Canon S2 IS smudging pictures

KStaford

Hi all,

I have the Canon Powershot S2 IS. Bought it about 18 months ago. For some time my images are comming out with a smudge in the middle, a bit like a watermark. I have cleaned the lens with a proper cloth bought from chemist several times but to no avail. It seems this smudge may be internal.
To give you an idea of the problem, here are two photos I took recently. You cen clearly see the smudge mark in the centre of each

http://img177.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=57281_Img_4107_122_413lo.jpg

http://img16.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=57281_Img_4108_122_900lo.jpg

What can be done, do I need to send the camera back to Canon? Can I remove the lens and try to clean it myself? Anyone have any advice?

Many thanks

Kieran

rymus

moving to photography

City-Exile

That could be a problem with the image sensor. There's no reason whatsoever, that you should try to clean that yourself. How long do you have the camera? Is it under warranty?
Your best bet is to get it checked out professionally.

KStaford

Just been on to Canon Ireland

They are talking about €250 for repair. Guess I'll have to suffer the cost and send it in.

City-Exile

How much is the camera new?
€250 is a lot!

KStaford

City-Exile wrote:

How much is the camera new?
€250 is a lot!

I paid €550 (all inclusive) for it from elara.ie 18 months ago.

Paulw

Is the smudge water damage? If it is, then sending it to Canon may result in them charging you, and then sending it back to you saying that water damage is not covered by any warranty, and they may want to charge you a lot more to repair it.

Fionn

thats a tough one - it's outside the warranty so that means at a minimum the cost of owning the camera is going to be €800.
I would advise that you get a quote from Canon before they repair it so you can decide if it's worth it , otherwise they might charge you more if theres extra damage found etc.

I was sort of in the same boat. My Canon 1Ds is due home tomorrow (failed shutter) I got a quote first before i gave the goahead to repair it.

KStaford

I see I can get the S3 IS on ebay new for under €300 now. Would you recommend the S3 anyone? See link here
http://stores.ebay.ie/DigiGood_Digital-Cameras_Canon_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZ5966384QQftidZ2QQtZkm


I might try and sell this S2 and go for an S3. Anmyone recommend the S3 or a better camera?

PaulieC

KStaford wrote:

I might try and sell this S2 and go for an S3. Anmyone recommend the S3 or a better camera?

oh, can I buy it please ? :rolleyes:

KStaford

cambo_gueno wrote:

oh, can I buy it please ? :rolleyes:

are you being serious ? make me an offer

City-Exile

cambo_gueno wrote:

oh, can I buy it please ? :rolleyes:

Looking for something to compliment your 30D?

PaulieC

KStaford wrote:

are you being serious ? make me an offer

it was a joke. you are thinking about selling your camera on a thread where you quoted Canon as saying it will cost 250 quid to fix.

KStaford

I see Canon have just released the new S5 Is
See here - http://web.canon.jp/imaging/pss5is/index-rtn-e.html

So the S3 is now an antique. The S5 looks beautiful, It has everything I want and more - except for one thing. The image format is still jpeg. No RAW support.

PaulieC

the 'S' line of camera were always very nice. Solidly built, easy to use, excellent image quality. It's a real pity about the lack of RAW in canon's high-end consumer cameras. What's the reasoning behind it? I assume it's to 'encourage' more people to go the SLR route and all that follow with that?

KStaford

I have spent the entire monring reading reviews of a few cameras. I am now seriously thinking of buying a new one. After reading several reviews and comparisons of all these 'bridge' type cameras, I cannot make up my mind.

I have looked at

Canon Powershot S5 IS
Fuji FinePix S9100
Kodak EasyShare Z712 IS
Panasonic DMC-FZ50
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H7.
General Electric X1
Olympus SP-550 UZ

The last one, (Olympus) looks way cool (astounding 18x optical zoom - 28mm - 504mm) but it gets varying reviews for quality in various situations.

They all have pros and cons but at this stage, I really want a camera that outputs in RAW format quickly. (The Olympus above takes upto 7 seconds to write a high res RAW file befor eyou can take your next shot).

I want RAW format

I want fast processing

I want good zoom capabilities

I want good wide angle lens capabilities

I want good automatic capabilities

I want good manual control also

I want absolutely amazing quality photos

I want broad ISO capabilities (i.e. from 50 or less if possible upto the noisy values 3200 . . .)

I want broad Aperature control 2.8 - 8.0 or more if possible

I want high quality white balance control

I want excellent and accurate colour rendering


I know I am asking a lot, Is it time for me to go SLR ?
Can anyone recommend a good camera that ticks all my "I want" boxes above ?

Many thanks everyone

City-Exile

You want the Canon EOS 400D

PaulieC

and a heap of expensive lenses!!

KStaford

400D or 40D ?

Does it tick all of the above boxes? What lens would recommend to start off with? Could I be up and running for €1000 ?

Sorry about all the questions fellas and thanks so much for the responses

PaulieC

I reckon you could pick up a 30D with a 17-85 IS lens for around a grand off ebay. Or a 400D, 17-85 IS and 70-300 Sigma Apo for around the same money. That should keep the wolf from the door for a while...

not very long though. he keeps coming back for more once he knows you have an SLR...

City-Exile

cambo_gueno wrote:

not very long though. he keeps coming back for more once he knows you have an SLR...

Especially when he hears that you have a credit card and shop on eBay.

