Canon has announced the PowerShot S2 IS, a follow-up to the compact but versatile PowerShot S1 IS. The S2 trumps its predecessor's 10x optical zoom (38-380mm equivalent) with an even more impressive 12X version (36-432mm equivalent). That's a spectacular lens for a camera that measures just 113 by 78 by 76mm.
If you've used a big zoom before, you'll know there's a trade-off: you can get close to the action, but it's hard to hold the camera steady enough to get a decent picture. There isn't much point being right in the face of a lion or a tiger if the photos are so blurred you can't tell them apart. Canon's answer to the many-millimetres-make-for-fuzzy-pictures problem is image stabilisation, a technology that uses small gyro sensors to detect the movements introduced by your trembling hands, then wobbles the lens in the opposite direction to neutralise the shake. It sounds mad, but it works -- we've seen the benefits using Canon's image-stabilised SLR lenses.
Other features include an effective resolution of 5.0 megapixels, a 46mm (1.8-inch) vari-angle LCD, 18 shooting modes, customisable colour settings, shutter speeds to 1/3200 second and continuous shooting at 2.4fps. You can also record VGA (640x480-pixel) video at 30fps.
If a 36-432mm zoom just isn't enough for you, Canon has one more trick up its rather capacious sleeve: optional wide and tele converter lenses that extend the range to 27-648mm. Go photograph that lion, tiger. -ML
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