I have been enjoying my personal hobby of photography for several years now. Throughout the years I have had several cameras, but two stick out: the Canon S3 IS, and the Canon S5 IS. Naturally, I first had the Canon S3, and I moved up to the S5 after finding a good deal on craigslist.org.

Like I mentioned in the title, I am honestly not sure why I should switch to a Digital SLR (DSLR) anytime soon. I do moderate, personal photography, and the S5 has proved so trustworthy and handy that I have started looking at DSLRs like a downgrade. Granted, the final photo quality will probably be better on a DSLR, but do I want to spend time figuring out the complex switches, dials, and buttons on a DLSR? Hardly.

Everything I want in a camera is filled by the S5. It has 12x zoom, and I can upgrade that too, with the S5’s ability to mount some third party lenses. (Note, these aren’t DSLR lenses, they are special for the S series cameras from Canon.) I can have manual control of f-stops, shutter speed (up to 15 seconds), and ISO (from 80 to 1600). Furthermore, I have many scene modes, all on a round dial, and I can use Canon’s color settings for vibrant color, black and white, and sepia pictures. You know what the cherry on top is? I can control every one of those functions with one hand.

Yes, I can balance with one foot on a ladder and one hand on the eaves trough of our house, lean over and still have the full functionality of my camera. And it’s even easy to use that way. The only controls I typically use with my left hand are the manual focus and macro mode, which are located on the left side of the lens.

Even with these strong benefits, the best is yet to come. The 2.5” LCD actually swings out of the camera and rotates next to it, allowing me to take excellent pictures from awkward positions. This feature is the one that really has me chained back from the DSLR slot. Find me a DSLR that can do that, and I might look at it. Otherwise, don’t bother.

There are many more benefits of the Canon Powershot S5 IS. These include the fantastic ability to take pictures while you are in the middle of taking a video, and the impressive quality of the stereo sound. It also has three flash settings (low, medium, and high), which are very handy for taking close-up pictures with the super macro mode.

While these all add up to a great digital camera for a lot less than a DSLR (and a whole lot more user friendly, I would add), you haven’t heard the half of it. The S5 IS comes with optical image stabilization (that’s the IS), a dedicated movie button, widescreen picture mode, 8 megapixels, face detection technology, and the Digic III image processor.

If you need a high-quality, user-friendly and totally reliable digital camera, go for the Canon Powershot S5. If you want to save a bit of money, get its predecessor, the S3 (No, there was not an S4, but I don’t know why). You won’t regret it.