Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS retro review

Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS retro reassessmen

11th June 2021

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The Canyon PowerShot Pro90 IS was a high-stop first-rate-zoom camera launched in 2001, the second in the PowerShot In favor series aft the Pro70 in 1998. It shared a similar L-shaped contrive of the Pro70 but improved the feature-put over across the instrument panel, most notably extending the zoom to a 10x 37-370mm equivalent compass, and becoming Canon's premiere extremity camera to include optical image stabilisation that transformed its usability at longer focal lengths. The industry-leading specs in turn justified Canon's pricing of around $1300 / 1100 GBP. 20 eld after it was launched, I took the Pro90 IS to the streets of Brighton to see how it measures up!

The Pro90 IS inherited most of its other features from the PowerShot G1 launched a year earlier in 2000. Some shared a wealthiness of modes from PASM to creative presets and full manual hold over exposure, with shutter speeds from 8 seconds to 1/1000, although if you wanted to use the maximum f2.8 aperture, the quickest shutter cut to 1/800. The Pro90 IS also inherited the flash hotshoe, top info control panel and fully-articulated side-hinged 1.8in screen from the G1, although its longer zoom range necessitated a switch from an optical to an natural philosophy viewfinder. Both cameras also sported Compact Flash slots congruous with Typewrite I and II card game (supporting the IBM MicroDrive), and were powered by the BP-511 Lithium Ion assault and battery that thanks to broad use past Canon rising to 2008 remains readily available today.

Both cameras also on the job the same 1/ 1.8in CCD sensor with 3.3 Megapixels, although the smaller imaging circle of the 10x zoom forced Canon to clip the Pro90 IS images Down to 2.6 Megapixels. Sony had to cause the same with the F505V. That said, even after cropping, the Pro90 IS all over up with a few more pixels than the Olympus C2100 UZ which almost certainly shared the same 10x zoom but coupled with a 2 Megapixel sensor. Best quality JPEGs rhythmic just under 1MB each and the Pro90 IS also let you record in RAW. The Pro90 IS could also capture 30 second video clips in QVGA / 320×240 resolution at 15fps with sound, albeit not zooming while transcription.

Tierce geezerhood later the Pro1 arrived with 8 Megapixels and a 7.1x zoom with a red-ring denoting L-quality, but it would equal the last of the PowerShot Pro serial. Canon's later PowerShot SX compass however continuing the miniskirt-DSLR super-zoom construct to enormous success, spell the partizan-class G-serial gained, lost then regained features over its lifespan.