I think the jump from a PowerShot S2 to a 30D would be too considerable.
Better off starting with the best introductory level SLR on the market.
Speaking of which, the 400D is closing in fast on the 350D, in the Flickr most used camera graph...

pansyflower

Quote:- I want RAW format

Check this out. Looks fierce complicated though....:eek:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1010&thread=21402770

Fionn

pansyflower wrote:

Quote:- I want RAW format

Check this out. Looks fierce complicated though....:eek:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1010&thread=21402770

why?

it really all depends on what your using to shoot a scene!!

really!!!
RAW isn't (shouldn't) in my opinion! be the holy grail that people aspire to! neither is the greatest, biggist lens camera etc.
sometimes it's your eye, your location, your opportunity, your sorta kinda .i dunno thing that you got!!
you know!! sometimes RAW aint soo big!!

pansyflower

It took me several days digging through a thread linked on that site (http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=20:11661) to figure out how to get the hack on to the camera, which required using a hex editor and few other programs I found in that thread. Once it's on the camera you just run the firmware update when you want to switch to RAW+JPEG mode. The raw files can't be loaded directly into an editor, so you've got to convert them, with dcraw for example. When I get off work I'll put a couple of the raw files up somewhere if anyone wants to see what's required to process them into a real photo (it's a lot more work than regular raw files that "proper" raw capable cameras output.)

--

The above is from http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1010&thread=21402770

What I mean is that to put Raw on the S3IS using that link is very complex. For me.:)

Fionn

thats why Canon took it off i think!! :rolleyes:

pansyflower

Er...took what off?

I'm up too late, I think! Nitie nite.

Fionn

took RAW off all the p&s items they sell
apparently they have taken this decision (rightly IMHO) that this type of camera can do without the overhead of RAW!!
i tend to agree with this - because they have cameras that perform and out - perform shot for shot what the average user could do with a a RAW file anyway!!
makes sense??? i think so!

KStaford

Fionn wrote:

why?

it really all depends on what your using to shoot a scene!!

really!!!
RAW isn't (shouldn't) in my opinion! be the holy grail that people aspire to! neither is the greatest, biggist lens camera etc.
sometimes it's your eye, your location, your opportunity, your sorta kinda .i dunno thing that you got!!
you know!! sometimes RAW aint soo big!!

RAW is a totally uncompressed format. It's the closest digital representation of the actual image that your camera can offer. JPG is a compressed file format that can suffer massive loss each time you save a file.

Just to start off, if your camera supports RAW and JPG, compare the file sizes. On an average 7-8mpix a RAW file would be about 20Mb whereas a jpg would be in the range 3-4MB. JPG is a destructive algorithm, everytime you subsequently save the file in a grapgics editor, more information is removed and the file size gets smaller and smaller.

JPG is an ok file format for web photos, but PNG is far better. No loss and much better when zoomed. But when it comes to digital photography, I think all cameras (even little toys from LIDL) should have the RAW option. JPG does not cut it at all.

I shoot at the highest possible size and quality settings with my S2 IS and I am always a little underwhelmed when I first see the contents of my cameras SD card on screen. The images look so processed.

Folks, try this
Get Paint shop pro, or whatever graphics package, find a jpg image on disk, record its precise file size, then load it into your graphics package. save it a few times (or even once) and then make a note of the file size.

City-Exile

I really think you're missing the point here.
The average consumer wants a camera that will take lots of pictures that they can e-mail to their friends, stick on Bebo, or print in 6" x 4" format. They don't want a file format that takes up massive amounts of space, nor do they care about it's ability to be manipulated in PS.

For those of us who are serious about photography, there's the SLR. For everyone else, there's P&S comsumer cameras.

KStaford

City-Exile wrote:

You want the Canon EOS 400D

Looking at the specs, processor is DIGIC II. I think that this is now replaced by DIGIC III so I would fear redundancy in this product. Even the new powershot has DIGIC III built in.

Calina

KStaford wrote:

RAW is a totally uncompressed format. It's the closest digital representation of the actual image that your camera can offer. JPG is a compressed file format that can suffer massive loss each time you save a file.

Just to start off, if your camera supports RAW and JPG, compare the file sizes. On an average 7-8mpix a RAW file would be about 20Mb whereas a jpg would be in the range 3-4MB. JPG is a destructive algorithm, everytime you subsequently save the file in a grapgics editor, more information is removed and the file size gets smaller and smaller.

JPG is an ok file format for web photos, but PNG is far better. No loss and much better when zoomed. But when it comes to digital photography, I think all cameras (even little toys from LIDL) should have the RAW option. JPG does not cut it at all.

I shoot at the highest possible size and quality settings with my S2 IS and I am always a little underwhelmed when I first see the contents of my cameras SD card on screen. The images look so processed.

Folks, try this
Get Paint shop pro, or whatever graphics package, find a jpg image on disk, record its precise file size, then load it into your graphics package. save it a few times (or even once) and then make a note of the file size.

This is just a little too evangelical for my liking.

The RAW vs jpg debate has been firing for years. I have come to the conclusion that it is not and has never been quite that simple; that there is not only one true way to the cross if you like.

After a lot of experimentation, I still default to jpg for various reasons including speed of write-out and volume related issues. I also find it easier to process because the file sizes are correspondingly smaller. This - incidentally - is from someone who recently compiled an image which was 250gig bytes in size.

Ultimately, before you go all judgmental on whether RAW is in fact the be all and end all based on its file size and perceived accuracy, you need to remember that what matters is what you do with the photograph out of the box. By definition a RAW file has to be processed, must, cannot be avoided. It may not be necessary for a jpg to be post processed. If you are good enough at the post processing, provided the picture is a sufficiently high resolution, you can do anything with it even if it is a jpg file format.

City-Exile

KStaford wrote:

Looking at the specs, processor is DIGIC II. I think that this is now replaced by DIGIC III so I would fear redundancy in this product. Even the new powershot has DIGIC III built in.

I think you're placing too much importance on this. The DIGIC III was available before the 400D was released. I doubt you'll see much of a difference, if you had identical spec cameras, with either processor.