PowerShot N100 compared with PowerShot S120

The PowerShot N100 is an accurate, reliable in every respect pocket camera for everyday use. With their traditional qualities she is a worthy representative of the Canon PowerShot series. It also offers some interesting new features.

For whom the camera is?

First of all: It has been designed as a fully automatic and does not fit for those users who work with aperture priority, shutter priority or purely manual setting and requires the storage of RAW data.
It fits for those users who are looking for a reliable automatic camera. Those who want to take pictures even in low-light situations, such. As at dusk without flash. If you like a motive would spontaneously snap shoot, will be pleased with its high speed and quick readiness on the accuracy of the autofocus and the large wide angle. About the increased image quality due to the larger sensor. Even deliberate, well-balanced between taking pictures with influencing various settings is possible. They can be transported in the pocket or even your pocket, because it is small and stable enough, although not the allerleichteste their magnitude. It fits for people who want to transfer their photos quickly to smartphone or tablet. And for those who are looking for new features to its camera, which are not to be found in the competition.
Your quintuple zoom range goes from 24mm wide angle to 120mm telephoto (equivalent to small format). This is sufficient for most everyday situations, but is at the telephoto end rather modest and not comparable to the super-zoom cameras with 20x or 30x zoom, offered for about the same or even a lower price (z. B. the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS SX710 HS or). They have for a lower intensity in the wide angle and a smaller sensor. Here, everyone has to decide what it is most important.

Is it worth the new features?

The best of the innovations fall outside the least on, it is mentioned in the advertising anywhere and seen only with intensive use of the camera: it is the newly designed battery. It was originally developed for the Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark II and my knowledge is used not only in the Mark II only in the N100. This includes the typical battery problems of the small compact of this camera the past. The only drawback is the price of a second battery, which you still like to have in continuous use.
Another innovation is much more striking: the second camera lens, which is directed to the photographers themselves backwards and on request a "dual screen", ie a combination of the actual recording and the einmontierten image the photographer creates.
The rear camera I use only on certain occasions, usually I let them off. Nor is it intended as default, because dual images are created with a reduced number of pixels (3 MP). Other innovations such as Creative shot or the "Story Highlights" button I use from time to time, and overall, I welcome the extension of the possibilities. It's like the selectable filter or scene modes, all of which are also longer available, as the individual user might need. Whether they are now frequently or infrequently applies, you have a powerful camera with many photographic options in the N100.

Advantages and weaknesses in key points:

Positive
+ Clean processed (plastic) housing
+ Easily operable touch screen
+ Excellent high-contrast display, 90 ° foldable
+ Good, strong light in focal length lens with 24mm wide angle (equiv.)
+ Faster, more accurate autofocus
+ Particularly large sensor (1 / 1.7 inches)
+ Very good image quality
+ Full HD videos
+ Intuitive usability
+ Versatile automatic programs
+ Lots of helpful, partly new features
+ Good WiFi connectivity
+ Ability to control the camera via Smartphone
+ Stamina battery (NB-12L)

Negative
- Slightly barrel-shaped image distortion at wide angle
- Fluctuating quality of einmontierten dual image by exposure differences
- Stiff buttons of the rear panel
- As a reserve battery only the expensive original (NB-12L) available

Compared to PowerShot S120

This comparison is close, as the N100 is constructed on the basis of the S120. It has the same processor, the same sensor, the same lens and the same touch-screen display, it is not only pivotable in the S120.

The S120 is smaller and lighter, it weighs 220g with battery, memory card and wrist strap, the N100 weighs 290 grams. The case of the S120 is made of metal, namely a magnesium alloy, it acts valent and more precise than the plastic housing of the N100. These also carry the dials on the top and back in and the rotating ring around the lens. All controls speak precisely on, nothing seems vague or requires increased use of force during pressing.
The display of the N100 is already in the default setting brighter than the S120. This is probably related to the different battery performance. The S120 comes with the Battery Pack NB-6LH and must be set power-saving, the N100 features with the new NB-12L to improved energy source and can therefore turn up more. For this you can stock up for the S120 priced with spare batteries from other manufacturers.
Both cameras offer the same image quality. Even in the other service are both practically on par, as long as one operates only via automatic and does not look at Burst or HD video, where the S120 works much faster.
However, even in P mode (Program AE) are evident in the S120, the advantages of manual control. For example, it is easier and faster possible to influence the ISO value. In addition, can be set for the Auto ISO an arbitrary upper limit, in the N100 is not possible. For flash photography, the S120 offers the possibility to change the strength of the flash output. (When daylight shots with fill flash I liked diminish the flash output by two-thirds, that possibility I miss on the N100 particularly.)
In addition, the S120 has an electronic level and a histogram (both faded) and two different screen display modes.
There is also a custom setting (C), with which one can save his preferred camera settings and recall them instantly. This feature I find very helpful, it saves a reset any settings that you have just selected only for a particular situation.
What the S120 else different from the N100, is the full access to all possible functions. It offers for example. The opportunity to work with aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual settings and also with next JPEG save RAW data. Which it has not, the foldability of the display and the rearward second camera lens.
Overall, the S120 is a sophisticated little camera with a large working area. The N100 effect next rather trendy and almost crudely.

My Conclusion:

You can get the same price as the two cameras so far. Who does not want to work anyway manually or with RAW data and value on a superior battery endurance, which can recommend the N100. He will get a robust, high-performance camera. Those who are familiar with photography and emphasis on what is happening mainly to decide, is better off with the S120. In addition, it interacts with its magnesium housing and other amenities like a small treasure.

Personally, I prefer the N100 for rapid photographic note. I'm so landscapes as well as snapshots indoors, swift reproductions of a document as well as a portrait of my interlocutor at the cafe, holding down the content of an interesting shop window or make a close-up of the first snowdrops that come to me face. All-round photography flat.
After the N100 was my daily companion for months, I wanted to actually replace the S120. But I soon realized that this rarely brought me advantages over the N100. For this, I found myself often confronted to charge the battery and on the go do not forget the spare battery, which was not an issue at the N100. I also found the brighter display of N100 much easier to read in daylight outdoors.
Based on this experience and since I anyway have to resort to other cameras for specialized photographic tasks now but the N100 is my everyday camera.