Canon PowerShot S330 2MP Digital ELPH Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

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Product Details

Product Manual [9.76mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 3.7 x 2.5 inches ; 8.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000645C8
• Item model number: S300 Digital ELPH
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,131 in Camera & Photo (See Bestsellers in Camera & Photo)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 28, 2002

Product Description

Product Description
Canon is once again combining its expertise in camera design and advanced digital imaging technology to create the PowerShot S300 Digital ELPH. The camera's ultra-compact and elegant stainless steel design is based on the extremely popular PowerShot S100, and offers new and improved features including a powerful zoom lens, making it one of the world's smallest and lightest 2.1-megapixel camera with a 3x zoom lens. In addition to its high-resolution, and retractable zoom lens, the S300 offers a number of new and improved features including direct print capabilities from the new Canon Card Photo printer CP-10.A new digital signal processing IC in the PowerShot S300 enables high-speed image processing and rapid data transfer through the cameras' USB interface. The PowerShot S300 takes advantage of this feature by offering a Direct Print mode that enables users to print hard-copy images using Canon's new CP-10 dye sublimation printer. The Canon PowerShot S300 can record movie clips with audio. The video portion of the PowerShot S300 movies can be replayed on the camera's LCD monitor. Full audio-video playback is possible with a connected TV monitor or a compatible PC after downloading. Due to the new digital signal processing IC, the S300's movie clip processing speed is approximately 2.7 times faster that other models in its class.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely incredible little camera, May 31, 2002

By	Mack Lee Sullivan (Bronx, New York USA) - See all my reviews

I bought the S330 3 days before leaving for Moscow & St. Petersburg. Based on reviews read here and at other sites I also bought a 256MB memory card and an extra battery. The basics of operation took about 20 minutes and 15-20 photos of the backyard, by the second day of my trip operation was effortless. The zoom is quite impressive and most pictures were flawless; whether from a boat, through glass, from a moving car, whatever, even an amateur like myself got some truly special photos. I had a 128MB card from another camera and took it with me, a bonus, the memory cards aren't specific to the camera and you can get real cheap memory on-line from secondary distributers or borrow the cards from freinds with other digital cameras. The batteries charge very quickly, and with two I was able to leave one charging at the hotel and the other in the camera, but I could've easily carried both all day - full charge takes less than an hour. I never had any power problems, I also got in the habit of turning the camera off between shots however. Which brings me to my only real complaint, the on/off switch requires sustained pressure for 2-4 seconds, its not usually problem getting the shot you want but it could be - and it was a little annoying. Since I had so much memory I used 1600x1200 and the finest detail for every shot, and I still took over 350 photos and had room for about 75 more. Now that I'm home its giving me all kinds of options for re-sizing and zooming into whatever details I like most in the picture. The picture review setting on this camera is one of its best features, you can actually zoom into the photo you just took to be sure you've got the level of detail or particular aspect of a subject that you might've wanted. I ended-up retaking several photos and getting precisely the picture I was hoping for. I own an older Sony and one of the original Kodaks, and I can't recommend this camera enough. Good Luck.

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent camera.... great picture quality !, May 5, 2002

By	superman2k3 "superman2k3" (On a sunny beach!) - See all my reviews

Canon has another winner in its new S330 model.

It has the following positives,
1. Excellent looks, build quality.
2. Great night shots, not found on any other compact 250gms camera, new long shutter feature in manual mode for upto 15 secs.
3. Very reliable and tons of features like charger works all over the worls, PAL/NTSC video out, all cables included (unlike Sony).
4. Accepts cheaper Compact Flash cards which are easily available in sizes upto 256MB. Not expensive 64MB sticks here :)
5. Very much pocketable. Easily goes into the trouser pockets. Slightly tough to fit into jeans pocket though. Look at S200 if you want even smaller camera.
6. 2.1 MP may looks low compared to other 3/4 MP cameras but this one offers more features without sticking you with any sticks ! Don't just use MPixels as your sole criteria when selecting camera. If you won't print them bigger than 8x10" then 2MP should be enough for now unless you have that extra cash :)
7. 3x zoom very faster to start and fold back. Works smoothly. You can turn the digital zoom off permanently.
8 LCD is superb, pictures look great on the 1.5" LCD. (a bigger 1.8" LCD on other need not neccessarily mean better quality, my last years Fuji had 1.8" and comes no where near this 1.5")
9. Great user interface... think of these Elph's as Nokia's of digicams. Other cheaper camera's out there might not have same reliability, features, user interface and picture quality.

Problems,
1. Battery... lasts on 120 shots or so... you WILL have to buy a second one for extra [money].
2. The battery/CF doors feel flimsy. There are not made of metal but of plastic which looks like silver colored metal. But this much better than an all plastic one !
3. Canon's ZoomBrowser EX software is very unstable. It keeps crashing every few mins on Windows XP. Canon needs to iron out the problems in this. After buying an expensive camera atleast its SW should be reliable ! (Atlhough I haven't encountered any problems downloading pics till now, I don't see any reason to buy a CF card reader, this works fine with the cable, took just 3 mins for 100 big pictures)
4. Price is still high for a 2MP camera, although its become much more affordable than last year.
5. Movie mode is almost useless because of 5 sec limit on decent sized clip. Its just a marketing thing. Same with the audio/mic on camera.
6. Included CF card is just 8MB ! (it costs [money] to get a 32MB card for bulk purchases). Someone has to start including these necessary things like a decent 64MB card along with new cameras.

