments: You can use the flash in combination with the exposure compensation function. The settings can be adjusted in 1/3-stop increments in the range of -2EV to +2EV. You can also adjust the intensity of the flash output in three steps. If full flash washes out the subject, you can reduce the amount of flash output for better results.

Flash With Slow Synchro: You can shoot images with flash with a slow-shutter speed. This helps avoid dark backgrounds when shooting night scenes or with indoor lighting conditions.

Flash Synchronization: You can switch the timing at which the flash fires. First-curtain flash fires right after the shutter opens, regardless of the shutter speed. Second-curtain flash fires right before the shutter closes, regardless of the shutter speed.

Focus Lock/Manual Focus: If it becomes difficult to focus on the subject due to low contrast to the surroundings, close up and far away subjects in the same shot, or quickly moving subjects, you can choose to lock the focus on an object at a similar distance, then shoot the picture after recomposing the shot. If you wish to focus manually, you may do so using the left and right buttons on the back of the camera to bring the picture into the desired focus.

Continuous Shooting: There are two continuous shooting modes: Standard and High Speed. The interval between shots is shorter at the High Speed setting. The actual interval depends upon shooting conditions and settings. (Example: Shooting interval is approximately 1.5 frames per second at Standard Speed and 2 frames per second at High Speed with camera resolution and compression set at Large/Fine and the LCD Monitor off.)

Self-Timer: When you use the self-timer function, the camera will take a picture either 10 seconds or 2 seconds (selectable in the menu) after you press the shutter button.

Shooting Images at Set Intervals: The PowerShot S50 has an Intervalometer which allows you to shoot images at set intervals of between 1 and 60 minutes. You can record between 2 and 100 images in this manner (depending upon maximum capacity of CF card). A typical use of interval shooting would include fixed-point observation of plants and flowers. Note: Use of the optional AC Adapter kit is recommended for interval shooting.

Macro Mode: When the camera is in Macro mode and the lens is set to wide angle, you can record subjects 3.9" to 1.6' from the tip of the lens. When the camera is in Macro mode and the lens is set to telephoto, you can record subjects 1' to 1.6' from the tip of the lens.

Sensitivity (ISO Speed): You can set the camera's sensitivity to Auto to let the camera select the optimal ISO speed. If you wish to reduce camera shake, turn the flash off in a low-light area, or use a fast shutter speed, you can raise the ISO speed manually. The manual settings include 50, 100, 200, 400 equivalents to 35mm photography. Note: Higher ISO speeds increase image noise. To take clean images, use as low an ISO speed as possible.

Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB Mode): When set for Auto Exposure Bracketing, the camera automatically changes the exposure within a set range to take three shots after you press the shutter button once. You can adjust the AEB settings in 1/3EV steps within the range of -2EV to +2EV of the standard exposure setting. AEB settings can be combined with exposure compensation settings  to extend the adjustment range. Images are shot in this order: standard exposure, underexposure and overexposure.

Light Metering System: The PowerShot S50 offers three light metering modes:

• Evaluative Light Metering: This mode is appropriate for standard shooting conditions including night scenes. The camera divides images into several zones for light metering. The camera evaluates the complex lighting conditions, such as the position of the subject, the brightness, the background, the direct light and the backlighting and adjusts the setting to the correct exposure for the main subject.
• Center-Weighted Averaging: This mode averages the exposure from the entire image, but places more weight on the subject at the center. This mode is best used when the subject is backlit or surrounded by bright light.
• Spot AE Point: In this mode, you have two choices, Center and AF Point. In the "center" setting, the camera meters the area within the spot AE point frame at the center of the LCD monitor. In the "AF Point" setting, the camera meters the spot AF point corresponding to the selected AF frame.

White Balance: When the White Balance mode is set to match the light source, the camera reproduces colors more accurately. You can select from the following white balance settings:

• Auto: The camera sets the white balance automatically according to shooting conditions.
• Daylight: Use this setting for recording outdoors on a bright day.
• Cloudy: Use this setting for overcast, shady, twilight, or evening skies.
• Tungsten: Use this setting for recording under tungsten lighting.
• Fluorescent: Use this setting for recording under warm-white, cool-white, warm-white (3-wavelength) fluorescent lighting.
• Fluorescent H: Use this setting for recording under daylight or daylight type-3 wavelength fluorescent lighting.
• Flash: Use this setting for flash photography.
• Custom 1 & Custom 2: Use these for setting custom values with a white sheet of paper to obtain the optimal white balance for the conditions.

