Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon S2is Digital Camera with Image Stabiliser [5MP, 12 x Optical Zoom]

I bought this camera from Amazon in June 2006. Performed well for a year then problems started. The LCD screen stopped working and I had to use the viewfinder. I emailed Canon and they suggested taking out the batteries and putting them back in. Didnt work. After about 6 months the LCD screen suddenly started working again. but a new problem arose. After every shot the viewfinder and screen would go blank and the camera needed to be switched off and on to get a picture on the screen or viewfinder. Now (its 2 years and five months since I bought it) the camera refuses to produce any picture on the screen or viewfinder. I am going to put it in the bin. Absolutely amazed to see that it still retails at amazon for £260!! The camera has let me down very badly. Dont be a fool and buy it.

My partner and I have been using this camera for just under 2 years. The camera itself warrants a 5-star rating: it's a great compromise between point-and-click and DSLR. There's plenty of room for you to fiddle with it's manual settings. The movies are ok quality. Having looked at other similar camera's I would say the LCD screen is a bit small, and it's autofocus is crap in for extreme close-ups. It is quite bulky, and sometime I wished we had a little pocket-sized camera - but as I've said we wanted something DSLR-like but without the price - and that's what this camera is.

However, after two years use and a lot of travel -- but no ABUSE (its been looked after) -- we've encountered the infamous canon E18 error (http://www.e18error.com/) and the lens is stuck out, and we can't use the camera. This is enough to put me off buying a Canon digital in the future, and something you should be wary of if you are looking at buying a Canon camera.

If you are looking for a moderately priced camera that is easy to use, has shedloads of functions and an amazing optical zoom lens then this could be for you, though Canon have now released a 6mp version, so that may need looking into aswell. I have only found a few things that I don't like about it: The longest shutter speed is only 15 secs, it doesn't have a battery meter (it only tells you when your batteries are about to run out) and even though it has a 12x zoom which is great, the lens quality is not fantastic, it's very, very good, but not fantastic.

I bought this following the failure of my Minolta A2; you might think the Canon would be a bit of a come down from that - quite the reverse!
It is a superb camera, producing much more pleasing images than the higher resolution Minolta ever did. The zoom range is fantastic, as is the optical image stabilisation which is essential at the longer focal lengths.
The video recording is what sold the camera to me: on a par with many camcorders and always available at the touch of ONE button. Naturally it uses a lot of space on the memoory card, but you can't have everything.
The range of control available, from completely automatic to pretty well completely manual should suit anyone from complete beginner to creative expert.
The camera is very fast in terms of start-up time and shutter delay; the latter is almost non-existent.
There are a few things which some poeple might miss: no RAW image storage, no live histogram to name a couple. The Minolta had them, but to be frank I almiost never used them.
A characteristic of the camera which is hard to quantify or explain is that it feels good and is great fun.
Although you can't get the S2 now, the newer S3 looks every bit as good and has slightly higher resolution (6MP compared with 5)

Had this camera for a while now and just keep being amazed at how good it is. I'm not a professional photographer but the output from this camera is as good as being one. Superb for both daytime and night time shots.

This camera has what seems an endless array of features for every occassion and the zoom is fantasic (12x optical). Even if you don't want to learn lots of features have a quick look through the manual and I'm sure you find a couple of features which will make your pictures that bit more special with the minimum of effort.

A must buy if you looking for a quality camera at a reasonable price, but be warned make sure you have a large memory card especially if you are taking movies 1GB (high speed) recommended.