S95 Questions

Hello
I'm new to this forum and I have some questions regarding the Canon S95.
Most of the postings on this forum for this camera have been favorable and good pictures can be produced with it based on some of the pictures that have been posted.
Based on those two things and my wanting to get this camera to begin with, I got one.
Here a couple of things I'm wondering about.

I'm finding that when I review the images on the camera's LCD screen, the images look really good. Good colours and good clarity.
But, when I download the images to my computer, they don't look as good on my 19 inch monitor.
I have a few other older cameras and don't find this noticable with them as I do with this camera.
My monitor is roughly 5 yrs old so maybe that might explain some things but, is what I'm seeing on the camera's screen accurate or does the camera's screen add more "punch" by design, to the pictures?
I haven't had any of the pictures printed yet so, I'm not sure what's giving the better representation, the camera screen or the computer monitor.
Has anyone else noticed this with their camera/monitor?

Battery life:
I fully charged the battery 11 days ago.
The battery ran out completely tonight.
Total pictures taken on the fully charged battery.. 70.
That's 70 jpg's at the camera's default settings.
That's a really low number compared to what numbers I've read that the battery should be capable of producing.
I did review all the pictures taken but, only for a matter of 5-10 seconds per picture. If that.
Used the zoom function a little bit, the flash for maybe 10 of the 70 pictures and only took a 10 second video.
I've read other complaints about the battery life but, should I expect the battery life to be better after the inital charge?

Battery life - nothing scientific, but it stinks. But it should be better than 70 shots. I think mine is good for a couple hundred, but reviewing, lcd brightness, flash use, etc .. all have a pretty significant impact on my battery life.

I see the same thing with my lcd. It seems to show the pictures brighter than they really are. I think you can use the histogram to get a better idea of the exposure.

Welcome to POTN!

Initial thoughts... You might need to recalibrate your monitor and I would suggest checking the camera picture settings. I agree with ark', you should get more than 70 shots per charge. I have noticed, however, that if I do not charge the battery for a while, it starts to drain. I would again suggest checking the setting for energy saving changes (e.g. LCD brightness, idle time, preview time, etc.). Good luck and happy shooting!

I agree with the pictures not coming out as good on the computer. I've done that before and thought "hmmm...the pix don't look as good as they do on the camera's screen." It might be the camera settings and/or the way you hold it. For example, I noticed in the past that some pix came out a little blurry. I realized it was just me not holding it until it's done taking the picture. Sometimes we're used to the quick shutter of a DSLR that we forget about the point and shoot's slower shutter.

As for the battery, you should get at least 200 pictures out of a full charge unless you're doing some crazy things like using flash all the time, reviewing pix all the time, etc.

As nobody else has bothered yet....

We need to see examples!

Oh, and it's hard to spot slight OOF issues on a tiny LCD screen, but they will be more noticeable on a large screen.

canongear wrote in post #12166500
Battery life:
I fully charged the battery 11 days ago.
The battery ran out completely tonight.
Total pictures taken on the fully charged battery.. 70.
That's 70 jpg's at the camera's default settings.
That's a really low number compared to what numbers I've read that the battery should be capable of producing.
I did review all the pictures taken but, only for a matter of 5-10 seconds per picture. If that.
Used the zoom function a little bit, the flash for maybe 10 of the 70 pictures and only took a 10 second video.
I've read other complaints about the battery life but, should I expect the battery life to be better after the inital charge?

I have to correct a couple of things in the above statement as I was off a bit in some of the numbers.
Went back through the file of all the pictures taken with the camera and there were 76 pictures taken, not 70.
Instead of only 10 pictures taken using the flash, turns out it was 29!
So, based on the more accurate information and the camera settings being at it's default settings, would the battery life be considered good for that kind of usage?


[QUOTE=Steve of Cornubia;12167440]As nobody else has bothered yet....

We need to see examples!

QUOTE]

Are you asking me to post examples, or the other members who have responded to my post?
I can post an example but, without seeing how it appears on the camera's LCD screen as a comparison, I don't know what good that would do?

The pictures where I notice a big difference between how they look on the LCD screen and on the monitor, are pictures taken inside.
They look better-brighter- on the LCD and the LCD display is on the factory default setting.
My monitor brightness setting is almost at it's brightest setting.

canongear wrote in post #12168603
Are you asking me to post examples, or the other members who have responded to my post?
I can post an example but, without seeing how it appears on the camera's LCD screen as a comparison, I don't know what good that would do?

If you let us see examples of your pics we can tell you if the camera is producing acceptable images and, if that's the case, you can focus on your monitor issues. It's just a process of elimination.

