which one

[alz123]

hi all

have a canon a85 great little camera
am going to buy new one

1 powershot pro1
2 canon s2 is

any advice please
just use for general but i like to get good quality pictures

thanks

[wilerty]

Initially there probably won't be any deals on the S2 so the two camera will only be about $150 apart in price ... that's good news. The S2 isn't out yet so all opinions here are just that ... opinions.

A whole lot of your dcecision should be based on if you need a 12X zoom, how shakey you are, and how good image quality you need. My opinion is that at the same amount of zoom you should get a better image with the Pro 1 and you'll also be getting more light with the faster lens. I would rather use a 200mm with 8mp and a better lens and then crop it down to a 5mp image then use a 5mp camera with a longer zoomwith lesser optics. If you are shakey though, that's another issue ... then the IS on the S2 would be very good. For instance if you want to take pictures of birds at 400mm hand held ... then the S2 might be the better choice.

For my needs and the difference in price ... I would get the Pro 1. Also, if you don't really need 12X and IS, the G6 wouldn't be a bad choice either.

Just to confuse you more ... there certainly is a chance the Pro1 and/or the G6 will become the Pro 2 and/or G7 before the end of the year.

Good luck

[dkord]

If you're planning to print 8x or smaller the S2 IS has more than enough resolution.
As far as lens speed goes the difference is very small. You're talking about f/2.4-3.5 on the Pro 1 28-200mm vs f/2.7-3.5 36-432mm on the S2. 12x optical zoom, drivin by an ultra sonic motor: it gets out there very quickly.
The Image stablization is huge for a long lens. The rule of thumb for hand holding without IS is your shutter speed should equal or be greater than your focal length. Even at 200mm you should be shooting at 1/200th or faster: Try doing that indoors. You have to remember, increasing ISO on these things is not a good option: too noisy beyond ISO 200, even more so with the tiny 8 mp sensor.
The S2 will out perform the Pro 1 in movie modes. It's using a newer processer, the Digic 2. The only thing I wish it uses is the mpeg4 compression for longer movies. The big change for the S2 is it's use of SD cards instead of CF.
I just never like the way the Pro 1 focusses. It sort of freezes the subject before focus is achieved. Hard to track moving objects that way.