Thanks for having me over at your apartment. i could not have made the trip without your help. Definitely come to Boston when you get a chance, there’s plenty over here to see and do too.

Again thanks for your site, reviews and time!

First, thanks for the comments and taking the time to post them on my site…

A lot of people ask me about other camera’s or other options and my honest answer is always that I can only recommend what I own and have tried myself – it would be dishonest for me to tell you what to buy when I have not tried the competing products that are out there. Thus if you are looking for more info on the S90 or my pictures I can totally help you out.

In terms of comparing cameras I recommend checking out the following sites to get all the details of the other camera’s you are considering.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/
http://www.cameralabs.com/
http://www.dpreview.com/

I took a quick look at the Powershot 200XS and here are my brief observations – again, definitely continue to do your own research beacuse I have not actually used this product.

The 200XS looks like a decent camera. The wide angle is 28mm (same as the S90) and the zoom goes up to 336mm which is a much longer zoom than the S90. Both camera’s are around the same size with the 200XS being slightly bigger. The 200XS also seems to have manual controls, but definitely read some reviews to find out how good they are. The one downfall of the XS200 is the largest aperture of it’s lens. The XS200 can only open up to f3.5 while the S90 can go all the way to f2.0 – for the type of photography I do the S90 would still be my top choice because it allows me to take better pictures using a lower shutter speed and ISO speed. One thing to note, on the S90 that f2.0 aperture is only available on thw widest setting, one you zoom in on things it too goes down (but almost 100% of my pictures are taken at 28mm).

I don’t take much video, but for the small clips I take (very casual and usually complete afterthoughts for me the S90 is good enough. Check out my review of A Camp – I have posted two videos I took using this camera. If you plan on taking a lot of videos and HD is really important then the XS200 is your only choice out of the two (read some reviews to find out how good the video quality is and how easy is it to record things).

I definitely think the S90 can take good pictures, but if you are good at composing then you can even use a disposable film camera to take good pictures. What you want is a camera that you can grow with as you become more advanced.

For post processing I used Adobe Lightroom 2 – I used to use Google’s Picassa (free). I usually only adjust the shadows, fill light and exposure. I used to use Photoshop (I still do actually) but Photoshop is more of a composition tool, it can do everything that Lightroom can do (and much more) but Lightroom is much easier to use.

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. My honest answer as far as other camera recommendations is for you to check out some camera review sites. Unlike a pro reviewer (or a electronic review site like CNET) I can only give advice on the products I have either owned or tried myself. If I find something good I’m more than happy to share my experiences about it with others, but if I don’t know anything about the products then I would recommend you check out some of the excellent review sites, I would hate to give you bad information.

I recommend starting your search with the following sites:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/
http://www.cameralabs.com/
http://www.dpreview.com/

If you hate reading, then Cameralabs.com usually has a 5 minute video on just about every product they have reviewed. I found out about the S90 first from Ken Rockwell (way back when it was just a rumor).

In terms of the S90 being too much of a camera, here is some advice I can give. First I think it is great that you really are thinking about how much you plan on using your camera and what your level of involvement will be. A lot of people buy the best/most expensive gear and expect to do amazing things with it out of the box – it doesn’t work that way (for anything).

Having said that I still think the S90 is an excellent camera for beginners beacause you really can grow with it. If you want to push your photography further and wouldn’t mind taking the time to learn how to set manual controls, or if you like the idea of a SLR but just don’t want to invest the time and money into buying one just yet – I think the S90 might actually be a good choice. My first cameras were those disposable film camera’s you can buy at the pharmacy, I spent a year in Australia (back in college) and those were the only camera’s available to me. Despite what anyone says, any camera can take good pictures because the biggest factor in a good picture is composition. After graduating from disposable cameras, my first digital camera was the Casio Exilim z850 – just like the S90 it was a compact camera that had tons of manual controls. I started using it mostly in auto mode but gradually experimented with adjusting the aperture and shutter speeds. It doesn’t take much experimentation but soon you will see why adjusting a camera manually will give you results that literally are impossible on full auto mode. I loved the Exilimi but unfortunately I ended up loosing it, this was actually why I bought the S90 – to replace my lost camera. Honestly the S90 is way better than the Exilim I lost, the low light photography and aperture controls blow my old camera out of the water. The Exilim had a longer zoom (but not as wide) and it had more flexibility with long shutter speeds – I honestly don’t miss either of the two compared to what the S90 can do.

Having said all of that you can still pay a lot less for a camera and have full auto. I didn’t know this before I bought the S90 but there is a hack called CHDK (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK). You need to check the site out and make sure they have a version that works with the canon compact you plan to buy (most of the super slim Canon Elph’s are supported with this). Then you download the file to the memory card you will be using and you will now have access to more controls that Canon usually keeps locked. You see, most cameras are more advanced then the manufacturer let’s on – this is called manufactured obselescence. You can’t have all the advanced features in the entry level camera because then everyone would buy your cheapest camera and not your most advanced/expensive camera. In many cases camera’s that differ in price by $50-$100+ may even share the same computer chips, just with the lower end models having some of the features crippled with software. Also, there are some “safety” controls that the manufacturer limits to prolog the longevity of the camera, like putting a limit on how fast the shutter speed can go (to save wear on the mechanism). CHDK supposedly will remove all these obstacles.

Again, I don’t have CHDK myself, so you should investigate more into it if you are interested. Still, if you have the money and the interest in learning photography then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the S90.

i try to choose between ultazoom compact powershot 200xs and powershot s90. as i anticipated s90 is great in terms of photo, but 200xs has hd-mode. i saw your movie about hd in cameras, but is it really not very effective? and again… is s90 that good in taking pictures? your images from buffalo are spectacular… don’t you use Photoshop?)) Thank u for help)

Thank you for your time. I found your videos the most informative of any on the web.

I have been looking for a small, but not too small, P&S and was going to buy the LX3, but I always felt that it was just too big to be pocketable, (almost in between), so I looked at the S90 and your reviews, which clearly demonstrated the neat functionality of the S90 have convinced me.
I don’t need video or a good bust shooting mode in a P&S. I particularly like the way the LCD changes for exposure adjustments, (WYSIWYG – if you like), and the programmable control rings. I am sure that both the LX3 and S90 will be similar in image quality etc., although I prefer the colour rendering of the S90 from what I have seen on flickr.

Thanks again and good luck with your blog, (again just finding out what a blog is)