yusakugo's Full Review: Canon PowerShot® SD800 IS / IXUS 850 IS Digit...
Decisions... decisions... I am unsure whether to keep my SD700 IS and return the SD800 or keep the SD800 and sell the SD700. Playing with the SD800 for a week hasn't made the choice much clearer either.
The SD800 has some obvious improvements over the SD700. These include the new DIGIC III processor which makes the SD800 a smidgen faster than the SD700, the wide angle lens, better movie modes, face detection AF, ISO up to 1600, slightly improved battery life, and SDHC memory card support. You also get the very minor improvement of 7.1 Megapixels versus the 6MP on the SD700. However, there are a few areas that the SD700 still does a bit better than the SD800.
Regardless, the SD800 is an overall excellent camera and is more of a tweak of the SD700 IS it succeeds. However, the use of a wide angle lens does change some of the properties of the camera to a certain degree.
Short Take
Taken on its own, the SD800 IS is an excellent compact camera that lives up to the Canon Digital Elph name. It takes most of what was good about the SD700 IS and slightly tweaks most of these features. The only major additions to the SD800 are the DIGIC III processor, wide angle lens, 4GB movie file size limit, and ISO 1600. However, the additions don't always add much to the camera. The ISO 800 is slightly better than that on the SD700 and the ISO 1600 shots are nearly unusable even for small prints. The DIGIC III processor slightly increases the battery life, adds the neat face detection AF, and makes the camera slightly faster than the SD700. The increased movie file size limit allows about a 35 minute VGA movie to be recorded if you were interested in the movie mode. The wide angle lens increases your flexibility with indoor shots but the same lens adds some distortion last seen in the S70 and S80... and can be evident in landscaping shots.
The SD800 has quite a bit going for it. 7.1MP sensor, 3.8x optical zoom, 2.5 inch LCD screen with increased resolution, image stabilization, improved movie mode, sturdy yet stylish casing, and a price drop to $100 less than the introductory price of the SD700 about 8 months ago.
The SD800 also retains many of the weaknesses of the SD700 and the digital Elph line. The issues of redeye remain. Battery life still remains short despite the improvements made possible by the DIGIC III processor. The price tag still remains a bit on the high side given the various competition from other camera makers and even Canon's other models... there are a ton of cameras in the $399 or less range... and many of these are quality cameras!
If you value compactness, ease of use, an excellent albeit short movie record capabilities, and don't mind the lack of manual controls, the SD800 is a no brainer.
Specs
The SD800 retains nearly the same dimensions as the SD700 at 3.52 x 2.28 x 0.99 in. / 89.5 x 58.0 x 25.1mm and weighing 5.29 oz. (without battery) which is lighter than the SD700. The SD800 loses the primarily two tone color scheme of the SD700 and sticks strictly to a light silvery grey... to tell the truth, the black and silver coloration of the SD700 made the camera look more appealing. The overall shape is similar to the SD700 with the perpetual curve design elements introduced back in the SD550. On a side note, the Elph is celebrating its 10th anniversary (the first film based Elph was introduced in 1996, the first digital Elph was introduced in 2000). Ok... back to the matter at hand, the outer casing is made of stainless steel surrounding a polycarbonate body giving the SD800 a very solid feel. The size and shape make the SD800 easy to hold and control in one hand.
The front of the unit holds the lens with built-in lens cover, the flash, optical viewfinder, and AF assist lamp. The right side holds the eyelet for the included camera strap and the plastic cover to the A/V output port and the mini-USB port (it was a rubber cover with a plastic overlay on the SD700). The bottom of the camera holds the cover to the battery and SD card slot (there is a rubber cover with on the slot for the optional AC adapter) and the tripod mount is located in the center (in respect to the lens) of the bottom of the camera which makes swapping of the battery or memory card impossible when mounted on a tripod. The top of the camera is quite different from the SD700 and holds the zoom ring with the shutter button in the center of the ring as well as the holes for the built-in microphone, monoaural speaker, and the power button (which is flush with the casing).
