Is the S100 That Much Better Than the S95?

[Turning]

The flash on my wife's s95 quit coming up and I have been considering replacing it with a s100.

One of my brothers visiting here last night and brought his s100 so we did some quick and dirty comparions (that is more his style than mine).

First surprise is the s100 was taking far sharper pics with much better contrast. And less noise. But since the s95 had taken a fall (in Bhutan off a bike) perhaps it had damaged it and we hadn't noticed.

This weekend we are going to compare pics in Bhutan before and after the s95 incident to see if that shows a difference in the images.

But the other things I liked about the s100 included easier to hold, gps (which is great for her international travel and in addition makes her more likely to have the camera time correct), much faster shooting time, dedicated movie button, wider and longer lens and a couple other things I can't remember off hand.

Quite possible that her s95 sufferred ill from it's slight trauma, but it sure makes the decision of whether to have her s95 flash fixed or buy a s100 easy. s100!

Would rather it took the same batteries, but no biggie.

[wadacolors]

Love my D7000 but sometime impractical so looking for a PNS. Had difficult decision of choosing 95 or 100. Went with 95 (bought wife one but she never let' s me use it) since we're both very happy with the unit and now looking for a housing to spend difference saved on "my" 95.

[wayne.robbins]

IMO, the S100 is the better camera, but that's my opinion. Now, if the OP buys a S95, and never sits there comparing pics from it and {someone else's} S100, then he won't notice the difference! .

If you shoot in lower light, I think that the S100 would have a slight advantage...

[bshell]

I'd just like to add my two cents...
A couple months ago I dropped my S95 and really wrecked the lens assembly (while on holiday). I came home and got an S100. Used it for the 15 day trial period, and fortunately during that time I was able to get my S95 repaired (very quickly!) by Canon Canada. It cost about $180 to get fixed. For a few days I had both the S95 and the S100 to do a serious comparison. Sure I had enjoyed the slow motion video, the slightly wider angle lens, and a few of the other features--but not the GPS. Also, the battery does drain MUCH faster than the S95. But the big thing was: it seemed the image quality of the S100 was just not quite up to the quality I was getting from the S95. Now that I could do the direct comparison I proved it. Just as others in this thread discovered, in ordinary room light, and low light, and at usable not too noisy ISOs of 100 or 200 (with a steady hand) the S95 definitely provides better images than the S100. I use my camera for work, and I write stories about research at a university. Hence I'm always taking pictures in labs and pictures of people doing things in normal working environments. I prefer not to use a flash. The S95 has been a wonderful camera for this job (before that it was a Fuji F31 if you remember that brilliant low-light camera). The S100 is a *step down* in image quality in my opinion. Images are softer and the colours (in jpeg mode) lack the punch of the CCD sensor images that come from the S95. I don't think the extra 2 megapixels makes much difference. My advice would be: if you just want plain good punchy jpegs right from the camera then stay with or go get a bargain S95. If you want a few bells and whistles, get the S100, but your images simply won't be as good. In the end I returned the S100 and I'm really happy with my newly repaired S95.

[PaulRivers]

But the big thing was: it seemed the image quality of the S100 was just not quite up to the quality I was getting from the S95...Images are softer and the colours (in jpeg mode) lack the punch of the CCD sensor images that come from the S95.

In good light, the s95 produces jpg's that are nearly identical to a default raw conversion with dpp. For some reason, under the same conditions the s100 produces jpg's that are not as sharp as if you do a default raw conversion with dpp.

However, if you do do a raw conversion, I couldn't see a difference myself in detail between the two:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/....php?t=1110007

But keep in mind that all of mine were raw converted shots (with no tweaking except where specifically noted).

It has seemed to me like the s95 produces a little punchier colors in good light, but the s100 produces a little better colors in low light, though that's just my opinion...