Full Review

Acquisition

I bought this camera on sale at Circuit City for $149. It was normally $169, and the sale included a free 1GB SD card worth around $39 (on sale) in December 2006. I acquired 2 additional 2GB SD cards for about $39 each on sale at one of the office stores where there were no rebates to hassle with. I bought a Case Logic case for around $12 or so, also at the office store, and it has served me well. It has a convenient little pocket for storing the extra SD cards.

Description

The S700 comes in silver and black. I like this camera. I bought it for my wife as a Christmas gift, but I use it about 95% of the time, although she has no trouble using it in Program, Auto, or Movie modes with only a few verbal instructions from me and without having read the manual as I did. So it's simple enough for the gadget challenged Mrs. Mo Heat, but more than adequate as a point and shoot digital camera for those who want at least some control of exposures. There is little control for varying depth of field.

First Impression

I like the feel of the camera in my hand. It's big enough that I don't worry about dropping it and small enough that I don't mind carrying it just about anywhere. I love how the S700 fits into a pocket. It will tug a dress shirt down, but in a jacket, vest, purse, or coat, you'll hardly remember it's there. The flip side is that it comes with certain image quality compromises.

When walking, cycling, or in a car, it can be kept handy in lots of small storage areas and brought quickly to bear. I find myself taking it with me most everywhere, unlike an SLR, and I've gotten many shots that would otherwise have been missed. Since it's digital, I can painlessly take many times the number of shots as I might if using a film camera, utilizing different angles and exposures, and increase the likelihood of getting a real standout.

Features and Usage

The 'On/Off' button is located on the top strap and takes a deliberate push to fire up the S700, a nice feature to prevent accidental OFF situations. However, if I'm in a hurry to turn it on and take a quick snapshot, I sometimes don't hold it down long enough and the picture gets away or the subject progresses. This is not a problem if you are mindful when pressing the button.

Shutter lag is about a second if you don't pre-focus, but only about 1/4 or 1/3 second if you pre-focus by pressing the shutter button halfway down. I often pre-focus using the spot focus feature to insure proper exposure and focus of the primary subject. I can then recompose the frame, so the primary subject isn't necessarily in the frame's center, while continuing to hold the shutter button halfway down. Complete the shot by fully depressing the shutter button and your primary subject remains in focus and properly exposed. Otherwise, a typical snapshot, with no pre-focus, will take just about one second.

Flesh tones are good in existing light, but not always accurate with the flash. Color reproduction is ok, but if you're viewing a photo and zoom in using your computer monitor, you can clearly see green and purple artifacts around edges and smudge-like washes in solid objects composed of varying colors. It's present in low light and normal light shots, but gets more noticeable when the subject is complex, like a tree's branches and leaves, and even worse when a complex subject is backlit. But this is no big deal. In fact, I expected it from a camera in this price range. All of them I've ever used display this same weakness. The S700 is no worse than others I've used in this price range.

The active auto focus works well in low light using spot or average focus. Both focus features are quickly selected using the descent menu access via the conveniently located ring and center button control with a push or three of your right thumb after you get familiar with things.

The detail given by 7.2 mega pixels is impressive. Not quite as impressive as 24's Chloe enhancing a face from a space satellite, but eerily reminiscent. It is striking to navigate around a previously snapped room shot with people in the background. When first utilizing the camera's 2.5-inch LCD screen, zoom feature (the telephoto toggle), and cursor ring (left, right, up, down) to review some inside photos, I noticed facial details in background subjects that nearly startled me. Like watching familiar local news celebrities on an HD TV for the first time and noticing more wrinkles and blemishes.

The two AA batteries and the SD card go in and out easily. The door has never opened unexpectedly. Controls are intuitive to find and use but, if you're like me, suspicious and distrustful of someone else's idea of proper exposures for given situations, you'll probably only use about half of the eight pre-programmed settings on the rotary dial on the top strap. I prefer knowing what's going on with an exposure, so I mostly use the Program Mode and the Movie Mode.

Movie Mode includes sound. In fact, you can even add a sound tag to a still shot after you've taken it. I've never done it, but it sounds cool. Movies should be confined to adequately lit rooms or outdoors. The zoom lens further dims indoor movie exposures and things can start looking pretty dark. There is one annoying element concerning the zoom in Movie Mode. Each time the zoom button is pressed, the sound drops out completely, and a sharp knocking sound in interjected, so I try to limit zooming once filming begins. Movie length is unlimited or until you fill your SD card, which is a feature I was looking for and absent just a year or two back when I first started looking for a pocket camera. Movies come in 15 and 30 frames per second with your selection of three frame sizes. The largest is 640 x 480 and more than adequate. At 30 fps and 640 x 480 you get about 28 minutes of video on a 2GB SD card. I think that's pretty good. You can also capture a still from a movie by pressing a button. It will contain the same resolution as your movie. I've used this a couple times, but the difference between 640 x 480 and a 7.2 mega pixel still is dramatic, so it is a rare item of content otherwise hidden deep within the movie, that warrants such low resolution capture after the fact.