Now... the back of the camera holds the upgraded 2.5 inch color LCD capable of displaying 207,000 pixels. You have room for an optical viewfinder, several LED status lights, a mode dial, the four way controller with a central button, a direct print button, a display and menu button below the controller. The 4 way controller allows you to change ISO settings (up), flash mode (right), timer/continuous shot (down), and focus mode (left). The central button to the 4-way controller acts as the function/set button. The buttons are more circular than oval now... and I found them easier to press than the SD800. The size of the 4-way controller is still small and can be difficult to press. The mode dial is not partially obscured like in the SD700... going back to the design seen in the SD4xx, SD5xx, and SD6xx models. It is easier to turn than in the SD700 and does not feel as delicate.
Lens
The SD800 uses a wide-angle lens similar to the S70 and S80 that Canon rates as a 3.8x optical zoom. This F2.8-5.8 lens has a focal range of 4.6-17.3mm which is equivalent to 28-105mm in the 35mm format. This lens utilizes Canon's Ultra High Refractive Index Aspherical technology (UA) which allows for the longer zoom ratios in a compact body. When starting in display mode or powered down mode, the lens retracts fully into the body of the camera. There is a built in lens cap when in pure display mode or when the camera is powered down.
Note that the SD800 like the rest of the SD models does not indicate the zoom position and has doesn't have many zoom steps. The jump from 1x optical zoom to 4x optical zoom is extremely quick. The steps seem to be 0.5x.
SD800 Features
The SD800 does an above average job when in Auto mode for most situations... it especially excels with portraits and group photos where the face detection technology from the DIGIC III processor comes into play. Like the rest of the digital Elph line, there are only limited manual controls. If you desire more extensive manual controls in an ultracompact, there are other ultracompacts that have more extensive manual controls. The feature list includes:
Type: 7.1 Megapixel, 1/2.5 inch type Charge Coupled Device (CCD)
Total Pixels: Approx. 7.4 Megapixels
Effective Pixels: Approx. 7.1 Megapixels
Focus: TTL Autofocus
-Normal: 1.5 ft./45cm-infinity
-Macro: 1.2 in.-2.0 ft./3-60cm (WIDE), 1.0-2.0 ft./30-60cm (TELE)
-Digital Macro: 1.2 in.-2.0 ft./3-60cm (WIDE)
Metering: Evaluative, Center-weighted average, Spot Metering frame is fixed to the center
White Balance: Auto, Preset (Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H), Custom
ISO sensitivity: Auto, High ISO Auto, ISO 80/100/200/400/800/1600 equivalent
Exposure Control Method: Program AE, AE Lock is available
Exposure Compensation: +/-2 stops in 1/3-stop increments
Built-in Flash Modes: Auto, Auto w/ Red-Eye Reduction, Auto w/ Slow Synchro, Flash On, Flash On w/ Red-Eye Reduction, Flash On w/ Slow Synchro, Flash Off
Flash Exposure Compensation: none
Maximum Aperture: f/2.8 (W) - f/5.8 (T)
Shooting Modes: Auto, Camera M, Special Scene (Portrait, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Aquarium, Underwater, Indoor, Kids & Pets, Night Snapshot), Color Accent, Color Swap, Digital Macro, My Colors, Stitch Assist, Movie
Photo Effects (i.e. My Colors): Vivid, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Custom Color
Self-Timer: Activates shutter after an approx. 2-sec./10-sec. delay, Custom
Continuous Shooting: approx. 1.7 fps
DIGIC III
Basically, Canon put in a faster, more efficient, and more powerful processor. This gives the digital cameras equipped with it an extra boost. The SD800 can evaluate scenes quicker, focus faster, and adapt its settings faster than the SD700 can as per Canon. I'm not entirely sure about the faster part as that isn't easy to evaluate. It does seem to react faster in low light situations.
The additional power of the DIGIC III allows the new Face Detection AF/AE. This nifty feature will quickly focus on the faces in your shot... if you depress the shutter half-way, it will find all the faces in the frame (and it actually does) and set the most suitable focus point. It works surprising well and gives close to flawless portrait and group shots about every time.
The DIGIC III is supposed to be more power efficient. The battery life of the SD800 is slightly better than the SD700 but I'll get into that later.
