Rating: 
Summary: Takes not only great pictures - It looks good too
Review: First I need to state that I am not a camera specialist. However, when it comes to buying a new product, particularly electronics, I go through most of what is for sale at that moment. I decided in mid. April that it was time for me to buy a digital camera. Reading lots of reviews of various cameras for a couple of days on the internet gave me a picture of the cameras which were among the best on the market at that time and I ended up with the Canon Powershot S40. Throughout the review all comments applies also to the S30 version. The differences between the two models are the number of pixels used and S30 also provides you with the option of take pictures using film speed ISO 800. S30 is also a bit cheaper.I had some basic criteria's for what my camera should do. (1) - It should be small and portable. Since carrying your camera with you or not is what is going to decide weather or not you will be able to capture those moments that occur every now and then. (2) - It should take great pictures. Having captured that special moment, verifying that it looks nice on the small LCD-screen on the camera, and going home to find out (when you look at the picture on your computer) that it is blurry or got some other flaws, is not the situation we want. Another important property is the number of pixels the camera use. Having more pixels allows you to select a part of an image (cropping) and print/use that one, for example the upper right corner of the picture is all I want or maybe just the face of your girlfriend to put in your wallet. If the number of pixels are to few you might not be able to use this technique. (3) - It should have the possibility to let me "grow into the camera". Being not professional, I wanted to have a simple to use camera that allows me to just take photos with one click. On the other hand, since of the great feature of digital cameras which allows you to see the actual picture directly after you take it and if you want, delete it, I suspected that I would start to do more experiments with photography, i.e., adjusting shutter speed and changing parameters (actually I have after a couple of weeks use which allows me to take pictures that I have never been able to take before using an automatic camera, for example in dark conditions, night shots and so on. These photos can now be made good). What the Canon provides is a fully automatic mode that allows you to take those simple "point and shoot" pictures as well as other modes that gives you the possibility to adjust more parameters. The camera has several pre-defined modes for different occasions (night scene, landscape, portrait and so on) that make the camera easy to use. The Canon Powershot S40 fulfils all these criteria's and it is giving me a lot of great pictures. However, nothing is perfect. There are 3 things one must have in mind when deciding to buy this camera listed in importance order: (1) - You need more memory. The provided memory card is way too small. You need at least 128MB in order to not have to transfer pictures to your computer so often. On one 128MB card I usually store around 100 pictures. 128MB cards are quite affordable today. (2) - You need an extra battery. Using only one battery is ok for most situations, but these days when you are taking more photos, for example at a party when you are showing the pictures to your friends using the LCD screen of you camera, the battery will not last. Having a spare battery solves this problem. I guess it is possible, but you will have to work hard in order to use up 2 batteries in one day. Recharging a battery is very fast, usually between one and 2 hours. (3) - The camera is a bit heavier than other cameras with the same size. This is not a problem to me though. With its small size I could (before I bought a camera bag) carry the camera in the pocket of my jeans. Enough said. I strongly recommend this camera that is suitable for most users. It produces great pictures and it provides a lot of possibilities for manual adjustments together with a nice set of predefined automatic operation modes. Remember, the Canon Powershot S40 does not only take great pictures, it looks good too.
Rating:
Summary: Great, technical wonder; very few faults; not for beginners
Review: In general, my Canon S40 is a great camera. It takes beautiful pictures, offers a greater number of options than many other renowned cameras and can be used both for simple tasks and also for tasks that requires advanced settings. Advantages:
The S40 has many advantages, in general too many to complete in a list. But here are few of the most important issues:
- Impressingly clear pictures.
- A lots of options; most of them are simple to use
- Can be used by mid-pros, semi-pros and even pros.
- Microdrives can be used, offering up to 1 Gb of
memory (5500 pics at min. res.).
- The camera can record video and sound.
