Canon PowerShot S120 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera Review

Product Description

The Canon PowerShot S120 Compact Digital Camera, with built-in Wi-Fi, is an advanced point-and-shoot camera featuring a 12.1 megapixel 1/1.7" high-sensitivity CMOS sensor and DIGIC 6 image processor. Together they form the Canon HS SYSTEM, which helps improve image quality of dimly-lit shots by reducing noise and enhancing the overall clarity. Additionally, the processor offers a range of speed-related assets throughout the camera as well as a High Speed AF system for maintained sharpness in a variety of shooting conditions. The built-in Canon 5x optical zoom lens provides a 35mm-equivalent focal length range of 24-120mm, covering wide-angle to telephoto length perspectives. For live view monitoring, image review, and menu navigation, a large 3.0-inch touchscreen LCD monitor facilitates intuitive navigation along with clear viewing. The touchscreen interface gives way to Touch AF along with other touch-specific camera controls that are ideally-suited to use when recording video.

From the Manufacturer

Advanced Imaging and Sharing with a Touch

The PowerShot S120 camera puts the world in your pocket with superb imaging, easy wireless sharing and touch-screen convenience. Newly expanded built-in Wi-Fi^® is a snap to set up; it lets you post to Facebook^®, Twitter^®, YouTube^™ and Flickr^®, send to email, and share easily with your tablet, smartphone, networked PC and wireless PictBridge certified printer. Step up to a new level of image quality with a 12.1 Megapixel High-Sensitivity CMOS Sensor and DIGIC 6 Image Processor that together create the Canon HS SYSTEM, delivering rich natural color and beautiful clarity even in low light. Shoot with great definition at ISO speeds from 80 to 12800, and capture brilliantly realistic 1080p/60p Full HD video. The camera's bright f/1.8 lens captures the subtle nuances of low light, and the 24mm Wide-Angle lens and 5x Optical Zoom offer a wealth of shooting versatility. Experience incredibly quick full resolution continuous shooting with High Speed AF that focuses nearly the moment the camera is pointed. Operation is highly intuitive with a clear 922,000-dot 3.0-inch touch panel LCD screen with convenient Touch Shutter feature. Intelligent IS prevents blur in any situation. New star shooting modes help you capture the nighttime sky like a pro, and Background Defocus mode creates the beautiful background blur of a classic portrait. HDR shooting is another pro-style technique made easy, with several creative finishing options.

Share Images and Video, Wherever, Whenever

Built-in Wi-Fi^® gives you more options for sharing with friends, family and the whole world

The PowerShot S120 camera is equipped with built-in Wi-Fi^® technology for on-the-go convenience when you want to share your photos and videos with friends, family and the whole world. The camera can connect directly to both iOS^® and Android^™ devices*, and upload images via the free Canon CameraWindow app** without a computer. And because the PowerShot S120 captures video using easy-to-share MP4 format, it's never been easier to upload video files. Easily post your images to social networking and media sites – Facebook^®, Twitter^®, YouTube^™, and now Flickr^® – through CANON iMAGE GATEWAY^# or save them to the online photo album to share anytime, anywhere. Enhanced Wi-Fi^® makes posting in real time possible, so you can keep everyone up to date with photos even as events unfold. Easily control the destination of your uploads to social networking sites; share with everyone, or send photos to selected groups. You can also add comments, even in other languages^{^}. Transfer images to other Wi-Fi^® equipped PowerShot cameras, send images to your computer, or print your photos directly to a wireless PictBridge certified printer.

Enhanced Wi-Fi^® features make connecting and sharing easier than ever

Built-in Wi-Fi^® on the PowerShot S120 camera has new features that streamline set-up and sharing for a faster, easier, more comprehensive experience than ever. WEP Key input is no longer necessary, and you can even set up and manage your camera/web service transfer preferences without the use of a software CD or USB cable – Wi-Fi^® and a web browser are all you need! And, new Automatic Switching through the Image Sync function makes saving and organizing your images easier^##. When the camera finds a linked PC on the same wireless network, images are sent directly to it. Otherwise, images are temporarily stored on CANON iMAGE GATEWAY^# then transferred once a connection is made, eliminating the need for cables.

