After a lot of contemplation I bought one of these to bring along with me to Australia. Initially wondering if it was worth the outlay to replace a perfectly servicable camera that I’ve had for years, especially for one that on the face of it is much bulkier than my previous ones.
Well so far on my journey, this camera has worked exceptionally well, shots that would have been a total blur on my old camera (shot from the back of a Harley or on a boat cruise) have with the aid of image stabalisation come out pin sharp, even when using the full 12x optical zoom.
I’ve found it rare to need the flash as the camera copes extremely well in low light and this undoubtedly is part of the reason that the batteries seem to last forever, my first set of alcaline batteries must have lasted well over a month (my old camera used to chew up a set of batteries every day even if you didn’t use it)
You can judge for yourself the quality of the pictures from the ones on this site (just about all of the pictures in my latest galleries are shot with this camera, usually without any editing other than dropping the size for the website). The 10Mp resolution does give you a lot of scope for cropping in to get a better framed shot than the one originally taken leaving plenty of room to enable it to be printed to a decent size.
The camera uses an SDHC card for storage, the one I have 16Mb will allow around 6500 photos at full resolution so there’s no worries about fitting all your holiday snaps on there.
One of the most intreaguing fetures for me is the Panorama function, taking three photos and stitching them together seamlessly. While a little difficult to see where the image lines up (you get the edge of the previous shot overlayed on theviewfinder) when you get it right the results are stunning and a lot easier than trying to fudge everything with Photoshop later.
The other big selling point for me is the burst mode, allowing you to take multiple shots of a fast moving echidna or patch of sea that you’re expecting a dolphin to emerge from in quick succession (if you drop the resolution you can get up to 13 shots per second) enabling you to save the best shot and ditch the rest.
The S1500 has a nice large LCD screen for lining up your shots, but as usual in bright sunlight, this is difficult to see, but with a press of a button you can switch to a traditional style viewfinder but with the advantage that it shows exactly the same image as the LCD screen rather than a view through a seperate lens.
Although a little bulky, a lot of the features on this camera (especially the level of zoom) are things that you’d only usually see on the far bulkier SLRs at a much higher price. No doubt someone who is interested in the “art” of photography will find flaws (although there is scope to alter all the settings that true photographers will bore you with) if you want to take great photos with a minimum of fuss, this camera will be hard to beat.
