Canon Powershot S70 Digital Camera [7MP, 3.6x Optical]

For a couple of years I have been using an Olympus C-5050z with a large wide angle WCON-7 converter lens. Whilst this has been an okay set-up, I have found having to carry a large camera with a fiddly & heavy converter lens to be getting in the way of my travels. I love both travelling and photography but I don't love photography when it intrudes unnecessarily. Unfortunately I can't do without wide-angle photography so generally I've had to put up with a good deal of inconvenience by carrying around lots of bits and pieces in a camera bag. Previously I have not been able to buy a compact digital camera with a wide angle lens that takes decent pictures.

The Canon S70 is the answer to my prayers, it has an in-built 28mm-100mm equivalent lens and it produces sensational results. The camera itself is the most perfect travellers camera on the market, bar none. It has an excellent wide angle lens, it is compact (but not fiddly & tiny, like an IXUS), it takes Compact Flash cards, it has an intuitive interface, the pictures are very satisfying and noise-free, it has full manual override and it is extremely well built (but quite light).

If you are going on holiday and like to take landscape photography or expect to take tight shots of architecture on a city break then this is the camera for you. It is easy to get the hang of; there are no tiresome sub-menus. Although there are a number of buttons on the back of the camera, these allow you instant access to some very useful functions (i.e. manual focus) rather than have to go through tedious menus on the LCD screen.

The photographs from the camera are excellent, far better than from my much larger and more expensive Olympus C-5050z. What is immediately obvious is that the images are very noise-free. Some people have mentioned the purple fringing. In my opinion this is completely unobtrusive on this camera and I am a fanatic on this point, I usually go to the trouble of removing any purple fringing using Photoshop. There is a little purple fringing with this camera, but in fact it is more like blue fringing and therefore much less noticeable. For some reason blue fringing is infinitely less annoying to the human eye than purple fringing.

The images are very satisfying and when the vivid setting is selected the pictures really come alive and are outstanding. Being able to put this camera in a jacket pocket and shoot wide-angle photography is a revelation. This camera is a bargain and I heartily recommend it to anyone, both complete novice and experienced professional.

The image quality (the most important thing, right?) is absolutely dazzling. I think most of the reviews I've read must've been based on early versions because the (slight) problems noted don't seem to happen with mine. The flash drop - off in the corners of images taken at the widest angle is barely perceptible (it's quite pronounced on the sample images in the reviews) and I haven't noticed any purple fringing at wide angles at all, plus it does come with a set of printed manuals.

I was looking for a compact digital camera that would offer as much flexibility as I get with my bulky SLR and I certainly found it with this one! You have control over absolutely everything if you want it, if not, there are a wide variety of program modes from fully automatic point-and-press (my 9 year old has taken some superb pictures using this mode) to full manual including focus, with nice touches like auto-bracketing of exposure/focus.

If I have any criticisms at all - and they're very minor - it's that I find it too easy to accidentally nudge the sliding lens cover enough to switch the camera off and that the slow USB 1 interface means I have to go off and have a cup of tea while I'm waiting for the images to download to my PC. Hardly the end of the world.

All in all, a superb little compact camera. In size and weight it compares very well with other compact digicams but in features and the creative possibilities it offers you'll find it very hard to beat. I'm extremely pleased with it.