- A surprising performance in low-ligh situations. Drawbacks:
The biggest drawback is the multicontroler. It is the second most used button on the camera (only the sutter button is more often used). It offers the user to select up, down, left, right and enter (pushing the multicontroller button IN). It is easy to push in the four directions but requies almost a luck to success in pressing the button in. I would have preferred another button for the 'in' selection. The second drawback is how difficult it is for beginners to master the usage of the autofocus system. As a user, you'll have to select which spot of the proposed picture frame is going to be used as the auto-focus spot. Changing spots can be a little complicated so I believe that many users will just take 'another picture' to get the focus right instead of mastering the manual and the methodology behind the autofocus system. Other drawbacks are completely minor. Often, the camera's setting & options can be complicated. But that cannot be regarded as a drawback because it isn't possible to have a camera with all this great options if it is ought to be simple in all occurrences.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is my second digital camera. I also own the Canon digital Elph camera I love it but I needed something a little more robust for some higher quality digital photography. The digital Elph is fine for 4x6 photos but I wanted the capability of enlargements and the small Canon was very limiting for me. The 4 Megapixel resolution is quite remarkable and the photos prints scale very nicely. I have produced some high quality 8x10 that gave nothing away to my high quality SLR in terms of print quality. The Canon S40 is packed with feature and I am still exploring them but I can report that the camera is well designed and it gives you very good control to get the shots that you need. The flash and battery life which were both problems I had to deal with in the digital Elph are not problems here. I strongly endorse this camera for the people who need enlargements at 8x10 or larger. I thought just maybe that I could put away my SLR but not yet. On my last trip I took my digital Elph, my Canon S40 and my Minolta SLR. The Canon S40 was the star of the trip producing some great shots. My Minolta SLR was the only one I felt comfortable using for some action shots in difficult lighting. The digital elph was unused until the battery on my S40 ran out and I needed a couple more run of the mill snapshots. For most photography work you could do just fine replacing your SLR with the S40. If you purchase this camera you will need to buy a 128MB or higher CF card and an extra battery. The great joy of digital photography taking a chance on a difficult shots because you know you can always delete them. You do not want to be caught short of storage or power.
Rating:
Summary: Canon s40 Review
Review: excellent, light weight camera with a ton of advanced features...
the clarity, crispness and sharp images, especially as they appear on a computer, are superb...a guaranteed hit....
Rating: 
Summary: A great camera
Review: Overall, this is a great camera for the price. I did a lot of research before buying and am glad that I ended up with the PowerShot S40. I generally agree with all the positive feedback of the other reviewers, but I thought I'd share the few gripes I have about the camera in case they'll help others make their decision. 1) The expensive and virtually useless "AC power adapter" accessory (sold separately) is NOT what you think it would be -- it does not let you plug the camera into an outlet and charge the battery. Instead, its AC adapter end actually replaces the battery in the battery bay area. So you have to remove the battery if you want to run the camera off the wall current. Consequently, you must also use the separate battery charging unit to recharge the battery. (If only this camera came with a USB/Charging "cradle" like some of its competitors! That's my biggest regret with this camera.) 2) The camera has a habit of falling asleep during the middle of long uploads, interrupting the upload. (This is a big bug -- obviously, when the computer and the camera are actively transferring, the sleep mechanism of the camera should not kick in, but it does.) 3) The flash setting (I always prefer No Flash) is NEVER saved when the camera shuts down -- even when it sleeps. Consequently, in the course of a casual day or evening of occasional use, you a) either remember to keep turning off the flash every time you want to take a picture, or b) end up taking the picture with the flash and then having to re-take it without. The default flash setting should be one of the many preferences in the camera's system menu. 4) When you rotate an image in the camera, the image is not actually rotated when you import it into the computer -- you have to go and rotate them all over again after importing (this is using Mac OS X (Image Import and iPhoto applications). Maybe it's different with other applications, but I doubt it. Otherwise, this is a great camera with a great user interface -- it makes simple, point-and-click use easy, and hard, all-manual things possible. There are even some great semi-manual modes. I would strongly recommend it if you can live with the shortcomings I outlined above.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful.
Review: This is a little tank of a camera, with great optics and a decent optical & digital zoom combination, as well as awesome resolution. If you had to buy one digital camera for all needs, chances are you'd find the S40 a great hybrid of near-professional features and compact design. It does require a 2nd battery and a larger memory card to be ready to go, but aside from that, it's nearly perfect.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Camera for all! I give it 4 1/2 stars
Review: I purchased both the Canon S40 and the Canon G2 just before Christmas. The G2 was for me and the S40 was for my girlfriend. The reasoning was I thought that the "Bulky sized" G2 would be good for the "serious" shots and the "Light" S40 would be for the "fun party" casual pictures. I was wrong. First of all the Canon G2 is a fine camera and for the most part takes nice pictures. Here are the good points of the S40.
