Canon PowerShot SD900
Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
Edited by: Lori Grunin
Reviewed on 10/5/06
The 10-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD900 manages to be stylish without being inconvenient or awkward. Its sturdy metal body, an attractive matte-gray with black accents, is smooth and slightly curvy, and at 6.7 ounces and 1.1 inches thick, it’s just the right size to fit into a jacket pocket. All the controls are on the camera’s right side, so nearly every button is within thumb’s reach for comfortable one-handed use. A 2.5-inch LCD screen takes up most of the camera’s remaining back panel but leaves enough room for an optical viewfinder. The viewfinder is small and awkward, but it provides a welcome alternative to the LCD.
While the SD900 is heavy on style, like most of the SD series, it’s pretty light on features. You can adjust the white balance, the exposure compensation, the ISO sensitivity, and the metering settings, but in true point-and-shoot fashion, most shooting happens with the camera in automatic mode or through its handful of scene presets. It offers 30fps VGA movie capture or XGA (1,024×768) movies at 15fps. (more…)
March 4th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot A550
Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
Reviewed on 2/12/07
Canon’s PowerShot A550 is a simple, inexpensive 7-megapixel camera, and that’s all it wants to be. While it has some nice features, it doesn’t offer any outstanding, unique aspects that put it above any other camera in the field, and that’s just fine. Good performance and solid images are all a camera needs to succeed, and the A550 delivers just that.
Though not quite small enough to slip into your jeans, the A550 is still comfortably compact. At 7.4 ounces and 1.7 inches thick, the camera can fit easily into most jacket pockets and bags. The camera’s body has an L-shaped design found on most of Canon’s PowerShot A series, giving it a generous grip. The buttons are large and comfortable, and they’re laid out logically along the back and the top of the camera. (more…)
March 3rd, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot A560
Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
Reviewed on 3/14/07
Canon’s PowerShot A560 is a suitable big brother to the company’s lower-end A550. Both models sport the same chunky-but-comfortable design, 7-megapixel sensor, and 4X optical zoom lens. The A560 distinguishes itself from the A550 (and justifies its slightly higher price) with a larger LCD screen, a higher maximum ISO, and a couple of other features made possible by its upgraded Digic III processor chip. The A550 has Canon’s older Digic II chip. You’ll have to decide if these differences are important to you, but the fact remains that the A560 is a solid, inexpensive snapshot camera. (more…)
March 2nd, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot A570 IS
Reviewed by: Philip Ryan
Reviewed on 3/21/07
As the least expensive Canon camera to include optical image stabilization, the PowerShot A570 IS will no doubt receive a lot of attention this year. Its 7.1 megapixel CCD sensor and 2.5-inch LCD aren’t remarkable among the current crop of compacts, but its 4X optical zoom lens provides a bit more reach than the usual 3X lenses that continue to dot the competitive landscape. While we would’ve liked to see Canon go wide, the lens covers a 35mm equivalent of 35mm to 140mm. While this isn’t as versatile for group portraits, or the close quarter situations that most average snapshooters find themselves in, larger, longer zoom numbers still tend to sell better. If image stabilization doesn’t float your boat and you never use manual exposure controls, you may want to step down to the A560, which is otherwise very similar to this model. (more…)
March 1st, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Reviewed by: Philip Ryan
Reviewed on 6/5/07
Canon’s SD series, also known as the Digital Elph line, is an exercise in slow evolution. Since the company has hit on a very successful design, these compact point-and-shoots typically see only minor tweaks from year to year. This year’s follow-up to the popular SD700 IS is the new PowerShot SD850 IS. The main differences between the two include a jump up to 8.3 megapixels (from 6.2 megapixels) and the new Digic III image processor, which brings with it face detection and a higher top sensitivity of ISO 1,600 (up from ISO 800). The SD850 sports nearly everything you’d want in a point-and-shoot. (more…)