The iSAPS technology used in Canon's digital cameras has also improved every year. iSAPS is a Canon developed scene-recognition technology. It consists of a database of thousands of different photos to help the camera find points of focus, accuracy, exposure levels, and white balance. This database grow larger with each new model Canon adds to their lineup. The DIGIC III faster processing should allow cameras like the SD800 to sift through this huge database at a faster rate leading to the improved speed of the camera.
Daily Photos Easy to Pull Off
The SD800 does at least as good a job as the SD700 in terms of color reproduction, sharpness, color saturation, detail retention, and crispness of the photos. It does show more softness in the corners than the SD700 that is likely due to the wide angle lens and is noted throughout the zoom range. There appears to be significant barrel distortion and loss of details in the corners of the shot at the wide end of the zoom compared to the SD700(the S70 and S80 I believe had similar issues since they used a similar wide angle lens. I still own a S70 and it seems more pronounced on the SD800 over similar shots on the S70.). This was not noted on the SD700. Pictures are slightly noisier and details slightly crisper which is likely due to the bump up to 7.1 MP from the 6MP on the SD700. Chromatic aberration is notable when significantly enlarging the photos but not in 4x6 and 5x7 prints. Noise is not an issue until you get to ISO 400 but at ISO 400, the noise is not really an issue. However, noise is an issue at ISO 800 and horrible at ISO 1600. ISO 800 showed a bit of improvement from the SD700 but I didn't feel the ISO 1600 was useful at this point even in excellent lighting conditions (although you wouldn't use high ISO settings in such conditions normally). Most of the shots were taken NYC in the 33rd street area and the Empire State Building as well as shots of friends in a portrait or group photos. The combination of the 9-point AF system and the face detection AF/AE produced excellent shots of people. The DIGIC III processor seemed to increase the reaction speed of the camera overall. Strangely enough, the SD800 photos seems to lean towards the cool side compared to the SD700 which seemed to lean towards the warm side in my opinion.
Overall, the SD800 is excellent for indoor shots, groups photos, and portraits although landscaping shots at the wide angle setting was not as good as the SD700 (probably due to the oddities of a compact wide angle lens). If you want to use the SD800 for landscaping photos though the wide angle zoom setting, you should look at reviews for several cameras to get a better idea especially if you're looking for an ultracompact.
The Long Night
You want to half-depress the shutter so the camera can set the focus for the best possible shot in low light and dark situations. Remember that halfway depressing the shutter allows utilization of the face detection AF/AE which greatly improves your low light and night shots on the SD800!
Red eye issues were seen in a large number of photos with the SD800 but were corrected with the use of the HF-DC1 external slave flash accessory. Even with the red eye reduction, you still got a significant amount of red eye in low light and night portrait and group shots without the HF-DC1 flash unit. Note that the built-in flash range is very limited and I did not notice any improvement from the SD700, so I wouldn't expect much after 10 feet as my shots of subjects past that were poorly illuminated by the built in flash. However, within the built-in flash range, photographed subjects had excellent sharpness, color accuracy, and color reproduction. Note the HF-DC1 extended the SD800 range to about 30 feet while maintaining the excellent photo quality.
Since I had shots of NYC skyline from Castle Point on the Hudson in Hoboken at night from my S3 and SD700, I used the same background for my night SD800 shots as well as portrait and group shots of friends and family. The shots of the NYC skyline were acceptable under the auto settings under the wide angle range of the zoom but could be better. There was a bit more purple fringing/chromatic aberration noted from the SD700 especially with brightly lit windows against the dark face of buildings. Using ISO modes under 200 introduced very little noise but it was more than the SD700. ISO 400 had a bit more noise but was acceptable for 5x7 and some shots were good for 8x10. ISO 800 performed better in some respects and worse in others than ISO 800 shots of the S3 and SD700 but were still rather noisy and at best usable for a small print (noise levels are higher overall than that in the SD700 and S3. SD700/S3 ISO 800 shots were more consistent from shot to shot versus SD800). I thought ISO 1600 was a bit too unrefined and needed PC postprocessing before printing... even then the shots were not that great. The image stabilization helped greatly with night photos especially at the maximum telephoto range of the zoom at night without a tripod (although using a tripod would be ideal!). Pictures in this setting had occassional blurring on the auto setting and maximum telephoto range but not much better than the SD700.