Occasionally, I'll use Full Auto Mode and Manual Mode for an attempted moonlight or extremely low light still. But the max shutter speed is a mere 8 seconds, so moonlight photo situations are limited, resulting in a mostly dark composition, and displaying little more than the moon itself, a street light and immediate surroundings, or another predominant light source dominating the frame. The active focus and exposure circuits capture moderate and low-lighted subjects well if the camera is steady. I typically set the camera down on anything available, since I don't have a tripod. There's a 2 second self-timer that can take the place of a shutter release cable, and there's a full 12-second self-timer that allows the photographer to jump into the frame.

Lots of flash settings: red eye, auto, fill, off, and slow sync. They all seem to work pretty well and they don't seem to drain the battery too badly with occasional use. It's not the greatest flash. I've gotten a few portraits that were over lit and others where the colors looked kind of funny, but adequate none-the-less. And I've had some luck switching between the slow sync mode and all other flash modes. The slow sync flash gives more desirable color saturation IMO, and I've used it with success in several shots, but the manual suggests using a tripod in situations where a slow shutter speed and camera movement might result in blurred photos. The flash range is good in some shots, up to 15 or 20 feet. Flash picture color can be a bit unpredictable. As distance to the subject increases, the edges of the frame begin to darken. I think this is normal for most flashes. One thing that annoys me is the recharge time if I'm trying to take consecutive flash photos, but that's true of most cameras in this range with a built-in flash, especially those with only two AA batteries powering the entire camera. I've never actually timed it, but flash recharge time is about twice as long as I'd like it to be. Maybe six seconds or so, but this may also vary depending upon the battery level at the time.

I wish the battery level indicator had five level bars instead of three. When the level displays one bar, the camera may continue creating and displaying many, many photos, or it can unexpected "go dark" with the next request. Two or three bars displayed means everything will be fine for a quite a while longer.

I like the auto-bracketing and use it fairly often. It yields the original exposure plus two more, one set a half F-stop above the original, the other a half F-stop below. Usually, the original is the best exposure, but every once in a while it saves the day. The only thing I don't like about the auto-bracketing is the torturous lag of about 3 seconds between each exposure. Three seconds is long enough that subjects often move between each of the exposures. To make matters worse, the LCD is inactive from the initial push of the shutter button until the third shot is completed, making for some unexpected compositions. The flash will not work when auto bracketing, likely because it couldn't possibly recharge itself fast enough. But again, none of this is really a problem for a camera in this price range.

I tried the continuous exposure feature on one occasion. With the approximately 3 second delay between exposures, just like the auto bracketing, it tends to create jerky movie-like sequences that can actually be fun to watch with lots of people gathered around. Like those tablet flipping, stick-figure cartoon sequences you may have created as a child.

This camera is certified to use no larger than a 2GB SD card, so if you want a 4GB SD card, you'll be pushing the envelop and breaking new wind. But I found that the two 2GB SD cards and the one 1GB SD card I took on a two week vacation offered ample memory to capture all the photos and movies I wanted, even using the camera heavily every day. By heavily I'd say I probably took a couple hundred 7.2 mega pixel resolution photos each day and another 10 or 20 movies between 2 and 7 minutes each. Movies are really the only thing that can fill a 2GB SD card without a Herculean effort.

I recommend using a tripod for semi-serious movie attempts. It's almost impossible to hold the camera still enough to avoid getting a strange jerky motion that seems to be injected into most of my videos due to just about any movement of the camera, especially if I am panning a landscape or an action people scene. This may be a deficit of processor speed combined with video compression. I'm shopping for a tripod, which could help.

The 3x retractable lens with built-in lens cover is adequate for composing portraits, group shots, and even landscapes, but as you'd expect, not so great for distance shots and extreme close up requirements like wildlife. I already find myself shopping for a 12x super zoom digital camera. So don't expect too much from the 3x telephoto. Still, it's 3 times better than 1x and it's very nice for composing a frame to reduce cropping later, with few of the 7.2 mega pixels going into the bit bucket.

A single photo is easily deleted while viewing it on the LCD by using the trash can button. You can easily delete all your photos at once using the menu with just a couple clicks. However, if you want to delete, say, half of 100 or 200 shots in the camera, it will be a long haul, one at a time. This situation occurs from time to time when I forget to delete all the photos after uploading them and later add a bunch more to them, and then find myself low on memory. Of course, this can all be avoided by diligently deleting everything after an upload.

