Canon S2 IS(Image stabilization) - Just to enlighten the many about this camera, Canon brought out the camera to the market in July 2005. From that day till now it has been in the top list of most popular cameras in any camera review site or online shopping site. The only digital camera to rule the sales chart for such a long time is S2 IS. That shows the quality of the camera and the performance that you get along with it. The camera has 12x ultra sonic motor based zoom for multi speed zoom and complete silent zoom operation. It has a 5 megapixel CCD sensor and a really useful lcd screen that is foldable. Canon has carefully engineered the camera and have not left even the smallest of details. It has a nifty EVF(Electronic view finder) which in turn saves the battery a lot. One more thing about the camera is the Super Macro mode. Imagine taking the picture of an object by touching the object with the lens of the camera. Thats as good as a microscope.
One thing special about the canon cameras is the DIGIC processor used. This helps in a lot of image processing and effects. No other camera has such good features like MyColor mode where you can swap colors of the objects or give a color accent to an object where in the object you select alone will be shown in color and the rest of the area will be in black and white. The camera also supports panaroma view in various directions.
One more super feature of the camera is the Video mode. It has a video button ready for us to take the video instead of turning the dial to video mode and waiting for the camera software to switch to the video mode. It saves a lot of time especially in those special and critical moments when your kid tries to walk on its own or you catch your friend flirting with THE GIRL and you wanna show the action to your friends.
Another good thing is the special shortcut button that you can assign to any particular funtion of the camera like the picture size of filter effect, etc.
There are so many more things I can tell about this camera but let me cut it short. The camera takes really good quality pictures with modes for NORMAL, FINE and SUPERFINE picture quality. The videos taken in the camera can be compared to TV quality and you got to see it to believe it. It has stereo mic so when you record videos the sound is recorded in stereo too.(Thats really awesome)
The camera also has intervalometer, multi shot, custom color filters and many such things.
The Manual setting in the camera makes it comparable to a DSLR with options to select the White balance, shutter speed, Exposure compensation, Focal length, flash strength, Manual focus, and much more.
Truly a amateur - pro camera which will keep you out of boredom for a long time.
My recommendation truly 100% worth the money you pay.