Canon S110 Preview

by Roger Slavens
Posted 09/17/2012

With a look more reminiscent of the S95, the Canon S110 deletes the grip of last year's popular predecessor, the S100, while adding very little to the rest of the camera. But there's one major new feature that proves the Canon PowerShot S110 is more than just refinement: Built-in WiFi. It makes perfect sense for Canon to add WiFi to the most pocketable of its enthusiast digital cameras. Canon says you'll be able to share still images and videos to social networking sites from the S110 through the Canon iMAGE GATEWAY. Or you can transfer them to your iOS and Android smartphones and tablets with the free Canon CameraWindow app. The Canon S110 can also transfer images directly to a WiFi-compatible printer within range, providing you with near-instant, tangible copies of your captured moments.

This isn't the first time Canon has added WiFi connectivity to one of its digital cameras, and we found the previous incarnations of this feature almost unusable. With the new Android-based digital camera releases from Nikon and Samsung last month, and the ubiquity of smartphone and tablet photography, it's becoming more critical for camera manufacturers to build WiFi functionality into their cameras and make sure it actually works. Suffice it to say, we're eager to test the performance of the Canon S110's WiFi features and the Canon CameraWindow app to see if Canon finally got it right. Another WiFi feature that we're curious about is WiFi GPS. Canon removed the built-in GPS from the S110, instead using the camera's wireless radio to pull GPS data from a smartphone or tablet; so naturally, you'll need one of those for the Canon S110 to record GPS data to your photos.

What's (mostly) the same. As mentioned up front, the cameras are very similar: The dimensions are nearly identical, with the S110 measuring in at 3.9 x 2.3 x 1.1 inches, and both cameras weighing an exact 6.98 ounces.

The Canon S110 employs a 12.1-megapixel. 1/1.7-inch CMOS sensor and DIGIC 5 processor, much the same on-the-surface specs as the S100. However, Canon says the sensor was "newly designed" with greater sensitivity. Indeed, the IS0 range now extends from 80 to 12,800 (compared to the max ISO 6,400 of the S100), which ostensibly adds some low-light flexibility.

Meanwhile, the Canon S110's lens seems to be the same as the S100: a 5x optical zoom with 24-120mm equivalent range at apertures of f/2.0-5.9. Also, both cameras uses Canon's Intelligent IS system for limiting shake and reducing blur from action and poorly lit scenes, with one of six stabilization modes deployed depending on the shooting conditions.

Full HD video remains a strong point of the S-series, with 1080p recordable at 24 frames per second, and 720p at 30 fps. The Canon S110 also comes with built-in stereo microphones, optical zoom while recording, and playback on a bigger screen via HDMI output. Speaking of output, the Canon S110 allows for RAW+JPEG shooting just like its predecessor.

 

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