Canon SD1000 Review

Small, fashionable digital cameras that make great accessories and deliver mediocre to poor performance is growing out of style, thanks to Canon’s slew of high-powered, compact digital cameras. One such product is the Powershot SD1000, a highly capable, fast, simple, and powerful device that you can find a lot of uses for.

You’ll find that the SD1000 has a glass 3X optical zoom capable of f2.8-4.9, 5.8mm-17.4mm (35-105mm – 35mm equivalent). Switch on the camera, and the lens extends outwards; turn it off, and the lens retracts. Don’t worry about damage; there’s a built-in lens cover that slides out in front.

Good news is that the camera’s zoom operation works fast and smooth. There’s a bit of barrel distortion in the zoom, but the issues seem minor, that plus the softness in the corners, and some pin cushioning at full telephoto. The minimum focusing distance is at 1.2 inches in macro mode, which makes for great close up pictures of still lifes, and minute flora and fauna.

You get a 2.5” LCD screen in 230,000 pixels at the rear, which shows sharply accurate hues in the images. The LCD screen reveals the full image frame and performance is good in with outdoor lighting. The display information on the LCD tells you everything you need to know, including details on exposure compensation setting, shooting mode, ISO setting, white balance setting, flash setting, light metering, and resolution/compression data.

The SD1000’s AF system uses Canon's 9 focus point Contrast Detection AiAF (Advanced Intelligent Auto Focus). It works like this: compose a scene, and the AiAF system automatically analyzes it to calculate camera to subject distance. Then it will determine which of the 9 AF points is closest to the primary subject, which the camera will then choose for you. If you want to manually choose a specific AF focus point, you can, or use Canon's Face Detection AF.

Talking about the Face Detection AF/AE/FE function, this camera can recognize and focus on multiple faces in the image frame. All you have to do is push the shutter button half-way. This will allow the processor to optimize focus and flash automatically. Take note though, that the Face Detection AF works when your subject is facing the camera. You can turn off this function if you’re working on panoramic landscapes or portraits with a classical touch.

As for memory, you can use an SD/SDHC/MMC memory media to save those precious pics. SD1000 makes use of a 32MB SD card included in the bundle. You also get a built-in multi mode flash with options including: On, Auto, Slow Synch, Red-Eye Reduction, and off. The camera has an optional HF-DC1 auto flash that can extend up to a range of 30 feet. You can recycle the built-in flash between 7 to 10 seconds, depending on the status of your battery.

Pros: The SD1000's (default) evaluative metering system is dependably accurate in all but the most challenging lighting; casual shooters won’t have to worry about metering at all. Useful movie-making function: edit movies in Playback mode, previewand save either or both the edited video clip or the original. There’s a voice-notation mode up to 60 seconds for voice notations.

Cons: The optical viewfinder is too small for comfort, and difficult to use when composing an image. If you’re visually challenged, or wearing glasses, you may find this feature useless. The diopter correction is noticeably missing in this camera. In this case, you’d have to use the LCD screen as your primary viewfinder – which shouldn’t be a problem, except that optical viewfinders make for better composition tools, as they narrow your field of view. By the way, there’s no manual focus capability either. Battery life is not so impressive while ISO 1600 images are quite noisy.

Overall: Easy and simple to us, in an out-of-the-box way. This is a great find if you belong to the user set that likes to snap pictures on the run. It’s compact, stylish, quick, and operates under the simplicity of point and shoot rules. Better yet, expect to come out with great results.

Attached Images

Canon_SD1000.jpg (40.1 KB, 0 views)