Canon PowerShot S110 Digital Camera Review

Color

The Canon S110 held its own quite well in our color accuracy tests, though we found turning off the "My Colors" mode resulted in the most accurate colors overall. With the S110 set that way the camera managed an error of just 2.58, which is right on par with most cameras in its class and above. More on how we test color.

The other color modes were slightly less accurate, but intentionally so. Modes like neutral, vivid, sepia, monochrome, and positive film are mostly designed to push color in fun, creative ways. If you're shooting portraits we recommend turning these modes off to get the most accurate color, but otherwise experimenting is definitely encouraged.

NOTE: Because of the way computer monitors reproduce colors, the images above do not exactly match the originals found on the chart or in the captured images. The chart should be used to judge the relative color shift, not the absolute captured colors.

Color Modes

Canon offers color modes under its "My Colors" setting, which can be applied before shooting or in the playback menu. The camera includes options for neutral, vivid, sepia tone, monochrome, positive film, lighter skin tone, darker skin tone, vivid blue, vivid red, vivid green, and a custom color mode. The custom mode lets you adjust color, saturation, sharpness, skin tone, red, green, and blue on a +/- scale, saving the choice for use later.

There are also some color-specific modes to be found in the digital effects setting on the mode dial. Here is where you'll find Canon's color accent, color swap, and super vivid modes. Super vivid should be self-explanatory, with color swap letting you change one color to another. Color accent is always a popular mode, letting you shoot black and white photos with a single color kept saturated.

White Balance

The S110 performed well in white balance testing, with an accurate auto mode and an easy to use custom white balance. We found that the automatic white balance struggled under one specific light condition, though it did as well (or better) than the custom white balance under the others.

Automatic White Balance ()

The automatic white balance setting was able to handle daylight and compact white fluorescent light extremely well, with an average color error of less than 120 kelvins in both conditions. For all intents and purposes that's right on the money. The one area the camera struggled was under incandescent lighting, which is very warm. In that test the camera had a color temperature error of over 2000 kelvin. This isn't out of the ordinary at all, as almost every camera we test produces at least this much error in this test.

Custom White Balance ()

The custom results were better, but not perfect. In the same three lighting conditions we found the S110, when taking a custom white balance, had an average temperature error of less than 200 kelvins. This is pretty good, though with the automatic white balance performing so well, the only time it's really worth it is under warm indoor lighting.

White Balance Options

The S110 includes a number of white balance presets in addition to the automatic and custom modes. These can all be accessed through the on-screen "function set" menu. Setting a custom white balance is very easy, as you can do it with a single press of the button from this menu. There are two custom options that can be saved at any one time, and all the white balance settings can be adjusted on a standard amber/blue/green/magenta scale to shift them as needed.