* Compatible with iOS version 6.0/6.1 or later and Android devices version 2.3/4.0/4.1/4.2 or later. Data charges may apply.
** This software enables you to upload images to social network sites. Before uploading images, please be aware that image files may contain privacy related information such as people and places. If necessary, please delete such information. Canon does not obtain, collect or use such images or any information included in such images through this software.
^## One-time registration is required on CANON iMAGE GATEWAY online photo album.
^{^} The PowerShot S120 supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.
^## Initial set up is required.

Beautiful Images and Incredible Performance Start Here

12.1 Megapixel High-Sensitivity CMOS sensor

The PowerShot S120 camera employs a Canon 12.1 Megapixel High-Sensitivity CMOS sensor, which delivers state-of-the-art imaging performance and is optimized for use in compact cameras. Utilizing a sophisticated light-capturing design, it provides high sensitivity for improved high ISO capture with reduced noise. It is capable of rapidly capturing and moving image data to the processor, enabling faster continuous shooting and faster autofocus.

Canon DIGIC 6 Image Processor

The PowerShot S120 camera is equipped with the very latest Canon proprietary processor, the DIGIC 6 Image Processor, which makes several important advancements to image quality both in stills and video. Improved light sensitivity allows for higher resolution with less noise when shooting in dark conditions, and Dynamic IS now detects and compensates for tilt and parallel movement (shift blur) to create video that's exceptionally free of distortion. The DIGIC 6 Image Processor also enhances the performance capabilities of the PowerShot S120, powering full resolution high-speed continuous stills shooting (see dedicated section for more details). And video recording is better than ever, as the DIGIC 6 Image Processor enables Full HD at 60p, as well as MP4 recording. Highly compressed MP4 video not only preserves space on your memory card but also improves playback on mobile devices. Plus, with MF Peaking possible thanks to the new processor, you'll have a pro-level focusing tool at your disposal.

Canon HS SYSTEM for exceptional low-light performance up to ISO 12800

The PowerShot S120 camera gives you the power to create images with spectacular depth, detail and emotional resonance. The 12.1 Megapixel High-Sensitivity CMOS sensor works in concert with Canon's own latest-generation DIGIC 6 Image Processor to create the renowned Canon HS SYSTEM. With the Canon HS SYSTEM, you'll experience excellent tracking performance even in low light, and achieve gorgeous still image quality even at high ISO speeds all the way up to ISO 12800; beautiful low-light shots are possible with minimal noise and maximum detail in highlight and shadow areas. The Canon HS SYSTEM lets you use higher shutter speeds to capture clearer images with reduced noise and blur in a variety of situations for incredible photos and videos.

Full HD Video That's Better Than Ever

1080p/60p Full HD video

With the camera's advanced DIGIC 6 Image Processor enabling MP4 format recording, the PowerShot S120 camera lets you shoot Full HD video at a selectable frame rate of 60 fps or 30 fps (or 15 fps in Star Time-Lapse Movie mode). 1080p/60p Full HD video is extraordinarily smooth and rich in playback, ensuring that your important memories and creative film clips look their absolute best. Video recorded at 30 fps has also been improved through the combination of the DIGIC 6 Image Processor and Fine Movie Detail Processing, with reduced noise and high resolution. It's possible to use the full range of the zoom when capturing video, and sound is recorded in stereo for high-quality audio that complements the outstanding images. Plus, a dedicated movie button prominently located on the camera body and HDMI terminal enabling immediate output to an HDTV make the entire process of shooting to sharing convenient and easy.

