With the PowerShot Pro90 IS, Canon has updated its Pro70 digital camera with better optics--a powerful 10x zoom lens and the image stabilization necessary to use that level of magnification.
While the camera's 2.6-megapixel effective resolution doesn't top the charts, photo enthusiasts will find its image quality competitive with that of many 3-megapixel models. And its easy operation and comfortable handling should make it an appealing choice for casual shooters and business users, too.
Canon's PowerShot Pro90 IS was designed to appeal to photo enthusiasts with a powerful 10x stabilized zoom lens, 2.6-megapixel resolution, and a wealth of features. For casual shooters, it offers easy operation and plenty of preset shooting modes. Although not without its quirks and flaws, the Pro90 deserves a serious look from anyone willing to spend more than AU$2,000 on a digital camera.
Since 3.3-megapixel cameras have been on the market for a long time, you might wonder why a sophisticated model like this one offers only 2.6-megapixel resolution. The answer is that the Pro90's high-resolution sensor didn't become available until after Canon had designed the lens, which doesn't project an image large enough to cover the entire CCD. So Canon masked the 3.34-megapixel chip down, ending up with a 2.6-megapixel effective resolution.
Our testing yielded sharp, detailed images that compare well to those produced by 3-megapixel competitors. We were pleased to find a low level of colour noise and a good dynamic range in our test shots. The camera wasn't able to capture very deep blacks, but on the other hand it didn't block up the details in shadow areas either. White-balance settings worked adequately well, although the camera's apparently limited sensitivity to blue colour values came into play even when we used the manual white balance, giving our indoor test shots a slightly yellow cast. Perhaps the most noticeable problem in image quality was visible chromatic aberration. In images shot under bright outdoor light, it was easy to see the resulting purple fringes. However, we were pleased to see that images suffered from very little distortion, even when shot at the extremes of the long lens range.
