Canon PowerShot S110 review

Image quality was hard to distinguish from the S100. Colours were expertly balanced and there was barely any evidence of noise in brightly lit scenes. There was a tendency for highlights to be a little over-exposed, though. It’s a common problem with compact cameras, but we noticed it a little more frequently here. Details weren’t quite as sharp as from the G15 towards the corners of frames, but the difference was subtle. We appreciated having a neutral density (ND) filter built in, which allowed us to use long exposures for creative effect.

Details in bright light are crisp, even in darker parts of images

The f/2 lens helps to keep the ISO speed (and noise) down in low light. There’s still a lot of noise reduction here (notice the lack of detail in the hair) but it’s an excellent result for a compact camera

The bright lens helped to deliver excellent results in low light, although only if we kept to the wide-angle end of the zoom. Zooming in causes the aperture to close down, so the camera raised the ISO speed to compensate and the ensuing noise reduction made details appear pretty soft. This is one area where the S110 loses significant ground to the Panasonic LX7, but the S110 is much slimmer than those cameras. It’s also worth noting that the noise reduction did an excellent job of maintaining presentable results. The grain in shadows was a uniform colour rather than a rainbow of splodges, and the loss of fine detail wasn’t an issue when resizing photos for sharing online.

The blown out highlights are a giveaway that this photo is from a compact camera

This is what happens when you’ve got a camera with manual controls that’s small enough to take to the pub

The 1080p videos exhibited incredibly sharp details and smooth, accurate autofocus. The soundtrack was a bit of a letdown, with constant background noise and some faint whirring sounds while zooming, but our general impression of the video mode was positive.

This isn’t the best premium compact camera for image quality or performance, but the cameras that beat it aren’t nearly this slim. The S110 has the best image quality of any camera that will fit into small pockets or a clutch bag, and its ability to transfer photos to smartphones make it a superb choice for nights out. Whether social media addicts and party animals will be willing to spend £350 on a camera is up for debate, but there’s no question that this is the perfect camera for them.