Canon Digital Powershot Camera Review

Archive for January, 2010

From the Manufacturer

When a camera puts a smile on your face the moment you hold it, imagine how great you’ll feel when you see your first pictures! The PowerShot SD1200 IS Digital ELPH has everything going for it–exuberant color, the sculptured style of Canon’s famed ELPH series–and the innovative know-how that takes you to a whole new level of picture-taking accomplishment. Fun, smart and a style that follows you everywhere. PowerShot SD1200 IS Highlights 10.0-megapixel (more…)

For CANON PowerShot SD700 IS / PowerShot SD750 / PowerShot SD800 IS / PowerShot SD850 IS / PowerShot SD870 IS / PowerShot SD900 / PowerShot SD950 IS / PowerShot SD1000

(more…)

Amazon.com

Protect your Canon PowerShot digital camera while swimming or snorkeling with the DiCAPac WP-410 underwater camera case. Offering a guaranteed waterproof performance up to 16 meters deep, the case is perfect for anyone who wants to take pictures of tropical fish, coral, and other underwater wonders. The transparent, flexible case is made of thick, high-grade vinyl, with a UV-coated polycarbonate lens cover that allows customers to take clear pictures in virtually any (more…)

anti-spam

From the Manufacturer

There’s nothing more satisfying than taking great pictures! And with the Canon PowerShot A1100 IS it’s so effortless. The 12.1-megapixel resolution and 4x optical zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer ensure radiant, detailed images. Plus, you’ve got an advanced DIGIC 4 Image Processor with evolved Face Detection Technology and the Face Detection Self-Timer for extraordinary control and performance. Smart AUTO lets you handle challenging conditions with e (more…)

A big, easy zoom. Everything about the PowerShot SX120 IS is easy. The Smart AUTO feature makes every shot picture-perfect. An impressive 10x Optical Zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer keeps you sharp and steady. There’s even an Easy Mode that makes shooting super simple.

PowerShot SX120 Highlights

Smart AUTO detects and analyzes faces, brightness, colors, distance, and movement
Just set the Canon PowerShot SX120 IS to Smart AUTO and you’re ready for maximum enjoyment from your picture taking every time. It’s a relaxing and satisfying way to shoot because you can completely concentrate on your subject, knowing that the camera has the technical details covered. Advanced Canon technology intelligently analyzes your situation and shooting conditions. Then it automatically selects an appropriate setting from 18 specially defined settings. So whether you’re photographing flowers, a captivating sunset, or your friends at the park, you can be confident that you’re getting dramatic, memorable images.

Easy Mode makes capturing images as easy as 1-2-3
Even if you’ve never picked up a camera before, with Canon’s new Easy Mode you can take inspiring, dramatic pictures that will impress everyone. Once you choose Easy Mode, the PowerShot SX120 IS handles all the details automatically. It automatically sets every camera control, including the flash, to reduce blur and improve image quality. So you get pictures that are bright, clear and natural just by pushing a button. Best of all, you can relax and concentrate on what really counts–your subject.

With 20 Shooting Modes including 8 Special Scene Modes, you’re ready for whatever shot comes your way.

10x optical zoom in action

High-powered 10x optical zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer
The PowerShot SX120 IS has a 10x Optical Zoom lens that makes it easy to get the inspiring, emotive close-ups that will make your images lasting keepsakes. This magnificent lens gives you the power to shoot distant subjects with razor-sharp precision and stunning lifelike color. So you can brilliantly capture a bird high atop a tree, a child’s winning goal from across the stadium or a school play from the last row. Plus, thanks to Canon’s highly sophisticated Optical Image Stabilizer Technology, even at maximum zoom, every image is rock steady.

The PowerShot SX120 IS is equipped with Canon’s acclaimed Optical Image Stabilizer Technology that automatically detects and corrects camera shake–one of the leading causes of fuzzy or blurred shots. Even when zoomed in, you can get the steady, crisp, brilliant images you’ll be proud to shoot and share. And Canon’s Optical Image Stabilizer Technology is convenient to use. It functions perfectly with or without a flash.

DIGIC 4 Image Processor
With DIGIC 4, your images boast superior quality, the camera operates at top efficiency and battery life is enhanced. What’s more, the DIGIC 4 Image Processor enables Canon’s Face Detection, Motion Detection Technologies and Red-eye Correction to give you better, more true-to-life people shots. Simply press the shutter button halfway down, and the camera automatically pinpoints the faces in the scene and chooses the ideal focus point. The camera controls exposure settings and flash to keep every face looking bright and natural. The camera also selects and sets the optimal exposure and ISO settings automatically to keep everything looking sharp and clear. Red-eye Correction can be handled in-camera, in two ways. The Red-eye Correction during shooting uses the Face Detection Technology to recognize and remove red-eye from images as they’re taken, before the file is written to the memory card. It’s also possible to correct red-eye during image playback, using simple settings in the PowerShot SX120 IS menu.

iSAPS Technology is an entirely original scene-recognition technology developed for digital cameras by Canon. Using an internal database of thousands of different photos, iSAPS works with the fast DIGIC 4 Image Processor to improve focus speed and accuracy, as well as exposure and white balance.

DIGIC 4 features Face Detection Technology, giving you the best possible results in any shooting situation. Face Detection AF/AE sets the focus point and exposure for the faces of your subjects. Face Detection FE adjusts the flash to correctly illuminate your subject to provide the best balance between your subject and the overall scene, eliminating the common problems of over and underexposed faces.

