howardbruin's Full Review: Canon PowerShot SD400 / IXUS 50 Digital Camera
I recently purchased a Canon Powershot SD400 Digital Elph. I have only had the camera for a few weeks and thus have not taken a large number of pictures. This review is based on my experience thus far with the camera, and hopefully will respond well to some of the questions that seem to come up in forums.
General information:
The Canon SD400 is one of Canon's latest entries into the sub-compact point and shoot digital camera market. Employing a 5 megapixel sensor, a 3x optical zoom and Canon's latest proprietary control chip, the DIGIC II, the SD400 takes excellent shots, and is packed into a package no bigger than a deck of cards. Although the camera lacks full manual controls and is not the fastest nor the smallest it its price range, the SD400 is nonetheless a great value for anyone shopping for a tiny, take everywhere camera.
Size/Construction:
I was not exaggerating when I said the camera is the size of a deck of playing cards. I tested this by actually slipping it into the box from a deck that I had handy, and it fit perfectly, with very little extra room, but not so snug that it was bulging. Even though it is small, all the buttons and other controls that you need to access are quite ergonomically located. That said, this is not a camera I would recommend holding with one hand, because it is slippery at this size and with its smooth metal body, and it is easier to adjust the flash and perform other functions while holding two hands.
The camera features a beautiful 2.0 inch LCD display that brightens up nicely in low light, but which is somewhat grainy when the camera is not focused (the picture on the screen will, not surprisingly, come into good focus when you half-press the shutter). The LCD also becomes less fluid and responsive in low light, presumably a trade-off between brightness and refresh rate. That's a shame, but hardly a deal breaker unless you're trying to take a photo of a fast moving target in pitch black. The camera also has an optical viewfinder located at the top center on the back panel, but I found the viewfinder to be much too small (80% of the frame at best) and too blurry to be of much good. I would have rather had a 2.5" LCD and no optical viewfinder, but the 2.0" one that the camera has is sufficient for composition and review, as well as for accessing the menus.
The SD400 has an almost completely metal body. It feels sturdy in your hands. The only parts I didn't like were the plastic door covering the battery/SD card compartment, nad the plastic door covering the ports. I don't think either will fall off if you're careful.
The menu system:
Canon's menu system is fairly easy to navigate, though there are some things which I wish were different. First of all, I wish there weren't separate buttons for system-wide menus and composition-specific. What I mean is, suppose you want to change the power-saving feature, or want to format the card. That's found in a menu under one button. If you want to change ISO or sharpness, that's under a menu accessed by another button (the "Menu" button and "Function Set" buttons, specifically). While this doesn't sound so bad (since how often do you decide mid-shot that you want to format the card?), features such as stich-assist and long-shutter must be accessed through the "Menu" button, and then a separate feature must be selected by pressing the "Function set" button. This seems rather tedious. Shame on Canon for not putting more thought into the menu system!
Features:
The Canon SD400 has a slew of features worth mentioning. The camera lacks full manual adjustment (meaning you can't tweak aperture or shutter speed unless you're in long-shutter mode), but makes up for this with a host of secondary features, which when used properly, allow you some creative flexibility with the camera.
First, I must mention the metering. The camera has 3 metering modes: Spot, Center-weight, and Evaluative. The first one focuses on the center and figures out the light metering for whatever is in that region of the frame. This is great for portraits. The second looks at the entire frame but gives added weight to the light conditions in the center. This is great for a variety of situations. The last mode, Evaluative, well, I don't know what exactly it's doing, but boy does it change the metering! If you want to see what I mean, choose evaluative metering and watch the LCD screen. You'll either get terrific results or terribly bright results, depending on your particular situation. Haha, sorry that wasn't very technical of me, but it does deserve mentioning, because I think with some practice you could put each metering mode to work for you to get the best picture possible.