Photo Effects: You can shoot images with different photo effects:

• Vivid: Emphasizes contrast and color saturation to record bold colors
• Neutral: Tones down contrast and color saturation to record neutral hues
• Low Sharpening: Records subjects with softened outlines
• Black and White: Records in black and white
• Sepia: Records in sepia tones
• Custom Effect: You can freely set the contrast, sharpness, and color saturation.
• Photo Effect Off: Records with no effects

Exposure Compensation: You can adjust the exposure compensation setting to avoid making the subject too dark when it is backlit or shot against a bright background, or to avoid making lights appear too bright in night shots. The setting can be adjusted in 1/3 steps from +2EV to -2EV.

Shutter Speeds: You can set the shutter speeds of between 1/1500 to 15 seconds. The fastest shutter speed for flash synchronization is 1/250. Special processing is applied to images shot at shutter speeds slower than 1.3 seconds to eliminate noise, thereby producing high-quality images.

PC-Connected Shooting: By using the supplied USB cable and supplied RemoteCapture software, you can shoot images from your PC directly to the Compact Flash card.

Instant Review: After an image is recorded, it will appear in the LCD monitor for a preset number of seconds for reviewing. You can select the review time from 2-10 seconds in 1-second intervals. You can also turn off the review function. 

Displaying and Editing Images

Viewing Images: Still images can be played back on the camera's color LCD monitor, or the images may be transferred to a computer, where they can be displayed or manipulated with the use of compatible software. In addition, the images can be played back on a television, if the TV has an RCA composite video input.

Auto Rotate: The PowerShot S50 has an Intelligent Orientation Sensor that makes sure that your shots appear on the monitor correctly, whether they've been shot horizontally or vertically. The Auto Rotate function can be switched on/off in the menu. Still images taken with Auto Rotate off can be rotated through a menu function either 90 or 270 degrees clockwise in the display.

Playback Zoom: An image can be magnified approximately 10 times in the single image replay mode.

Index Replay : This feature lets you to display nine images at a time, allowing you to easily find the image you want.

Jump: The display can be advanced or set back 9 images in either single image replay or index replay with one press of the Jump button, located above the LCD monitor.

Sound Annotations: Using the built in microphone, you can attach a sound annotation (or memo) of up to 60 seconds to each image. The data is saved in a WAVE format file. The playback volume of the sound annotations can be adjusted in the set up menu.

Auto Replay (Slide Show): You can view all images, or a selection of images, on the Compact Flash card one-by-one in an automated slide show. You can select images to be displayed in up to three different slide shows. Playback interval is selectable from 3-10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds or manual. You can also have the slide show play continuously until you stop it (repeat on), or have it stop at the end of the slide show (repeat off).

Editing Movies: You can delete unwanted portions from the first or second half of a movie clip. Once edited, you can save the edited file as a new file (provided you have enough available memory) or overwrite the original clip and save the edited clip under the same file name.

Erasing/Protecting Images: Images can be erased one at a time or all images can be erased at once. Important images can be protected from accidental erasure. Note: Protected images can be erased if the card is reformatted.

Direct Print Function: Using the supplied USB cable, you can connect this camera directly to a CP-series printer that supports the Direct Print function. You can also connect the camera directly to certain Canon Bubble Jet printers. In this way, you can make prints directly from the camera without ever having to hook it up to a computer.

Exif Print (Exif 2.2): The Canon PowerShot S50 conforms to "Exif Print", a worldwide standard. Vital camera settings (such as: exposure mode, white balance, exposure time) and scene data are recorded to the image file when it is captured. Printers compatible with "Exif Print" are able to use this information to produce high quality photographs, exactly the way they were intended at the time of capture. This intelligent communication process also allows the printer to correct for poor lighting or mistakes, resulting in photos that can be even better than the originals.

Print Settings: Images on a CompactFlash card can be individually selected for printing by adding a print mark. For each image, you can select the number of copies and the print type. In addition, you can choose to have the date and file number appear on the print. These settings are compatible with Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) standards, so images can be printed conveniently on DPOF compliant digital printers or at participating photo labs.

Trimming Images: If you do not want the entire image to be printed, you can "trim" the image before printing. In the menu, you can specify which portion of the image gets printed. A frame appears around the area you want to print, and it can be moved around the image, rotated and resized until the desired area is in the frame.

Image Transfer: You can use the camera to specify settings for images that you wish to send by e-mail. The settings used on the camera comply with the Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) standards. Once images are selected for transfer, you can use the supplied software to actually transfer the images to an e-mail program. A maximum of 998 images can be selected per CF card, and are transferred in order from oldest to newest by shooting date.

Supplied Software

Minimum System Requirements: