Digital Camera Canon Powershot Review

I have owned several Canon A series, Canon SD series, the Canon S series and also the S2/S3 IS. So here's the skinny as an amateur user.

If you don't want to read the long review, here's the summary. Buy the SD1000 if you are looking for the tiniest camera that you can take everywhere. It takes good shots indoors given its tiny size and fabulous shots outdoors.

If smallness is not your top priority then you should consider some other Canon cameras which may work better for you (including others from the SD Series).

A series - The A series is best for you if you're looking for a low cost camera that gives you a wide range of features, many manual controls and great image quality. Although, the size is bigger than SD series making it a jacket-pocket camera, the advantage is in the styling. It gives you a convenient grip on the side which helps hold the camera steady and results in less "blurry" pictures. The mode selector dial on top helps you zip through selections. The convenience of AA batteries which are available in every corner of the world, no missing out on pictures as your battery was discharged, might be a selling point for those who travel a lot.
{Update 11/10/07: Canon launched many new A series cameras in August 2007 with Image Stabilization and improved zoom. The 7.1 MP A570 IS with 4X zoom is cheaper than this SD1000. You may want to consider it seriously if you don't care so much about the slightly large the size and increased weight.}

The S3 to S5 IS series cameras have a great image sensor, the wonderful image stabilization, a great zoom, and super macro function that can produce never before pictures. The flip out screen helps take shots from angles you've never considered before. The videos mode of the S series is also better with stereo sound and a sharp picture. The cameras in this series are also just a little more expensive and pretty bulky. If taking great pictures is all you care about and do not mind carrying a big camera, the S series will be a great choice. It's the first step towards a real professional camera.

And finally (drumroll) - the SD series. Small. Cute.

The SD 1000 slips into your shirt front pocket without making it sag. If you're wondering about the style, the square "retro" design is boxy but I like it better as it is very compact. It also does not slip out from my fingers as easily as the curved edge ones.

Since the cameras in SD series are so small some features like different shooting modes are accessible only through the menu which makes changing between them more cumbersome. Sometimes I've just preferred to stay on Auto rather than missing the shot while I navigated to the right mode. SD series cameras also have less manual or user defined controls like flash power reduction which I miss. The flash incidentally, can get very strong in lower light or indoor situations and often bleaches out color from people's faces. If you turn off the flash then you have to use a tripod or have the camera on a flat surface to prevent shaky pictures. I also find that the smallness and lightness of SD series makes my hand shake more than when I'm holding the A series camera with the side grip. I get more fuzzy pics with the SD series than my A series (comparing the models without Image Stabilization) and it's annoying to see the camera-shake warning each time on the screen I am trying to take a shot. I also get a little more red eye with this series probably because the flash is so close to the lens. On the SD 1000 however, there is a red eye correction feature so you can remove red eye right on the camera. The other improvement over the previous SD series is the automatic face detection which helps reduce the flash glare on faces so pictures come out better.

Having used many Canons, although I prefer some other models for their pictures, guess which camera travels with me most often. My SD1000. Just because it's small and fits into my tiny party purse or jeans pocket. Canon recently launched some SD series cameras with Image Stabilization like SD850 IS which is slightly more expensive and a bit bigger and heavier than the SD1000. I'd probably never take it along with me on daily basis and would miss some great photo ops...Many of my friends bought the SD1000 camera after seeing the size of my camera vs. its range of features (and the reasonable price!)

And what about some other Canon features? (If you're a regular Canon user skip reading this section, as you already know all this good stuff.):
- It has an intelligent focusing system with DIGIC III (up from DIGIC II earlier) auto red eye correction and face detection (see above).

- Goes up to ISO 1600 which improves it's low light performance. Although beware of camera shake if you turn off flash in low light. In my opinion, Canon has always out-performed all other consumer cameras in outdoor pics. For indoor low-light pics you'll have to turn on the flash or end up with grainy images. However, compared to other brands in the same class the SD1000 still takes pretty sharp pictures.

- SD card slot - cheap to buy 2GB cards.

-Photo-stitch - For stitching together panoramic views. I have shot countless seascapes, 'bridge'scapes, and landscapes from all my Canons using this function and stitching together 6-10 shots in one. It's easy.

-Macro mode - Great for close ups of babies or product shots

- The SCN mode (special scenes)- Fireworks, Beach, Snow, kids and pets, Underwater, Foliage, Aquarium and Indoor is great. Now even amateurs can use Canon experience to get the best shot quickly before they miss the photo opportunity while trying to set manual controls.

-"My colors" option - Allows you to choose a color you want to highlight in a picture or even darken and lighten skin tones. Color Accent allows you to capture only a particular color in a shot while the rest of the picture is black and white. I did a black and white Christmas group portrait with only the Santa hats, ornaments and poinsettias in red color. Or with Color Swap you can swap out one color with the other, like change your car or (or hair color!)- red to blue. The possibilities are endless, even my kid loves to use the color accent feature as it's really easy.

-Special effects (B/W, Sepia, Vivid, Nuetral etc.) I've used sepia a lot when taking portraits giving them an 'old world' feel. Vivid has been helpful in special situations like a red kite against a blue sky to bring out the colors. You can do all this in Photoshop later but how many of us actually get the time to do this, once a pic is taken it's over with for me!

-You can also take videos in 3 different resolutions with this camera and edit them right on the camera.

-You can create a slide show of all the images you took on the camera itself with fancy transition effects of your choice, it adds to the fun when you hook it up to a TV to view your pics.

-The zoom button shows one or many images at a time in the replay mode and you can zoom into each individual image to see parts of it closely. You can also add sound bites to your shots to remember a location.

- While replaying, the images auto-rotate to landscape or portrait mode to align with how you're holding the camera. It's a nice feature. The screen has been made more durable than it was earlier with an anti-reflective coating.

All in all, if you want a small and sexy yet very feature rich camera go for the SD1000, you'll find yourself using it more often than your previous cameras.

I did all sorts of research on the SD600. I had made up my mind that the SD600 was the camera for me. The SD1000 is the newer kid on the block and therefore did not have many reviews. And that is why I am here today. The SD1000 is the newest version of the SD600 with a few additions. Those few additions make this camera AWESOME. I love the ISO choices. I was zooming on my local Calif. freeways at around 80mph and decided to take a few shots of passing signs out my passenger window. At the high speed the ISO caught such great detail that I could clearly read the sign later at home. That means that despite the small size the camera filtered out the shake of my hand, the shake from the road, and compensated for the fast movement. The color options are very much the same as other Canon Powershot models. MACRO is so much fun to play with on this camera. The button layout is easy to figure out. Lighting options like White balance are a button push away. With the Face Detection option on you are sure to get a great photo of the family. I have been playing with it none stop for over a week. Get at least a gig for memory. The only downside that I have found, and it is a minor one, is that when the battery warning comes on it means that you have 1-2 more pics and then it shuts off. I ordered another battery ahead of time and it was worth it. The batteries charge in about 30-40mins. This is a great camera. If you are thinking about the SD600 step up and get the SD1000. You will not be disappointed with it.

Great camera, just chosen as editor's choice by PC mag as well.
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I have it for about 3 weeks now, couple of family parties later I am really happy with this little one. Fits even in tight jeans pockets, and is quick to take pictures. Face recognition works really well, not flawless, but really amazing. I took about 300 shots so far and they are mostly great quality, some indoor pictures without the flash are a bit blurry, if you don't hold it steady.

My 4 year old niece was running around with it and took nice shots just on her own with the automatic setting, pretty amazing. Flash can be a bit strong when to close indoors. It takes fast pictures and is very easy to understand. I still have to read the manual, though. ;-)

I added a fast 2GB card and even the video quality is pretty good, althought just avi format, not mpg. Sound is great. It even has a speaker when you play the video for review. Outside pictures are outstanding quality. I had some outside self-timer family pictures enlarged at the store to 20-30cm, and the picture quality is awesome. Highly recommended when you want a camera you can carry with you at ALL times!

I really wanted to like this camera. I've been a fan and user of Canon's Digital Elph cameras since I got my first one (S110). Since then I've upgraded a couple of times, first to an S500 then to an SD450 and I was looking forward to the SD1000; more megapixels, higher ISO, the old retro look, and the new DIGIC III. At first, having received the camera, I was very pleased. The look and feel of the camera is great, the form factor is great, but reviewing some of the first actual shots out of the camera was very disappointing. They were all very grainy. None had the sharpness of the pictures from my old Digital Elph cameras, even the ones shot at ISO80. I proceeded taking more pictures trying all kind of different settings, not wanting to accept that Canon possibly had taken a step backwards with this newest version of the Elph camera, but at the end of the day, I had to admit it. This camera was not living up to my expectations, and I decided to return. It is possible, and I hope, that I got a bad lens or camera, but I am not so sure as I have seen other reviews on the Internet that describes my experience with the SD1000 model.

Canon all the way! I've had an s230, sd300, sd400, sd630. I really did not like the feel of the SD630 very much after living with it for a while. I also didn't like the button placements..was not comfortable with it. It DID take great pics and video. BUT, I moved to the SD1000 (black), have had it one week and love it!

Of all the Canon point-and-shoot digitals, this is my favorite. It is tiny and so pocketable. A pleasure to use. The switches and buttons are where they should be and feel good. The screen is 2.5 so people who want 3.0 need to go to the SD750 which is basically the SD630's replacement with the Digic III processor. Same form factor.

If you liked the SD200, SD300, SD400, SD450 or SD600, you will love this!

My only reservation is how great ARE the pics from this little camera. I'm sure they are excellent but the jury is out on how good they are compared to earlier Canons. I like vivid pics so I may have to set the camera to vivid.

Got a good deal at Amazon.

I usually don't take the time to review any items, but I'm just so impressed by quality of this camera. When compared to other ultra-compact cameras from Canon or other brands, this one should be the obvious choice.
I started off with a Canon PowerShot S100 back in the days, then "upgraded" to a Sony P51 (the one with the dreaded black LCD problem), the P200, and Casio Exilim Z60 (which takes great daylight photos but notoriously bad low-light shots). (I also have a Sony Ericsson K800i 3.2MP camera phone.) Recently I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX12 which boasted Panasonic's "reknowned" MEGA Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) technology, but I returned it because its low-light images still came out blurry anyway (even with flash!). OIS is useless if the autofocus just plain sucks. Then I got myself an SD850 IS, but then I returned that because I could not justify the price tag. I took a gamble and went for the SD1000 because it is almost the same exact camera, just thinner and without OIS. It's also $130 cheaper. My brother got himself the SD750K, which I have played with extensively. I think I prefer the models without OIS because they usually come .2 inches thinner. This camera is only 0.8 inches thick, compared to the 1 inch thickness on any model w/ OIS.

First and foremost, you must realize that almost every camera will take at least a decent picture in perfect lighting (daylight), so the true test of a camera's image quality lies in its night and low-light shots. That said, the image quality of photos taken from the SD1000 is consistently beautiful, in good or bad lighting. Good color balance & auto white balance, strong low-light performance, and a very smart flash that doesn't cause too much glare. You can enable "Slow Synchro" if you're old fashioned and want to slow down the shutter speed to expose more of the background in night shots, but I personally don't use it. Many cameras today will blast the flash too strongly; others too weakly.

