many good features, but a few not so good

this camera has a lot of good features: the optical stablizer is really good. i have taken some low light photos at low exposures with the OIS and the shake was greatly reduced (1/8 sec). the telephoto is very fast for a zoom camera: F3.2, while most of the field has 3.7. the camera feels solid in your hands. the flip and twist monitor can be very handy at times.

however, the S1 IS has some quirks: no battery indicator: the camera tells you it is powering down because the batteries are depleted (no advanced warning). the manual focus has a small pop up screen with a coarse, grainy image, making it difficult to focus properly in low light. the focus has to be sharpened all of the time with processing software. the images always look brighter in the camera than on the computer. there is no live histogram: you have to make a test photo and go back to view it to see the histogram (to check the exposure)

overall, i enjoyed using the S1 IS. however, the manual focus and lack of a battery indicator was major concerns for me. so, after doing more research, i decided to trade it in for a Sony H2.