Battery life is okay using 2500mAh NiMH batteries. Don't bother with alkaline batteries. Many reviews I've read say they give dismal results. Although, I must admit that I've never actually tried them myself. Rechargeable batteries seem cheaper anyway, if you use the camera regularly like I do.

Cons

Sometimes I wish the S700 had a viewfinder for important shot opportunities that I want to frame "just right". I snuck up on a Coopers Hawk and filmed it in Movie Mode for about 10 or 15 minutes. Unfortunately, because I only had the LCD screen to compose my frame, I didn't notice a twig between the hawk and me. Funny how one little twig between the lens and the subject can obscure the entire body of a prey animal being eaten alive. Still, it was a pretty nice little clip for my first try. You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/35rfek but it won't have nearly the detail or look nearly as good on Google video as it does on my computer unless you first download it and then play it back from your disc drive.

Bottom Line

Buy this camera. It's great for the price. It fits into your pocket or purse so you won't be reluctant to carry it with you all the time. It has a lot of cool features lacking on cameras a couple years older. Photo quality, auto-exposure, and manual controls are all descent.

Addendum (Long)

If you don't want to know about budget batteries and their performance, suitable for the S700, you should stop reading here or you may be tempted to ding this review for verbosity or for being off topic. I include this section because I felt it crucial to stem the tide of other reviewers' horrid battery consumption stories found primarily on other review sites. Some reviews flatly rate the S700 a 'No Buy' due to battery consumption, and I think that is a shame for such a nice camera. It's also not true. However, if you read all those reviews like I did, you may have the same significant trepidations as I had about purchasing this camera. I hope you will take this battery consumption opinion as the last word regarding the S700.

Batteries and the S700

In short, here's what you need to know, according to Mo. In a nutshell, the S700 is somewhere between an average battery consumer and an every so slightly less than average battery consumer. Mo strongly believes that battery consumption does NOT rise to a level that should discourage your purchase of the S700.

Mo's S700 Battery Solution

This is the long part... ;)

Forget about using AA alkaline batteries. They aren't strong enough. I haven't tried lithium, but I would guess they are too weak as well. Regardless, lithium batteries seem comparatively expensive to use and throw away, and that prevents me from even trying them. YMMV, but regardless, Mo believes his battery solution to be the best and the cheapest for regular use. If you should try lithium batteries as an emergency backup, please include a comment to this review to let us know how they fair.

Before snapping your first photo, go to Sam's or wherever you might get a discount, and buy no less than eight of the 2500mAh sized, NiMH AA batteries that come with the 8-hour charger. This charger slides apart and back together when not in use, making for a small footprint for travel and storage. The 8-hour charger won't fry NiMH batteries like faster chargers, so they'll last much longer than if you buy a quick, fast, rapid, or light-speed NiMH charger. It can also safely top off batteries with no fear of overcharge. If money is no object, you can certainly find more sophisticated chargers that do all this and more, but since this is a budget camera, Mo is assuming you might prefer a budget battery solution.

I got a blister pack containing the 8-hour charger, 8 AA's, and 4 AAA's, for the low, low price of $24.99 at Sam's. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough batteries charged up and ready to go for a nearing vacation, so I bought a second blister pack just to be safe. The second pack was overkill for Mo. He never needed more than eight of them.

Mo's conclusion is that 8 AA's, even with the 8-hour lag time between charges will be adequate for most normal to slightly enthusiastic snap shooters. In fact, I've found that with a fresh set of batteries in the S700, and a second fresh set in my pocket, I can easily go all day taking pictures to my heart's delight. But they need to be freshly charged as these things theoretically lose about 1% charge per day just sitting around. Mo believes that rate to be even faster in the real world, and especially in Mo's hot little pocket.

The charger recharges 4 batteries at a time. The S700 only uses 2 AA's at a time and each set of two 2500mAh AA's gives a lot of photos after the batteries have been conditioned. How many? I'm not sure, but it's plenty. Sorry, never counted them, but I'd guess it's well over 100, maybe 200 even, when using the flash with some discretion.

Know this. NiMH batteries have to be fully charged, and then fully discharged several times before they are "conditioned". Some sort of molecular alignment will occur within the batteries so the modern day battery miracle happens and the batteries will then hold a whole lot more juice after several charge and discharge cycles than when you charged them up that first time. It's weird, but true. Do it. It works, and you'll never be whining about how fast the S700 sucks batteries as long as they have been charged within the last few days.

I would say the S700 is NOT especially easy on batteries, but in the four, count 'em, 4, months that I've been using this camera heavily, I've noticed no unusual battery consumption compared to other digital cameras with LCD screens, built-in flashes, and active foci, that I have used. Everything will be fine. Take a deep breath and forget about excessive battery consumption. Battery consumption is NOT a show-stopping problem.