I shoot most of my pictures at ISO 200 or under, so image noise is very low (almost non-existent at ISO 80). I really would not recommend shooting anything at ISO 1600 because they are really terrible. Even when resized to 640x480 they are bad. Even ISO 800 is pushing it. Other than that, images come out sharp and detailed even when zoomed in to native resolution, though low-light pictures will always be of reduced quality.

Once in a while you will get a blurry picture from this camera, but it's almost always because of user error. Either it's because I have shaky hands, or I didn't have choose good settings for the situation.

It is a super tiny camera (0.8 inches thick) with a nice boxy feeling. It feels much nicer and intuitive than those so-called "ergonomic" curvy cameras. It has the best mode switcher in any camera--a simple loose slider that switches from camera, video camera, and playback. Very nifty! Durability-wise, it feels solid.

The button layout is great, though I feel it's missing a button. It would be nice to have a dedicated button to change EV compensation (Yes, you can use the programmable button to do this but I have it programmed to record video instantly).

There is no Optical Image Stabilization on this baby, but then again that feature is overrated and overhyped anyway. It's really only useful in low-light situations--and even then, only if you do not want to use the flash. Most people will use flash in most low-light situations anyway, so why do you even need image stabilization?

You can change ISO manually (with a simple press of the UP key) and even shutter speed (15 seconds is the slowest you can get). The only thing you can't set manually is the f-stop/aperture setting. Very few (if any) ultracompact cameras will let you adjust these.

The optical viewfinder is tiny and annoying to use, but hey at least it HAS a viewfinder. Using the viewfinder has three main benefits: (1) it's much more battery-efficient, (2) it stabilizes the camera by holding it against your face, and (3) it is usable in bright areas where the LCD might be washed out. Many ultracompact digicams today are completely reliant on the LCD screen, like the PowerShot SD750. One more thing: note that while the SD750 has a 3" screen, it still has the same pixel resolution (230,000 pixels) as the SD1000.

And last of all, compatibility with Windows XP is excellent. I have it set up so that plugging in the USB cable to the camera (it's always plugged into the computer) will automatically create a dated folder, copy all of the files in the camera into that folder, and delete them off the camera. I don't even have to do anything except click OK. I don't bother with card readers.

UPDATE - 2008-06-09
After owning this camera for almost over a year, learning a LOT more about photography, and being about 50 shots shy of 10,000 shots, I am lowering this camera down to 4/5 stars. Unfortunately, Amazon will not allow me to change my original star rating.

So here are some of the annoyances I've had to deal with:

I take back what I said about IS: it is a very important function when you need to take pictures at slower shutter speeds. I am deathly afraid to take any shot slower than 1/20s because it will almost always be blurry (unless I have a tripod).

Limited flash range - if you're too close, the picture will get lots of glare, if you're too far, everything will just look dark. The sweetspot range is quite small. Also, the flash is too close to the lens, which means tons of red-eye, despite "red eye" flash mode.

Dynamic range capabilities are quite weak (due to high megapixels on a tiny 1/2.5" sensor): highlight and shadow clipping galore. For example, when you take a picture of a bright lit object in a dark room, the object will appear very white and glary, while the rest of the room will look darker than it should. This camera should've had 5 MP at MOST.

Aperture setting seems to be directly linked to the zoom. The camera will automatically set a smaller aperture when zooming in, and maximum aperture when zooming out.

Camera body is made of cheap plastic. While I was using a tripod, the bottom of the camera became dislodged, disabling the LCD. It was still able to take pictures and record. However, Canon's RMA process is very fast and professional, and I got my camera back within about 4 days free of charge.

That said, Canon seems to make VERY sharp lenses compared to other manufacturers, but there is a little bit of barrel distortion on this particular one. It's not a big deal if you take a step back for your shot. However, I would have liked a wide angle lens. Also, the DIGIC III processor probably the biggest redeeming factor to this camera - it is fast and efficient.

PS: There is a "firmware" hack (Google: CHDK) for many Canon cameras, including the SD1000, that allows you to do manual controls and custom scripts. It's not really a firmware hack because it does not change the actual camera firmware, and it can be switched off at any time.

