Overall, the Canon is well designed and reasonably compact considering the size of its lens. It’s a little heavy at 1lb. 2oz. when loaded up with batteries and a memory card, but the textured grip for your right hand and properly placed zoom lever make one-handed shooting possible. Just above the lens barrel you can see twin microphones. Unlike most digital still cameras, the Canon S2-IS is capable of recording movies in stereo – more on that later. The camera’s silver plastic body seems fairly well constructed, but the lens cap is kind of cheesy and does not stay in place all that well. I definitely suggest tying it to the camera if you don’t want to lose it.
On the left side of the lens barrel are the buttons for selecting manual focus and macro modes. Considering these are the two functions I use most besides adjusting exposure compensation, this was a poor placement choice by Canon. On the body itself is a rubberized flap covering the port for connecting the camera to a display.
On the right side of the body is a flap covering the power and USB ports, and the door for the SD card slot (no more CF for Canon, apparently). The quality of the hinge certainly isn’t the worst I’ve seen, however it will not stand up to much abuse.