Size of Camera
First it is lightweight, easy to hold and easy to put a shirt pocket (but for a short while, if you needed both hands for something else).
Picture Quality
The still picture quality is very good to excellent but I still feel that a good 35mm still has a slight edge in quality. Every once in a while about 1 in 10 one comes out blurry, but if you can with a digital camera you can take it again. Motion pictures (object is moving) are ok but I have not had a lot of luck with the quality again the good 35mm would win. The video quality is fair to good and at a 30 second time limit we only use it for fun or when our sheep dog a does something silly it just quicker to video tape it on the Camera are email it too friends! That is really nice.
Cameras ease of use
This is where the Canon S40 really shines. This camera is very easy to use it's an almost pick up and use right away. If your not sure about a button Canon User manuals very user friendly. To view the picture, just slide the Power/Replay Lever to the right and there you go. This is a very simple Camera to use it is fro the first time user or the experienced photographer. The battery life is good, it last for almost a complete dinner party sometimes I wish I had two of them. I do like that the battery comes out and goes into the mini charger with is easy to take along rather than the bulky one the G2 came with.
Print quality
I may write about this later as me printer is old put I have printed an 8 by 10 at a friends house and wow it looks great! Recommendations
Get the largest Compact flash card available i.e. 128 or 256 they are really getting inexpensive. You will be happy you did. Second get a Palm pilot screen protector (cut to size) for the LCD monitor you will be happy when you do. And third get a card reader for picture transer to you PC, they are work the same price is not a factor and if you have Windows XP it will recognize the card reader and install its own software. This is a great Camera all in all I am glad I bought the 4-mega pixel instead of the 3-mega-pixel version. You will truly enjoy it as for the G2, well look for it on Ebay!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I have gone from a Canon S100 and a Kodak 3.1 megapixels to the Canon S40. Has to be one of the easiest cameras to use following the simple menus. Response time, color and clarity of pictures just outstanding. Compact size and solid caase make it a true traveler. After checking most of the tech sites like dpreview everything I read was right on. This is the best bet in a 4 megapixel camera
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera
Review: I wanted a small camera that I could easily take with me everywhere in place of my Canon EOS and Olympus 140 (also small but not as small as the S40). Also considered the Nikon 885 which is even smaller but the Canon S40 was only $... more and was 4.1 megapixels rather than 3.1. Love the Canon. It does well in all situations I've used it in. Not quite small enough to fit in a normal pocket, but it's still quite portable. Great pictures -- prints are clear and color rendition is quite good. Not up to a good SLR for those really critical shots, but great for most situations. Has a relatively fast shutter delay for a digital. Flash is barely adequate and there's no provision for adding another. This is a common problem for small digital cameras. The optical viewfinder is small and captures only about 80% of the picture frame. I find it worthless, but one adjusts to using the LCD screen. In time I doubt that I'll even miss the viewfinder. Easy to use and everything is organized so that the more complex features don't get in the way of the ones you use 95% of the time. Very nicely designed. A bit expensive, and for most occasions a 3 mpixel would be fine -- in that case the competition is tough. But if you want a small 4 mpixel the S40 can't be beat at present.
Rating:
Summary: Best 4 megapixel go everywhere digital camera
Review: This camera is easily the best ultra-compact highly portable camera on the market today. It has point-and-shoot capabilities with all the manual controls of the bigger G2. The ISO 50 with raw mode capability and the razor sharp Canon lens allow me to have great looking 11x14" printouts with even a 16x20 is possible. The raw mode gives you lossless information from the CCD at one-third the storage space requirement in the camera. Once in the computer it can be expanded (losslessly) to the Tiff image. This is a big savings on space in the camera allowing you to take 2 to 3 times the high resolution pictures when compared to other cameras! It has many modes for specialized situations but I prefer the P mode which allows me to use the ISO 50 (automatic mode sets the camera to ISO 100) and let the camera do most of the work. With such a high resolution camera you will need an additional compact-flash card (128 meg or above)and possibly an extra battery. I love the quick review button (much better idea than on my old Canon G1). I also especially like the placement of the compact flash slot, even with my big fingers the card can be easily removed. My only problem is that is so portable that my wife has "taken" it over ;-).
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