Canon PowerShot S · marketed October 2012

The Canon PowerShot S110: the S100 with Wi-Fi and a touchscreen, minus the GPS

In autumn 2012 Canon kept the pocket enthusiast compact about the same size, gave it a touch panel and Wi-Fi, took the satellite receiver out, and the reviewers kept coming back to the Wi-Fi as the weak part.

Launched

October 2012

Launch price

£429.99 / US$449.99 (list)²

Sensor

12.1 MP CMOS

Lens

24–120 mm, 5×

Card

SD, SDHC, SDXC

Battery

NB-5L

Specs and sources

Meet the camera

Canon's museum lists the PowerShot S110 as marketed in October 2012, with one name in every region.¹ It measures 98.8 by 59.0 by 26.9 millimetres and weighs about 198 grams with battery and card.¹ Cameralabs called it an advanced compact for enthusiasts who want DSLR-style control in something pocketable, and said it was the same weight and dimensions as the S100 apart from an extra millimetre of thickness.⁴ TechRadar, by contrast, wrote that the new body had a slimmer profile than the S100's.² The two reviews disagree on that point, and we have not measured one.

TechRadar gave a full price of £429.99, AU$549 or US$449.99.² Digital Trends cited a $450 price tag and said the S100, still on the market, might be found for less than its $430 list price.⁵ Expert Reviews, writing in December 2012, listed £373 and used £350 in its verdict.³ It was sold in black or white, according to TechRadar.²

Why this one was interesting

Wi-Fi arrives, and the GPS leaves

Canon described a Camera Access Point mode that sends pictures to a smartphone without a router, plus Wi-Fi printing.¹ Cameralabs called Wi-Fi the headline feature and noted the camera lost the S100's GPS, perhaps because of the difficulty of fitting two antennas, though it did not know the reason.⁴ The replacement was a phone: Canon's CameraWindow app can log the phone's position and then add locations to the pictures on the camera.⁴³ Expert Reviews noted that this is less seamless than built-in GPS but avoids the minutes a GPS camera can spend finding itself at switch-on.³ Digital Trends, though, could not get the geotagging to work on its review unit.⁵

A touchscreen that left the buttons alone

The S110 added a capacitive touch panel to the same 461,000-dot, 3-inch screen.⁴ Canon said it can be combined with the control ring to change settings.¹ Cameralabs found the panel responded smoothly and called it useful for setting the focus area and releasing the shutter, but noted it could not change focus during video.⁴ TechRadar liked how light a touch it needed.² Digital Trends was less happy: with a screen this large on a small body, its reviewers kept brushing it with a knuckle and taking shots they did not intend when touch-shutter was on.⁵

The same sensor, or a new one?

Canon called it a newly developed 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor with the DIGIC 5 processor and extended the top ISO from the S100's 6400 to 12800.¹ TechRadar also called the sensor freshly designed,² and Digital Trends wrote that it is the one used in the larger PowerShot G15.⁵ Cameralabs said the S110 retained the S100's sensor and processor pairing.⁴ We cannot settle that from these sources. Expert Reviews said the pictures were hard to tell from the S100's.³ Our S100 retrospective has the camera it replaced, and the S95 is the one before that.

The dark: what f/2.0 and a small CMOS could do

Expert Reviews said the f/2 lens helped keep ISO and noise down at the wide end, but that zooming in closed the aperture, raised the ISO and left details soft.³ TechRadar found clean shots right up to ISO 800 and a very good level of detail at ISO 1600.² Digital Trends said you would get clean pictures around ISO 1600 and still usable ones at ISO 3200.⁵ Cameralabs was stricter: at ISO 400 JPEG detail was getting soft, at ISO 1600 text on a memorial panel was illegible, and ISO 6400 and 12800 were what it called a numbers game, with the new 12800 setting, it wrote, probably two steps beyond where any reasonable detail survives.⁴ It suspected Canon's noise reduction was a little aggressive even at the base setting.⁴

Real photographs taken with this camera, from Wikimedia Commons. The sensitivity shown is recorded in each file's own EXIF data.

Like that look? See recent eBay sold listings for this camera ↗

How it drew the picture

TechRadar said colours were rich and faithful and metering accurate, though a bright sky against a dark foreground could clip highlights.² Expert Reviews likewise found well-balanced colours and highlights a little over-exposed more often than expected.³ In Cameralabs' side-by-side with the Panasonic Lumix LX7, the S110's JPEGs held good detail and consistent sharpness from centre to edge at 24 mm and f/4, with no visible chromatic aberration, though the LX7's looked a little sharper; processed from RAW with no noise reduction, detail was hardly different between the two.⁴ TechRadar's lab chart gave about 22 (line widths per picture height ×100) at ISO 80 in its best JPEGs.²

Photos taken with this camera, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture.