Spend few extra bucks on this cool camera and you won't regret !

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Digital P&S Camera, December 10, 2002

By	"ignatius_loyola" (Chestnut Ridge, NY United States) - See all my reviews

The Cannon PowerShot S330 is my first digital camera. I had it for about six weeks so far and I just love it. As a result of getting this camera, in the past six weeks I've taken more pictures at family events then probably the last 6 years combined using conventional cameras. To me, the best thing about digital photography is the instant feedback. You can see your picture as soon as you take it. And if you don't mind wasting some battery, you can use the LCD screen to frame your shots so every picture comes out exactly the way you like it. And downloading the pictures also makes things easy.

Basic Features
The camera is capable of 2.0-mega pixel resolutions and it has a 3x optical zoom lens and 2.5 digital zoom. The camera is small, I would say a little bigger then a cigarette box and fits in your hands or pickets easily. Both the front and the back of the camera are finished in metal so it weights a little more then other cameras but not to the point where it is heavy to carry. The S330 also comes with a very bright 2.5" LCD screen in the back. Even in direct sunlight you should still have no problem seeing the screen. With the LCD screen on all the time, I estimate that you should be able to get about 100 to 150 pictures depending how much flash you use. The S330 doesn't come with an AC adapter kit so when you need to recharge, you have to take out the battery and put it in the special battery charger that plugs directly to the wall jack. I thought this was kind of awkward but has since gotten use to it.

Advance Features
The PowerShot S330 is very easy to use as a point-and-shoot camera but it also has a number of advance features like shutter speed and ISO settings if you need it. It also has a number of white balance controls which helps compensate the different lighting conditions such as fluorescent, cloudy and etc. I've tried to use this features a couple of times but haven't quite master it. I would imagine that most people would never need this feature but if you are a tweaker, there should be enough options in this camera to keep you satisfied.

Besides the regular camera like features, it also has a movie mode and stitch assist mode that are interesting. The stitch assist mode is for panoramic shots and it's best to do this with a tripod so at the points where the pictures are stitched together, the object wouldn't look warped. The camera does not stitch the pictures, that process is done separately when you connect the camera to the computer. The stitched pictures will have a stitch line linking them together indicating that these pictures were shot in stitch mode. Clicking on the stitch line would launch the software program to for the panoramic picture. And you can stitch as many pictures together as you want.

The movie mode is something I've only used a couple of time. The camera stores short film clips and it limits how long you can shoot depending on the resolution of the film. The clips are limited from 10 to 30 seconds and in 640x480 resolution (which is the largest), it would only record for 10 seconds and not 30.

Pictures
In terms of the quality of the picture, I am pretty satisfied with it. Sometimes the picture is a little soft around the edges or kind of fuzzy but that's not every single time. The color of the photo is decent but IMHO, not 100% true to life. There are quit a few pictures I've taken the found it to be too red or yellow. But most outdoor shots in daylight that looks just wonderful. The flashlight packs a big punch for something so small. Anything within 8 feet is no problem at all in dark situations. The focus light has a slightly shorter effective distance so sometimes the camera can't focus so when you push the shutter and nothing happens. This is kind of frustrating but just try to take a few steps closer to your subject and it should be fine.

Just about every picture I take with this camera, I take it in 1600x1400 resolution and in fine mode. This way, any pictures that I like I can have it developed and look just like it was taken from a conventional camera. In this largest format, the photo is about 1MB each. So with a 128MB compact flash card, you can still store plenty of pictures. Unfortunately, Canon only provides a 8MB CF card with the camera so make sure you buy a CF card if you don't already have it. Also, because of S330's small size, it is only capable of accepting Type I CF cards and not Type II. So like IBM's 1 GB MicroDrive is not compatible with this camera.

Issues
Maybe I've missed this in the user's manual but I have yet to find a battery meter that shows me how much juice is left in the battery. When the power is running low, the camera would just shut down with very little warning. I guess Canon just didn't think this is a critical issue since the pictures are all already saved in the memory so advance warnings on the battery running low is pretty useless. But just be prepared and the best solution is to have a second battery so you can just switch it when one runs out.

For such a well build camera it's very disappointing to see the cheesy flap it uses to cover the USB and video ports on the side of the camera. Not a major issue though.

Canon did not include any bag or pouch for the storage of this camera. Even though the camera is small enough to fit just about anywhere, the metal finishing is brushed and can be easily scratched. A soft pouch would be perfect to protect the surface but not included so protect your investment and get one on your own.

I am not going to complain about the 2-mega-pixel limit because it's more then enough for an average user. A well taken 2-mega-pix pictures developed on 4x6 film would look no different than if it's taken on a 35mm camera. So don't buy more then you need because the higher the resolution, the more memory it needs and more time it takes to save a picture. So take a closer look at the Canon PowerShot S330 because it might be just what you're looking for....