A Bright and Powerful New Lens

A bright f/1.8 lens with 5x Optical Zoom and wide angle of view

Newly engineered for the PowerShot S120 camera, the 24mm Wide-Angle 5x Optical Zoom lens with a focal length of 5.2–26.0mm (35mm film equivalent: 24–120mm) achieves f/1.8–f/5.7, giving the user exceptional versatility. The large f/1.8 aperture achieves shallow depth-of-field for creating portraits with beautiful, soft background blur, and incomparable Canon optical technology delivers a high performance lens enabling incredible images, even in low light. The Wide-Angle lens gives your images a distinctive sweep and grandeur, capturing landscapes, cityscapes, tall buildings and wide groups of people with ease.

Continuous Shooting Gives You Exactly the Shot You Want

Full Resolution Continuous Shooting and High Speed AF

Powered by the DIGIC 6 Image Processor, the PowerShot S120 camera gives you a seamless, pro-like continuous shooting experience that's fully available in P, Tv, Av and M modes. Shooting and processing are now performed in tandem, eliminating buffering time to deliver speeds up to 9.4 fps***. Streamlined new processing makes the camera's High Speed AF the fastest in Canon compact camera history, achieving focus nearly the instant the camera is aimed. With no separate mode setting and no reduction in image quality, you can freeze brilliant action shots with ease.

*** The first six shots are shot at a rate of 12.1 fps. From the sixth shot onward, it becomes approximately 9.4 fps. The PowerShot S120 can continuously shoot up to 635 shots at approximately 9.4 fps when using an SDHC/SDXC UHS-I card based on Canon's standard test method.

Enhanced Touch Panel Capabilities

Capacitive 3.0-inch touch panel LCD with a sharp, clear display and easy operation

Anyone familiar with today's touch screens will feel comfortable using the PowerShot S120 camera right away. The big 3.0-inch capacitive touch panel LCD responds to familiar one- and two-finger touch operations. Users can spread and pinch to change the magnification in playback, drag two fingers to switch display, use the easy interactive Touch Shutter, and quickly select camera settings. You can even adjust the panel's touch sensitivity to your liking. The camera's sophisticated control ring, located at the base of the lens barrel, can be used in conjunction with the Touch Panel to conveniently access a range of additional actions. Plus, an impressive 922,000 dots of resolution allow you to review your images in crisp, clear quality.

Capture the Night Sky Like Never Before

New star shooting modes

Starry skies were formerly out of reach to all but experienced SLR camera users, but new star shooting modes on the PowerShot S120 camera make these wonderfully impressive images accessible to all. With just a tripod and simple settings, you can capture exquisite Star Nightscapes, Star Trails, and Star Time-Lapse Movies. The modes can be performed fully automatic or with manual controls for extra versatility. Support functions including Night Display and Star Emphasis have also been added, making any starry sky easier to capture.

Give Any Snapshot the Look of a Professional Portrait

Background Defocus mode

Professionals emphasize subjects by creating beautiful background blur with a wide aperture lens. The PowerShot S120 camera lets you achieve this effect digitally with Background Defocus mode, even in scenes with noisy backgrounds or backlighting. Choose AUTO, or take more creative control over the degree of the effect with Low, Medium and High settings to imbue regular snapshots with the soft, pleasing background found in classic portraits.

Optimal Image Stabilization in Any Situation

Intelligent IS automatically chooses from six different modes to optimize image stabilization for the shooting condition

It's easy to capture clear, steady images with the PowerShot S120 camera, even in low light without using a tripod. That's because the camera is equipped with Canon's innovative Intelligent IS. The system analyzes camera movement and applies the best shake correction method for the shooting situation – allowing you to focus on framing and capturing your shot. For stills, the system automatically selects among Normal, Panning, Macro (Hybrid) and Tripod IS modes. When shooting video, the system automatically selects among Dynamic, Powered, Macro and Tripod IS modes.