On eBay right now

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The little wins

The back of the S110, with its textured panel. · James Case from Philadelphia, · CC BY 2.0 · Commons

Tap a tab

Cameralabs singled out one small thing: in Canon's menus you could now tap a tab at any scroll position instead of scrolling back to the top, which it said makes a big difference.⁴

A ring that clicks

Cameralabs called the lens ring the handling highlight, with tactile clicks like an older aperture ring, and it can be set to ISO, exposure compensation, manual focus, white balance or zoom steps.⁴

A built-in ND filter

A three-stop neutral density filter, which Cameralabs heard click into place, for slow shutter speeds in bright light.⁴ Expert Reviews appreciated it for long exposures.³

A front view showing the lens barrel. · James Case from Philadelphia, · CC BY 2.0 · Commons

A motorised cover and flash

Cameralabs said it was the only camera of its kind with a built-in motorised lens cover, and that it was noticeably quicker to the first shot than rivals with a manual cap; the flash also rises and retracts by itself.⁴

Where it let you down

Expert Reviews measured 2.4 seconds between shots in general use and about 1.9 frames per second in continuous mode, which it called well below average for the money.³ Cameralabs recorded 1.85 fps over 50 JPEGs on a fast card against Canon's quoted 2.1, with a separate 10-frame burst at 10 fps that took about five seconds to clear.⁴ Digital Trends found start-up good at about a second.⁵ The Wi-Fi drew the sharpest criticism. Cameralabs found it a taxing experience on a home network, with Canon's Image Gateway registration a particular obstacle, and noted that posted pictures appear as thumbnail links to that site.⁴ Digital Trends called it half-baked and said that it almost wished it were not there.⁵ Expert Reviews had the Android app work flawlessly but the iOS app fail on a third-generation iPad, and noted that running the app drained the phone.³

Smaller complaints: Cameralabs noted that the S100's front grip and tracking autofocus mode were both gone, the grip being one it had liked;⁴ TechRadar found the smooth front slippery in the hand and listed the f/5.9 telephoto, missing hot shoe and Wi-Fi battery drain among its cons.² Digital Trends disliked the recessed power button.⁵ On video, Expert Reviews found sharp 1080p with smooth autofocus but constant background noise and faint zoom whirring.³

What reviewers said in 2012 and 2013

The timeline

• December 2011The S100 goes on sale, according to Canon's museum.¹
• September 2012TechRadar's review page carries this date.²
• October 2012Canon's museum lists the S110 as marketed.¹
• 22 December 2012Expert Reviews publishes its review.³
• 4 February 2013Cameralabs publishes its review.⁴

The line continued with the PowerShot S120.

Should you buy one now?

Buy one if you want a very small camera with raw files, a bright wide end and a ring on the lens, and you will treat the Wi-Fi as an extra. It listed at £429.99 or US$449.99;² what it sells for now is a question for the sold listings, not for us. We have not tested a unit. Before you bid, check these:

• The battery. The NB-5L is rated at about 200 shots, and Cameralabs advised a spare, especially with Wi-Fi: Amazon ↗.³⁴
• The touchscreen. Test taps and swipes across the whole panel; it is the S110's main change.⁴
• The card. Digital Trends says the slot takes SD cards up to SDXC (Canon's museum page gives no card list); Canon recommended a Class 6 card or faster for HD video.⁵⁴
• The lens ring and flash. Turn the ring for its clicks, and check the flash rises and retracts on its own.⁴
• The lens. Check that it extends, retracts and the cover opens cleanly.⁴

If you are wondering why cameras like this are being hunted down again, we tell that story once, in Pictures that never left the card.

See recent sold prices on eBay ↗Shop on eBay ↗NB-5L battery ↗

Sources

1. Canon Camera Museum: PowerShot S110 (launch text, specifications, marketing date)
2. TechRadar, Canon PowerShot S110 review by Josie Reavely (page dated 18 Sep 2012)
3. Expert Reviews, Canon PowerShot S110 review by Ben Pitt (22 Dec 2012)
4. Cameralabs, Canon PowerShot S110 review by Ken McMahon (4 Feb 2013, four pages)
5. Digital Trends, Canon PowerShot S110 review by Les Shu (the page header shows 24 Apr 2023; its page data gives 1 Mar 2013 as first publication)

Camera photos by Nick-D (CC BY-SA 4.0), James Case (CC BY 2.0) and Johannes Maximilian (CC BY-SA 4.0); sample photographs are credited under each one, all via Wikimedia Commons. Links to eBay and Amazon are affiliate links.