February 29th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot SD870 IS
Reviewed by: Philip Ryan
Reviewed on 8/29/07
Each fall a barrage of new cameras hits the market, anticipating the year-end holidays. This year’s batch of Canons includes the PowerShot SD870 IS. From its model number, you might think that it’s a follow-up to the SD850 IS, but with its wider-than-normal, 28mm-to-105mm, f/2.8-to-f/5.8, 3.8x optical zoom lens, it’s really more of a successor to the SD800 IS. Aside from a step up to an 8.3-megapixel CCD sensor, a larger 3-inch, 230,000-pixel LCD, and Canon’s new Digic III processor, there’s not much different in the SD870 IS other than some nice cosmetic enhancements. Along with the new processor comes Canon’s Advanced Face Detection, which can pick out up to nine faces in a frame and use the faces to set autofocus and exposure. (more…)
February 28th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot SD870 IS
Reviewed by: Philip Ryan
Reviewed on 8/29/07
Each fall a barrage of new cameras hits the market, anticipating the year-end holidays. This year’s batch of Canons includes the PowerShot SD870 IS. From its model number, you might think that it’s a follow-up to the SD850 IS, but with its wider-than-normal, 28mm-to-105mm, f/2.8-to-f/5.8, 3.8x optical zoom lens, it’s really more of a successor to the SD800 IS. Aside from a step up to an 8.3-megapixel CCD sensor, a larger 3-inch, 230,000-pixel LCD, and Canon’s new Digic III processor, there’s not much different in the SD870 IS other than some nice cosmetic enhancements. Along with the new processor comes Canon’s Advanced Face Detection, which can pick out up to nine faces in a frame and use the faces to set autofocus and exposure. (more…)
February 28th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot TX1
Reviewed by: Philip Ryan
Reviewed on 4/11/07
Every now and again, a company will make a product just to turn some heads; sometimes this is called a statement piece. Usually these products sport unusual designs and fantastical feature sets. With its PowerShot TX1, which includes a 10x optical zoom lens, 7.1 megapixel CCD sensor, optical image stabilization, face detection, and the capability to record high-definition 1,280×720-pixel video at 30 frames per second, Canon was definitely trying to make a statement. However, the camera’s vertical design makes it so difficult to use, we wish they wouldn’t have blurted it out so quickly. (more…)
February 27th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot A720 IS
Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
Reviewed on 9/12/07
Canon knows not to fix what isn’t broken. Last year’s PowerShot A710 IS impressed us with its broad suite of features, solid design, and good value. The 8-megapixel PowerShot A720 IS does little to change that formula, sticking very close to the path traveled by the A710 IS.
Save for a few internal upgrades, the A720 IS stands nearly identical to its predecessor. Both cameras share the same 35-210mm equivalent, f/2.8-4.8 lens, the same optical image stabilization, and the same 2.5-inch LCD screen. The A720 IS even shares its predecessor’s physical design, right down to the placement of the buttons. The A710 IS’ grip featured a rubberized texture that this new version lacks, but otherwise you would be hard-pressed to distinguish between these two cameras at a glance. (more…)
February 27th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
Canon PowerShot SD950 IS
Reviewed by: Philip Ryan
Reviewed on 9/19/07
Sometimes, when we find ourselves running full speed forward toward what we think is the pinnacle of achievement, we suddenly realize that we’ve flown closer to the sun than our wings can stand. In the current state of market-driven capitalism, we do this constantly, but luckily, our high-flying, boundary-pushing experiments don’t often come with long-term catastrophic results–instead they push technology forward. Canon’s PowerShot SD950 IS, with its limit-pushing 12.1-megapixel CCD sensor certainly does its part to advance technology in digital cameras, and along with its attractive titanium body and 3.7x optical-zoom lens should appeal to people who absolutely have to have more pixels than the neighbors. However, the SD950 IS’s surfeit of pixels comes at the cost of performance speed. (more…)
February 27th, 2008 - Posted in Canon Digital Cameras | | 0 Comments