Normal	Corrects for a wide range of camera movement when shooting stills.
Panning	Panning motion is detected so that IS does not interfere with desired camera movement.
Macro (Hybrid)	Corrects for shift-type camera shake, which typically occurs in macro (close-up) shooting.
Dynamic	Effective for video shooting at wide-angle focal lengths, eliminating the unwanted shaking that typically occurs while walking.
Powered	Compensates for hand movement when shooting video at the telephoto end of the zoom range, where camera shake is magnified.
Tripod	When tripod use is detected, the Image Stabilizer is stopped because it is not needed.

Beautiful Images with Beautiful Detail

High Dynamic Range Scene Mode with new sub-modes

Shooting in high-contrast environments can often result in photos with overexposed and underexposed sections. To tackle this problem, Canon developed the High Dynamic Range shooting mode to make shooting even more intuitive. Under High Dynamic Range, the camera will shoot three different exposures in a succession (underexposed, overexposed and normal) and then merge them into a single image. Underexposed areas are combined with the overexposed and vice versa, resulting in an evenly detailed image with flattering shadows and highlights. With the PowerShot S120 camera, a tripod is not always necessary, plus the camera features artistic sub-modes Art Standard, Art Vivid, Art Bold, Art Embossed and Natural, which add dynamic, creative effects depending on the ambience you want to convey.

Additional Features

Full range of shooting and recording modes including 12-bit multi aspect RAW+JPEG, as found in Canon DSLR cameras, for the ultimate creative control

As with many EOS DSLR cameras, the PowerShot S120 camera uses a 12-bit converter to process the output of the CMOS sensor, resulting in true color, smooth tonal transitions and natural gradations. The PowerShot S120 lets you shoot in RAW mode, which records all the information captured by the sensor, giving you outstanding flexibility and complete creative control when editing your images with Canon's powerful bundled software, and the camera allows you to record in RAW and JPEG formats simultaneously. Now in RAW mode, you can even select among several aspect ratios, including 16:9, 3:2, 4:3, 1:1, and 4:5.

Hybrid Auto creates a beautiful and steady 720p HD video clip every time you shoot a still image

Hybrid Auto records up to four seconds of video every time you shoot a still image, then automatically joins the clips and pictures* into a video that captures the essence of special days: vacations, important occasions, any time you're shooting many shots in a day. With Hybrid Auto, this “highlight reel” is more beautiful than ever. Hybrid Auto automatically recognizes the scene and optimizes camera settings to capture the highest possible image quality. The resulting 720p HD video is properly exposed, crisp and steady.

* Pictures can be withheld from the resulting video via menu settings.

Control Ring

Focus, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, step zoom, exposure compensation, aspect ratio, i-Contrast, or white balance can be adjusted more quickly and conveniently with the PowerShot S120 camera's control ring. Located at the base of the lens barrel, the ring is more intuitive than other types of controls for many experienced photographers. The functions that can be assigned to the control ring vary with shooting mode, and you can set your preferences quickly using the dedicated ring function selector button.

User rating and reviews

Just got this camera and have less than 100 pictures through it and although every year I buy one of these and end up returning it, it looks like this "S" might be a keeper finally.

Like most of its predecessors it's built very well, feels good in the hand, and most of the buttons have good feedback. It has gotten a little more rounded over the years but I like it, square camera with smooth edges that don't annoy me in the pocket.

Out of the pocket this camera is probably adjustability-overkill for most people that haven't dared of taking their camera out of AUTO mode. Whether you like shooting in AUTO or you do choose to leave AUTO behind, the S120 rewards you with a very fast interface, fast response (focus/shutter), and the ability to view and share your images across other devices quickly.

I am a Canon guy. That should not be missed here because I am a little biased, but I have an iphone(5) for my day to day camera. My weekend camera is a Canon 6D and a bag of L lenses. I bought the S120 to bridge the gap between the two. I am not a professional, but sometimes I want professional pics without using my phone or lugging a big DSLR kit around with me - enter the S120.

