Canon S2 IS, one-sentence review

Excellent camera, craptacular host software that I installed because of the bogus dire warnings that it was necessary for proper camera operation (this might be true on Windows for all I know) and that I will never use again.

OK, OK, you want to see pictures taken with my new toy

Well, the light was horrible when I got home today, so I didn't take anything that was actually good. But I got to play with Super Macro mode:

( Super Macro! )

This is a 100% crop of a little piece of the image, otherwise unmodified from the camera. It's the normal-sized OCR characters on an electric bill. The camera is supposedly capable of focusing on the front surface of its own lens in this mode, though I wouldn't suggest testing that (the manual warns you not to damage the lens surface while you're using it).

The chromatic aberration is pretty noticeable in this mode, but still, man alive! It's really focusing on that!

My little old Nikon is actually a pretty good macro camera too; it can't focus this close, but it can do one thing even expensive digicams can't (at least out of the box), which is use its flash profitably in macro mode. This is because its flash is right next to the little bitty lens. Of course, that makes the flash no good for anything else (since it contributes greatly to redeye, dust orbs and generally bad-looking lighting), but it sure was impressive in macro mode. My new Canon has the more common trait that the shadow of the lens assembly becomes a problem.