After three years of using my trusty Powershot S1 IS, I will be upgrading very shortly to a Powershot S5 and accessory Canon Speedlite 430EXII flash. The S1 was almost end of line when I purchased it, and the S5 is also end of line and has been discounted in some parts of the world or dropped from product stock by some retailers. Canon, however, is yet to announce the replacement “S6” model and the speculation is that it might be different enough from its predecessor for me to not want to wait as I have these past few months (new S series models have typically been announced in the first or second quarter). My experience in getting the S1 was interesting in itself. I originally was looking at one of the Fuji Finepix models in similar spec range, and the Canon was a very late change of option that stretched my budget enough that for the first month I used only alkalines to run it. But it has turned out a much better choice, from the high quality video through the USM lens motor, the articulating screen and lots of other nice features that it has, apart from Canon’s well deserved reputation. One of the reasons I was willing to wait around for an S6 is that the lens spec of the S1 is one thing that hasn’t changed much since, going from zoom of 10x to only 12x in the S5. There’s rumours of a gain in the S6, maybe 15x – 18x. But then I don’t use my S1 and wouldn’t use it for many shots where extra telephoto would really matter anyway, and with the high resolution CCDs these days you just blow up the picture which is almost as good.