With the S120 Canon FINALLY offers a simple camera that seems to do everything I want well. What do I want?

- Ability to capture amazing pictures without carrying 20# of lenses with me.
- Ability to hand my wife/kids a camera that they can use too.
- Fast power up, fast focus, fast capture.
- Great video if the situation calls for it, on the fly, no delay.
- EASY way to transfer pictures to my phone (for when I do want to send them elsewhere).
- Canon menus, because they make sense to me.

It does all of these in my opinion, quite well.
If you are looking for a camera that outshines just about anything else on the shelf under 700$ and can avoid bulking your pants pocket - this is the one.

Whats in the box:

- Canon S120 camera.
- Canon (NB6-LH) battery.
- Canon wall charger (CB-2LY).
- Canon wrist cord.
- Registration documents.
- Warranty info.

A couple other things I wanted to mention...

WiFi -- It's actually useful now! This model features a new wifi setup for transferring pictures to your smartphone. I have had this on (2) other units (S110 and EOS 6D) and never use it because it's a pain. With this model I just go into "play" mode on the camera, press the wifi button (up on the D pad) , it immediately asks what I want to connect to, I select "smartphone" and it says start the phone application and point it to this hotspot. Once I do that, I am on the phone browsing pictures. Scrolling through images (large JPEG) on the camera is pretty quick, downloading is pretty quick, disconnecting and getting back to shooting is just as quick. Now you can literally turn wifi on, send a specific image over to your phone, turn wifi off, in the matter of a couple seconds and a few button clicks.
I won't go into what the old way was, because if I could remember it I would actually use it!

RX100 vs S120 -- Just before the S120 was announced I finally broke down and bought an RX100 (new). Not the M2 model but the original, for 600$. I loved the pictures it took, they were amazing amazing images.

Compared to the S120 (in circumstances so far) they are possibly a little better comparing auto mode to auto mode. What I like about the Canon vs the Sony is the Canon seems to capture more how I see things as opposed to the Sony which wanted to make everything look like a carnival if left untouched (it liked to make all the colors exotically vibrant from my perspective). If this were just about images there would have been some tough decisions to make and hairs to split over this.

The size and weight of RX100 to S120 it's no contest:S120. I can put the S120 in a pair of khaki's and go sit in meetings or walk around all day with no worries. The RX100 just felt too darn heavy, and it's larger lens tube sticking out from the front was annoying getting in and out of pockets. The S120 is still a true pocket-friendly camera is what I am getting at.

Build quality-wise both feel like finely crafted machines. The S120 will remind you of other point and shoot cameras and its finish is something I would feel ok with putting in a bag with no case. The RX100 felt like some sort of surgical tool, I mean in a good way - but I felt like putting down on a desk would damage the desk or possibly the finish on the camera. Another strange thing is the S120 feels good in the hand and has some heft but nothing bad. The RX100 felt a little heftier but in a way that I felt if I dropped it, it's life was over - it was just waiting for an opportunity to spill its guts. I would expect the S120 to take a small hit or some tumbling without ending it.

Cost - Although money can be irrelevant to most photographic geeks when it comes to "getting the shot" , I didn't understand why the Sony was hundreds more. The "why" of this is in other parts of the review here so I won't get into it more. I will just say I had a $1,000 budget for my perfect point and shoot, and now I have 550$ to go spend on something else.

Software - I left this for last because I suspect this is where Canon bias comes in. It is also something I suspect is different in the newer model Rx-100(M2) so may not be as relevant. The S120 UI is quick and also very efficient. The RX-100 by comparison was a little slow, and (at least for me) I never felt like I could quickly get to the settings I wanted to without forcing some customization. Neither is over-glitzy or annoying to use, but the Sony one just felt like it was fighting me sometimes when I would change something and then have to re-find it.

I hope you enjoyed this review and I will update it as relevantly as is feasible.
If there is more you'd like to see added or something I missed please comment and let me know, and thanks for reading this!