Photos: Canon PowerShot S5 IS

Though the S3 IS also had nicely separated stereo microphones, the S5 IS's are larger and more prominent. Unlike most still cameras, the S5 IS also provides a wind filter and volume control for the mics.

Despite the 12x zoom lens, the S5 IS remains fairly compact when it's completely extended. The manual and macro focus buttons are well placed if you hold the camera like an SLR, falling under your left thumb's control, and easy to differentiate by touch. Holding the macro focus button down drops you into a typical Super Macro mode, which zooms the lens to its widest and presumably allows you to focus as close as 4 inches.

Not much has changed in the top control layout since the S3 IS. The "C" on the mode dial is for a saved custom user combination of settings.

With a few exceptions, the back controls also remain the same as on the S3 IS. You can map metering, white balance, AE/AF lock, display on/off, and digital zoom to the relocated Shortcut button (to the left of the EVF). As with its predecessor, the S5 IS has a handy dedicated movie-capture button. It also allows you to operate face detection via the focus-point selection button (SET), in addition to selecting any focus area within (approximately) the middle 90 percent of the frame.