Canon makes a big deal out of the MyColors modes, which are accessible via "Function Set" and the scene submenu. I personally think it's a bunch of hooey. I don't care much about swapping colors or making the whole picture greyscale except for one hue, but I guess it allows some flexibility and creativity. The camera also has a number of traditional scene modes (children, portrait, landscape, night, etc.) and can give you vivid color, low sharpening, neutral color, positive film (which I think just makes the primary colors stand out more) and a few others. Not as many scene modes are available as with a Casio or Olympus model, but I think the camera makes up for this with better photos.
One of the more nifty features of the camera is Focus Locking. You can allow the camera to lock its flash intensity to the area you want focused/lit up in the frame, and then recompose your photo and get perfect lighting every time. Manual white balance is also very handy, even without a white or grey card. I've used manual white balance to get perfect color in shots that would have come out horribly with one of the pre-fab white balance settings in the camera.
Quality of the pics:
I've taken about 200 photos with the camera, and I must say that overall I'm quite impressed with the quality of them. Some photos ended up having overly soft corners, red eye is pretty bad even with the special flash mode (esp. bad if you have blue eyes), and occasionally you get a slight color cast or out of focus pic, but overall, this is a camera that is hard to beat. Most of my photos have been nearly perfect, with great sharpness, low fringing and noise, perfect color etc. Even pics shot at ISO 400 are very clean looking if you don't blow them up to full size, and even then, some end up quite usable.
One thing I did notice that was quirky about the camera: shots in low light at low ISO end up coming out nearly grayscale, with much of the color spectrum missing (as evidenced by the histogram). A simple solution to this is to boost the ISO up to 400 if necessary, and the colors will return. Other than that, I think the SD400 takes great photos, if not the sharpest or "cleanest" in the world. Still, for a compact camera, the results are great.
Oh, and one other thing. I've take a lot of pics in super-fine mode (lowest compression), but I can't tell the difference between those and the shots I've taken in lowest quality mode. Both look terrific, and you can pack in hundreds of more photos in a 512MB card in that low mode. I wouldn't recommend it especially, but try it for yourself, you'll notice hardly any difference in quality!
The lens has about 7 zoom steps, which is not huge, but sufficent for most situations. The lens exhibits minor (and I mean minor) barrel distortion at wide angle, and I couldn't find any pincushioning at telephoto.
Movie mode:
The SD400 has a terrific movie mode, capable of full motion 30fps movies with sound at 640x480. The movies are compressed as motion JPEGs, so the quality of the video, at least, is as good as still photos from the camera.
I've used the movie mode quite a bit, and I must say it's sufficient for a primarily point and shot camera, but it's not going to replace a camcorder any time soon. First, the size of the movies becomes huge, because M-JPEGs have very little compression. A 1GB card can hold only about 10 minutes worth of 640x480 movies with sound, which is not very much. On the other hand, most people probably want to take only short clips with it anyway, and it's perfect for memorializing a life event, such as baby's first steps, or the last dance at a wedding.
Battery life:
Not sure yet. The camera is rated for 150 shots based on CIPA, but I'm a conservative, so I'm guessing 100-120 shots per charge with full-time use of the display, as well as some flash. Not bad for a camera this size, esp. since the battery recharges in 90 minutes. I haven't run out of battery life yet, and I've been doing a lot of movies and reviewing and changing settings, all of which would drain juice.
Software:
Software for downloading and basic editing of the photos and movies is included, but I don't use it. I have a Mac, so I use iPhoto and iMovie, which work seamlessly with the camera.
Conclusion:
The SD400 is a fine camera for anyone who wants the smallest camera they can find that still packs a punch. It has a great featureset and takes very clear pictures, though do note the quibbles I mentioned. Overall, if you have $400 to spend on a digicam, and are willing to sacrifice a longer lens or manual controls in exchange for the size, then I say it's a great choice. But, like anything else, look around and see for yourself.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $340 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
Canon powershot SD400 complete kit + 1gb secure digital card + 1 year warranty card included from a 3rd party, BRAND NEW NEVER USED "GRAY MARKET [IMPO...More at eBay
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