Camera: Canon PowerShot S80 (Photography Museum)

< Back to the Photography Museum Cameras

Canon PowerShot S80

I never had a compact point-shoot film camera for casual use. I always wanted full manual control, and if I needed a really compact camera (say for backpacking) I used the Rollei 35 B I inherited from my dad.

In the digital era my dad had a whole string of Canon Digital ELPH cameras. Though very compact I could never bring myself to buy one myself. The larger Canon PowerShot G-series cameras of the time on the other hand seemed like the worst of both worlds — smaller than a DSLR, but still not pocketable and without the ability to change lenses.

In 2005 I discovered Canon’s PowerShot Sxx series of advanced compact cameras. The series has always feature cameras slightly larger than the tiny compacts, but with better quality wide angle zoom lenses, and, of prime importance to me, full manual control.

I purchased the PowerShot S80 (released in 2005) as a compact travel and nature photography camera. It joined me on a lot of adventures and captured a lot of shots rivalling what others were creating with DSLRs. The one drawback of the PowerShot S80 was the lack of RAW files.

http://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/dcc516.html