Face Detection WB means the camera concentrates upon faces when calculating white balance for the best possible skin tones. Face Select and Track lets you highlight one face among several in a scene, and the camera concentrates on that person, even as they move around the scene. Face Detection Technology is a powerful contributing factor in Canon’s Motion Detection Technology.

CNET editors’ review

• Reviewed by:
  Joshua Goldman
• Reviewed on: 11/12/2009

The Canon PowerShot S90 is designed for photography enthusiasts and it carries a hefty price tag to prove it. It also has some of the best controls you’ll find on a compact camera for manual and semimanual shooting modes. Its lens and photo quality are top notch, too. Actually, about the only thing that’s unimpressive with the S90 is its performance; those searching for digital SLR speed in a pocket camera probably won’t be happy. But, aside from a few other minor criticisms, the S90 is a first-rate compact camera for advanced amateurs.

The S90 looks fairly innocuous; it’s a textbook Canon box-and-circle design. The body is completely flat for a minimalist appearance, but it gives you nothing to grip. The black metal casing doesn’t make it any easier to hold onto either. The S90’s finer design points revolve around the excellent wide-angle f2-4.9 lens and its manual and semimanual shooting controls.

Around the lens is a new Control Ring that can be assigned to handle changes to aperture, shutter speed, focus, zoom, white balance, exposure compensation, or ISO. (A button on top lets you speedily change what it controls.) The ring rotates with firm, pleasing clicks so it’s easy to select settings accurately and it makes using the camera quite fun. The opposite can be said about the Control Dial around the directional pad on back. This dial works in tandem with the Control Ring to change settings quickly. For most of the shooting modes, it defaults to exposure compensation; however, in Scene mode, it changes the scene type you’re using. However, it moves much too freely and can result in accidental changes. Otherwise, the combination of the two rings is great and makes for swifter changes than you’ll get on other compact cameras.

On top of the body is a small flash that automatically pops up and retracts when turned on and off. The S90 is also compatible with Canon’s add-on HF-DC1 flash unit. There are mini-HDMI and USB/AV outputs under covers on the right camera’s right side. And, well, the rest of the design is similar to the majority of Canon’s PowerShot lineup. The buttons are nearly flush with the body and everything’s packed close together, which might upset some users.

There are no less than 25 shooting modes available on the S90. The bulk of these are specialty scene modes; 17 in all and none of them are out of the ordinary for PowerShot models. There is also an Auto mode that is pretty much Canon’s reliable scene-recognizing Smart Auto feature. There is a Low Light mode that drops the resolution to 1,824×1,368 pixels (2.5 megapixels), but allows for a sensitivity of ISO 12,800. A VGA-quality movie mode is on the dial as well, so HD fans are out of luck. Plus, you can’t use the optical zoom while recording, not that there’s a lot there to use.

The remaining shooting modes put more and more settings under your control: Program AE, Shutter priority, Aperture priority, Manual, and Custom. The last mode lets you assign a frequently used set of shooting options and settings to the C position on the mode dial. To go with it, you can register up to five commonly used menu items to a My Menu tab in the main-menu system.

Other advanced options include exposure bracketing and focus bracketing that will take one photo at a manual focus position and then one each at preset positions nearer and farther; manual white balance correction; and raw or raw plus JPEG capture. There are 45 shutter speeds from 15 seconds to 1/1,600 of a second and 14 aperture values–f2 through f8. You also get a selectable range of 17 ISOs between ISO 80 and ISO 3,200. The amount of tweaking available is great for a compact camera and the control layout makes it reasonably fast and painless.

Performance is the weakest aspect of the S90, and, overall, it’s not that bad. It’s just that if you’re expecting the fast performance of a digital SLR, you’ll be disappointed. From powered off to first shot is 1.8 seconds and it’s the same from shot-to-shot when shooting in high-quality JPEG; shooting raw the time extends to 3.4 seconds. Continuous shooting and saving in JPEG is about 1 frame per second. The S90’s shutter lag is likely to be the sticking point for some because it’s really no better than an average point-and-shoot: 0.5 second to focus and capture in bright conditions. The good thing is that it’s nearly the same in low-light conditions at 0.6 second.

The S90’s photo quality is impressive for a compact camera. However, like most of Canon’s PowerShot line, ISO 400 is about the limit before you start seeing softening of fine detail. On the other hand, its photos have minimal noise and its noise suppression isn’t heavy to the point of destroying all detail until ISO 3,200. The S90 lives up to Canon’s improved low-light performance claims. Its colors are also consistent through to ISO 1,600 so usable photos at small print sizes are possible.

The lens is sharp and consistent from edge to edge. There’s a small amount of barrel distortion at the camera’s widest 28mm-equivalent position. The zoom is short on this camera–3.8x–so there was no reason to expect to find any pincushion distortion and there wasn’t any. What was visible was some chromatic aberration that was a below average amount in high-contrast situations where you expect to see it, but it’s noticeable in prints of 8×10 inches or larger (especially if you’re sensitive to seeing it). Its color quality was excellent for coming from the little compact. Also, exposure and white balance were also generally very good from the S90, though as typical from pocket cameras there was highlight clipping.

Canon markets the PowerShot S90 as “the perfect everyday camera for people who are serious about great photography.” This is close to on point, though I would change it to perfect everyday compact camera. The lens, controls, and shooting options make it a fine choice for enthusiasts. The S90’s photo quality is on par with the best PowerShots, too, which is to say generally excellent. However, the S90s performance makes it best suited for portraits, landscapes, and the like–but not for fast-moving subjects.