Steve of Cornubia wrote in post #12172026
If you let us see examples of your pics we can tell you if the camera is producing acceptable images and, if that's the case, you can focus on your monitor issues. It's just a process of elimination.

Here you go.
I realize the picture is under exposed but, when I reviewed it on the camera's screen, it appeared brighter than how it appears here. I was quite happy how it was looking on the LCD screen but, a bit surprised at the difference when seeing it on my monitor.
Manual shooting
Shutter Speed 1/20
Aperture 2.8
ISO 160
Flash on

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What you need to remember is that camera LCD displays are designed and configured to be viewable in the great outdoors, under bright sun. As a result they tend to be very strongly backlit. The only safe way to judge a photo's exposure from the LCD is by the histogram. If you press the "Disp" button a few times, you'll see several different display modes. The one you want is the one with a graph of the exposure - and you generally want to get an exposure where that graph just kisses the right edge of the horizontal axis. This is especially true if you shoot RAW, since that way you get the maximum data.

Jon wrote in post #12172799
What you need to remember is that camera LCD displays are designed and configured to be viewable in the great outdoors, under bright sun. As a result they tend to be very strongly backlit. The only safe way to judge a photo's exposure from the LCD is by the histogram. If you press the "Disp" button a few times, you'll see several different display modes. The one you want is the one with a graph of the exposure - and you generally want to get an exposure where that graph just kisses the right edge of the horizontal axis. This is especially true if you shoot RAW, since that way you get the maximum data.

So would dimming the LCD display give a more accurate look of the image?
I do try to use the histogram but, sometimes when I try to get the graph to the right edge, I find the image is over exposed.
For me, I tend to like slightly under exposed images.

Changing the backlight won't let you get a consistent representation as it'll look different in different light levels. Just work with the histogram and decide where you want it to be for your photo. If there aren't any highlights, then all the way to the right may be too much. But if you shoot RAW (biggest reason for getting the S95 IMO) then you can pull the exposure back down easier than you can boost an underexposed shot.

Photo_Rebel wrote in post #12167145
Welcome to POTN!

Thank you and thanks for the tips and suggestions from the other members as well.

Jon wrote in post #12172925
But if you shoot RAW (biggest reason for getting the S95 IMO) then you can pull the exposure back down easier than you can boost an underexposed shot.

Good to know. Haven't really gotten into the whole post processing thing...yet.
I do have a question about your statement though.
Does that apply only to RAW images or jpg's as well?
I've been told that underexposed images were easier to work with than overexposed ones.
Maybe the person who told me this was talking about working with jpgs.

It applies to both; if you have an underexposed image, trying to "brighten" it will also intensify the noise. Basically, any digital image stores data in binary; there are 8 (JPEG) to 14 (RAW) levels stored for each pixel. The first level (black) can contain 2 possible values - 0 or 1. The last level (white) contains 128 or 8096 gradations between almost white to blown out white.

If you try to brighten a dark image, you're going to multiply those values by 2 for every step you boost things. So for a 1 step boost, a 0 value will stay 0; A 1 value will become 2; a 2 value (the next step) will become 4 (notice, there's no 3 because there's no 1.5 to start with) and a 3 value will become 6 (no 5 or 7).

If you start with an overexposed image, you'll be able to capture those intermediate values, because you're throwing away excess data instead of trying to extrapolate new data.

The other factor that comes into play is that there's noise in the electronics in your (and every) camera. It's at a very low, but random, level so if you've got a strong signal it's easily overwhelmed by the real data. If, however, you underexpose your shot, you have a weak signal and the noise can overwhelm it. So you get a noisy picture.

Jon wrote in post #12176055
It applies to both; if you have an underexposed image, trying to "brighten" it will also intensify the noise. Basically, any digital image stores data in binary; there are 8 (JPEG) to 14 (RAW) levels stored for each pixel. The first level (black) can contain 2 possible values - 0 or 1. The last level (white) contains 128 or 8096 gradations between almost white to blown out white.

If you try to brighten a dark image, you're going to multiply those values by 2 for every step you boost things. So for a 1 step boost, a 0 value will stay 0; A 1 value will become 2; a 2 value (the next step) will become 4 (notice, there's no 3 because there's no 1.5 to start with) and a 3 value will become 6 (no 5 or 7).

If you start with an overexposed image, you'll be able to capture those intermediate values, because you're throwing away excess data instead of trying to extrapolate new data.

The other factor that comes into play is that there's noise in the electronics in your (and every) camera. It's at a very low, but random, level so if you've got a strong signal it's easily overwhelmed by the real data. If, however, you underexpose your shot, you have a weak signal and the noise can overwhelm it. So you get a noisy picture.

Gotcha, I think.
Thanks for the information.