I recently purchased the SD 1000 to replace a Nikon Coolpix E5600. The SD 1000 has a very appealing design (depending upon your taste of course but in any case, it doesn't look cheap) and as you can see from pictures posted on this site, it is small and very pocketable. The SD series is all about small form factor and lack of full manual controls (as offered on some of the A series cameras) but good point and shoot capabilities. In this regard, the SD 1000 delivers what the rest of the SD series promises. Fast and accurate focusing, face detection that really works (and I mean good face exposure and not just detection), very fast response with almost unnoticeable shutter lag; surprisingly fast burst mode (even with a slow SD card), accurate color and many other features mentioned by other reviewers. As I said, I wasn't expecting full manual controls as the small size was more important for me (I already own a Digital Rebel). You do get control over the ISO settings and the white balance. The first is particularly important which takes me to the aspect that I don't like about this camera. Being a 7.1 megapixel camera, I expected some noise, but not as much as I got with the Auto ISO setting and no flash (available light) indoors. Believe me when I say that indoor pictures with these settings are VERY noisy. You can avoid this by lowering the ISO setting to 200 or less. But then, the lens is so slow that camera shake becomes an issue, making it almost impossible to take a good picture with available light under low lighting conditions. ISO settings higher than 200 are pretty much worthless because of the high noise levels (even higher than my horrible Coolpix). This is a shame as this camera is very good under good lighting conditions. I guess I will just have to use the flash indoors or carry my D-SLR. I don't recommend this camera as your sole travel companion (you never know when you're going to be in a situation where flash can't be used) or if you expect to shoot a lot indoors with no flash. I still like overall performance and small form factor so I give it four stars.

I wouldn't consider myself an avid photographer. In fact this camera has many bells and whistles that I will likely never use. But as a simple point-and-shoot auto-focus camera, this one is excellent. I had been looking for a camera with a quick shutter that would help me catch those precious moments with my kids that my other digital always seemed to miss. This one is fantastic. Takes beautiful crisp photos, and does so one after another so that I feel like I never miss a shot.

I bought this camera as a second camera to keep around for quick shots & easy travel photos. I like the size & feel of it as well as the optical viewfinder. I didn't realize that so many small cameras were eliminating the viewfinder but since most of my shots are outside in full sun (vacation shots), I know how faint an LCD can be. I'm happy with the print quality, even on auto. It was very easy to figure out & the onboard info is quite useful. The software on the CD is superfluous for me & clashes with my Kodak software for my other camera, so I just use my card reader & my usual photo editing programs. I purchased an extra battery & I was glad I did, since the battery ran out just about at 300 photos. I popped in the spare & kept shooting. The camera turns on very quickly & controls are easily found without searching for them (zoom, review, flash, etc.). I also thought shutter lag was much better than I expected after my last camera & the burst mode came in handy several times. Buy a couple of 1GB cards & a little Samsonite case at Walmart - it's perfect. The case is only a few dollars & is worth it if you're in an amusement park! Nice camera for its size & price!

This replaces my 2.1MP Digital Elph that I use when I don't want to carry my big SLR (Digital Rebel XT with L series lens).

Positive:
Instant start-up, menu navigation and zoom
Screen quality comparable to video iPod
Comfortable and intuitive button placement
Strong flash (for camera size)
Modern/traditional camera aesthetics (great looking)
Acceptable battery life
Camera operation was obviously well thought out
Low price for what you get

Negative:
Poor low-light shooting without flash
Lots of noise at ISO more than 200
No image stabilization
Zoom ring spring a little too strong
Plastic battery door

This is a perfect pocket camera if you care more about ease-of-use, aesthetics, size, and price than trying to capture a print-worthy photo. Overall I'm very pleased with this camera, but only because I have a SLR to capture important moments/places. Think great MySpace photos rather than great family Christmas cards.