David J Taylor wrote:

Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:



Hi All, Canon has announced the S5 8 MP camera: http://www.dimagemaker.com/article.php?articleID=971 Cheers, Wayne



Thanks for that Wayne. It's on DP Review as well: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0705/07050703canons5is.asp I wonder what happened to the S4? Perhaps "4" is an unlucky number in some country? It seems to offer little new over the S3 - no wider-angle coverage and even the EVF is stuck at a relatively poor "115,000 pixels". To me this camera, and the current Panasonic Lunix cameras, both suggest that Canon S5 IS and Panasonic FZ8 are now relatively mature and successful camera lines. Cheers, David


From my readings the FZ8 has a noise problem even at ISO80 and worse from there on up the ISO scale.  The S3 images were rated much better including lower noise.  While the noise reduction of the FZ8 was effective it blurs away find detail.

I plan on purchasing either an FZ8 or a Canon S5 within 60 days and will wait for reviews on image quality.  If the S5 has better image quality I will have to forgo the features I like on the FZ8 and they are a much better EVF,  the grid option for the EVF and the Leica lens.  However Canon lenses are pretty good as well.

The facial recognition focusing may also be a plus as well as the red eye reduction.  I am concerned about the focus speed when using long zoom.  It was an issue with the S2 and that is the reason I ruled it out.  If that is the case now then I will rule out the S5.

Like I said before the highest on the criteria list is being able to do a good crop and still get great images printed at 8.5x11.  I know that the Nikon DX40 @6mp will do that but the lens is too short and I do not want to lug around a DSLR.