Why You Can Trust CNET Canon PowerShot N100 sample pictures
Not your average point-and-shoot, the N100 combines the sensor and lens of an enthusiast compact, but shooting options made for snapshots.
ISO comparison
These are 100 percent crops from the center of our test scene. Viewed larger, it's easier to see that the N100 does very well with noise and detail up to ISO 200. At ISO 400 and 800 some noise reduction kicks in softening detail some, but there's still plenty of fine detail. Even at ISO 1600 detail is still good as is color, so as long as you don't need to enlarge and heavily crop, you should be pretty good in low-light conditions, especially for sharing online at small sizes.
Above that the noise reduction really kicks in, so subjects do look noticeably soft and colors start to desaturate, too.
This is where that bright f1.8 lens comes in handy. As long as you're not using the zoom lens, you can easily stay below ISO 1600 for indoor/low-light shots (but, as always, the more light you have, the better off you'll be).
Color
Canon's color quality continues to be a strong point for this line. It isn't until you get above ISO 1600 that pictures look flat and washed out -- another reason to avoid these higher sensitivities.
Dual Capture
Canon went through all the trouble of putting a second camera above the LCD on back just to do this: stick your picture in a corner of your photo. You can choose which corner, and it works with video, too, but that's all it does.
Creative Shot mode
Canon's Creative Shot mode automatically creates five different versions of a single shot using different color and tone settings, crops, and styles in addition to saving the original photo. You get some control over the results, however, as you can choose a category of filters -- Retro, Monochrome, Special, or Natural -- for the camera to use, with a total of 46 filters available.
Full-size sample picture
Taken at the camera's widest focal length, 24mm.
This picture as well as those that follow are available for download to view at 100 percent. These are large files, though, so they may take a few seconds to open.
ISO 80
Taken from the same position as the previous slide, but fully zoomed in to 120mm, so you can get an idea of how close you can get with the N100's 5x zoom. View at full size.
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