Canon PowerShot S95

Auto Mode

The S95 offers a range of modes, from the full auto mode of the Auto setting on the mode dial to the full manual mode. Between these two extremes are the P (Program), A (Aperture) and S (Shutter priority) modes. A number of other modes are also on offer from the 9 spots on the mode dial, including a dedicated low light mode, movie mode and a C (Custom) mode which is user defined. All in all, that is a very good selection of modes that should cover everything from pressing the button and taking the photo, to manual tweaking of every setting. 

The mode dial is on the right side of the top of the S95

There are a couple of new shooting modes on offer: a HDR (High Dynamic Range) shooting mode takes two images at different exposure settings and combines them to produce images with wider dynamic range, and the

Movie Mode

One of the major upgrades from the S90 is the addition of high def movie capture: the S95 can capture videos at resolutions of up to 1280 by 720 (equivalent to 720p HDTV resolution). The frame rate maxes out there at 24 frames per second, though; the S95 cannot manage the 30 or 60fps that some other camera can. Video files also include mono sound from the built-in microphone (no external microphone can be attached) and are saved as .MOV Quicktime files.

Playback Mode

A standard selection of playback features are on offer: images can be shown as slideshows or sorted by date and category. Images can be viewed as thumbnails or zoomed in to show fine details. 

Custom Image Presets

The C (Custom) setting on the mode dial allows the user to create and quickly select a custom mode, which is based on any of the other modes with customized settings applied.

Drive/Burst Mode

The S95 offers three drive modes: single shot, continuous and continuous AF, where the camera focuses between shots. Canon claims that it can shoot at about 1.9 frames per second. That's only a slight improvement from the S90, which we found could only manage about 1.1 fps.