When taking portrait or group shots, the SD800 really shines especially if you halfway depress the shutter to activate the face detection AF/AE. Keeping lower ISO settings and withing the flash range yielded better and clearer results than the SD700. Exposure was more balanced than the SD700 and the wide angle lens was especially helpful for those group photos!
Any shots under low light and dark conditions of fast motion often were blurred if no adequate light source was nearby. It was difficult to use ISO settings above 800 since significant noise was introduced and there was significant loss of detail and fading of colors. Overall, low light and dark conditions were above average for a ultracompact digital camera and slightly better than the SD700.
Flash
No surprise that the flash is limited in range... just as expected for an ultracompact. As per Canon, the flash range:
Normal: 1.6-13 ft./50cm - 4.0m (W), 1.6-6.6 ft./50cm - 2.0m (T)
Macro: 1-1.6 ft./30-50cm (when sensitivity is set to ISO Auto)
Numerically, it is slightly better than the SD700. Realistically, I didn't notice any difference. At the wide angle setting, I would take group portraits further than 10 feet away. If you want longer flash ranges, the HF-DC1 external slave flash is a viable option. This also reduced the occurance of red eye.
Movie Mode
Due to the DIGIC III processor, the SD800 has a more powerful and overall flexible movie capture mode that surpasses previous Canon digital cameras with a movie record feature. You can not record movies up to a file size of 4GB which allows VGA movies at 30 frames/sec up to 30 minutes in size. It will not replace your camcorder for long events but it does give you a reasonable option now. Only the S3 has a potentially better movie record mode (the S3 can record in stereo sound but file size is limited to 1GB max. SD800 records in mono only but can make longer VGA movies). To record in VGA mode, you must use a high speed SD card. You can still stitch together 4GB files after the fact with the included Canon software to make much longer movies (and huge file sizes to boot... which is why a camcorder will still be the better option for movie enthusiasts.). Note that a blank DVD has a capacity of around 4.5GB, so your movie from a SD800 equals a 30-minute DVD.
You can also pick between 640x480 and 320x240 for movie image size and between 30 or 15 frames per second. You also can record at 60 fps at 320x240 pixels for up to a 1 minute in length. The SD700 can also record at 160x120 at 15 fps up to 3 minutes in length. Again, at 640x480 resolution at 30fps with a high speed SD card over 1GB in size, you get 7-8 minutes of video per 1GB.
The movies overall remain crisp and clear. They have excellent quality although you cannot use the optical zoom like in the S3. You do have access to the My Color features in movie record mode and you can delete from the ends of the movie (but not in the middle) on the SD800 itself. There is a built in speaker to listen to your playback but it remains a bit faint.
I still wish Canon could utilize a better video compression scheme so you can record longer movies into the limited card space. 4GB for 30 minutes of VGA video is a steep price to pay.
Viewfinder/LCD
The LCD gives you 99-100% framing while the optical viewfinder gives you about 85% framing.
The LCD is bright with a wide viewing angle and is very sharp... sharper than the SD700 screen. The display will brighten as the camera detects that it is in low light conditions. Photos viewed through the LCD will rotate accordingly as the camera position is changed so that picture is in the proper viewing position (i.e. if the camera is upside down, the viewed photo will display with the top side always up).
On Image Stabilization(IS)
Canon didn't tinker with this... that goodness, it already worked very well in the SD700. The camera has 4 modes for the IS: Off, Continuous, Shoot Only, and Panning. There is a marked difference when the IS is on versus the IS being turned off. You will notice the difference in your zoom shots with blurred images and a lack of detail in your photos with IS off and especially without use of a tripod. Heck, once you use a camera with IS, you will never buy a camera without it. It is that important.
Continuous mode has the IS on all the time. This puts a bigger drain on your batteries but tends to give you the most stable shots for most conditions. Shoot only activates the IS when the photo is taken. This saves a bit of battery power but I found it best if you have a fairly steady hand or have the camera on a tripod already. Panning mode is used mostly for making those large stitch panorama shots. It basically has the IS stabilize the vertical field and not the horizontal field.
Of course, the off setting increases your battery life.
Battery Life
The SD800 utilizes the same NB-5L battery as the SD700 which is a 3.7V 1120mAh Lithium Ion rechargable battery pack. Canon rates the battery as giving up to 270 shots with the LCD on, up to 600 shots with the LCD off, or up to 360 minutes of playback on a full charge. My experience with extensive flash use, LCD on, and IS on continuous mode and previewing 1/4 to 1/3 of the shots captured was about 160 shots on average per full charge. This is a slight improvement over the SD700.
Canon includes a portable battery charger (plugs right into the wall) in the package. This fully charges the battery in 1 1/2 hours. Note that the battery must come out of the camera and be placed in the charger.
Memory and Storage
The SD800 IS uses SD (Secure Digital), MMC (MultiMedia Card), and SDHC (High capacity SD) cards for storage. The SDHC support is new for Canon's current lineup. The SD card remains one of the more ubiquitous standard and has larger storage capacities available as well as speed over MMC. Canon includes a pathetic 16MB card in the package so you need to add the price of a much larger SD card to your purchase price (I would suggest at least a 2GB high speed card).
I tried a PQI 2GB 150xspeed SD card with the SD800 (hey for $30 I couldn't help it). You'll especially need the high speed SD card for capturing movies.. The camera takes advantage of the faster read and write speeds of a better SD card especially in continous shot modes and the movie modes... especially the movie mode.
For reference, a 1GB card should hold about 300 photos taken at 3072x2304 (i.e. 7.1MP images) at the highest quality setting (Super Fine). Each shot is approximately 3MB a pop. All shots are saved as JPGs. Movies are discussed in that section.
The SD800 has 5 image file size options: large (3072x2304), widescreen (3072x1728), medium1 (2592x1944), medium2 (2048x1536), medium3 (1600x1200), and small (640x480).
Note that I still don't see why Canon added the Widescreen option. All this does is taken your standard 7.1MP image and crop the top on the bottom of it. I would rather do that on my own computer. However, it might be of use to those who print directly from their camera or put the SD memory card into a printer or photo developer.
In the Box
In the box are several printed manuals including the basic manual, an advanced manual, direct printing manual, and software manuals. You also get a crappy 16MB SD card, NB-5L Li-Ion battery, portable battery charger unit, wrist strap, USB 2.0-to-miniUSB cable, mono A/V output cable, and CD-ROM with Canon's Digital Camera Solutions software. Actually when you think about it, this is the package for most Canon digital cameras now.
When buying the SD800, the preference is to buy a high speed SD card (I would recommend at least 2GB cards... Sandisk Ultra II should be around $65-90 on the web... $80 at Costco. No name brands can be as low as $35!) and probably an extra battery if you plan on taking the camera for long outings. A case is optional, but the camera is easily pocketable... although do be careful of the LCD screen. If you want to take full advantage of the VGA movie recording mode, you must buy at least one 4GB high speed SD cards. You should keep a second high speed SD card for taking photos if you want to take advantage of the movie recording capabilities.
Out of these official Canon accessories, the External Slave Flash is one to consider since it extends the small flash range of the SD800 significantly (since it is an ultracompact camera) and helps with the redeye problems (again due to the small size of the camera and seen in all ultracompact cameras). Also note that the HF-DC1 does not replace the built-in flash of the SD800 but complements it (hence the slave flash designation)... it goes off as the main flash goes off.
Price
The SD800 has a MRSP of $399 which is the same as the SD700. In most respects the SD800 is a better camera than the SD700 with a couple of caveats that were mentioned in the review. I'm a bit surprised that Canon only dropped the price of the SD700 to $399 since improvements to the SD800 outshine the few areas the SD700 could marginally outperform the SD800. You'll see a little bit more aggressive discounting of the SD700 but not by much. The price I listed is secondary to a couple of discounts and gift certificates.
7.1-megapixel CCD give you images of uncompromising texture and detail 3.8x image-stabilized wide zoom; 2.5-inch LCD display 9-point AiAF, single poin...More at Amazon Marketplace
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