f8ster's Full Review: Canon PowerShot E1 Digital Camera
Pros
Fantastic image quality, almost no shutter lag, takes AA batteries. Good 4x optical zoom. Fun and very easy to use. Great value. Video quality is very good.
Cons
Red-eye is a problem with the built-in flash, similar to many compact cameras in this price range. Very small included SD card. Size, Styling, and Controls
This is a small camera, although a bit fatter on one side (because of the AA batteries) than the smallest compacts in this class. Still, it's very easy to hold. The styling and finish is understated but tasteful. Controls are intuitive and well-placed. The flash is easy to partially cover with your left hand if you're not careful. There is a tiny eyepiece if you don't want to use the LCD screen when taking pictures.
Batteries
The camera takes two AA batteries. With two 2500 mAh AA rechargeables, I got about 140 pictures (most using flash) out of a charge. With two standard (non-rechargeable) AA batteries, my guess would be you'd get 170-200 pictures. Although this is somewhat less than a proprietary battery might provide, I prefer the fact that it uses a standard AA form factor, since rechargeable AA batteries are cheap these days and recharge in 15 minutes. AA's are easy to find and don't take up much room for spares. The manual claims 450 pictures if you use NiMH batteries and 220 for standard alkaline.
Storage
The camera uses a standard SD card (about the size of a thick postage stamp), and ships with a pathetically small 32MB card. The documentation claims to support an SD card up to 8GB. I tested with a 2GB card, which stores more than 400 pictures in JPG format at the highest quality level (superfine). 2GB SD cards are cheap these days, so you can easily keep a spare around to provide lots of extra capacity on long trips.
Image Size and Quality
This camera uses the same Digic III sensor as its much more expensive "pro-sumer" sibling, the Canon Digital Rebel XSi, albeit at a slightly different resolution. I own the older Digital Rebel XTi, which uses the previous-generation Digic II sensor, so I'm very familiar with Canon's sensor quality, and this was one of my motivations for choosing the E1.
The image quality of the resultant images is very similar to my XTi. In short, the E1 takes great pictures. The sensor provides 10 megapixel (3648x2736) images at its highest resolution. There are 7 image size settings in all, including a "widescreen" option that records images at 3648x2048, a 1.78 aspect ratio instead of the default 1.33.
Compression: the camera comes from the factory in "fine" mode at the largest size; I recommend setting the default to "superfine." This increases the image quality and reduces the softness of the images. It also increases the size of the images noticeably. A typical picture is about 4.3 MB in this superfine setting. The lowest-quality mode is called "normal." RAW mode is not supported.
The E1 also features image stabilization, which seems to work well for low-light or zoomed images. It also supports up to a 1600 ISO mode for low-light shots, although they'll typically have a lot of color noise, as is characteristic of these kinds of shots.
Flash
The built-in flash provides plenty of light and takes very good indoor pictures, assuming your subjects aren't too far away. The only major complaint I have about the camera is that many of the flash-lit images have red-eye problems, even when using the red-eye assist light.
Red-eye is frequently a problem with compact cameras due to the proximity of the flash to the lens. To be fair, it's no worse than the previous compact camera I have. There is also an automatic red-eye removal mode, or a manual mode that can be used directly from the camera to highlight and remove red-eye, but I haven't had good luck with it. My preferred method of removing red-eye is to use Picasa (a free editing program on the PC), which works well.
Shutter Lag, Focus, and Face Recognition
(Auto Mode) One feature of Canon (and many other) cameras: you can "frame" the picture by partially depressing the shutter button to focus the camera and establish the exposure. When you do this before taking the picture, there is almost no noticeable shutter lag. This is very good and is much better than my previous compact. For single shots, the (lack of) shutter lag is comparable to my Digital Rebel XTi. This is very impressive and makes the camera much easier to use. Shutter lag is one of the most frustrating drawbacks to compact cameras, and Canon has implemented this very well.
The E1 also does face detection - that is, when you frame the picture, the camera identifies faces in the picture and more heavily weights them for autofocus and exposure. This works very well and tends to make the people in your shots turn out nicely. This feature has its own dedicated button on the back of the camera so it's very easy to turn on or off.
Time to first shot from power-on is 3 seconds with flash and 1-2 seconds without, which is very fast for a compact camera.
Rotate to View
One nifty feature I discovered by accident - when viewing pictures on the screen, you can rotate the camera 90 degrees to fully view any pictures taken "sideways" (i.e. in portrait mode) so they fill up the screen. The 2.5" screen is nice and bright, and is a good size.
Taking and Viewing Video
The E1 has a video mode that takes video at 640x480, 30fps. The video quality is very good. The video is recorded in standard AVI format, which does use up a lot of space on the card. A one-minute video at this setting uses about 107 MB on the SD card. The audio quality on the video is quite good overall, and the built-in microphone does a good job. There's also a (tiny) built-in speaker for playing the video back on the camera.
One thing to note: like other compacts, the zoom during video recording is a digital zoom, which degrades the quality of the image. You will get the best video quality by zooming all the way out before starting to record.
In playback mode (when reviewing pictures and video via the camera's screen), playing the video takes a couple extra button presses and is not completely intuitive for the beginner. Once you find it, it's fine.
Other Modes
The camera has a variety of other modes - a fairly standard selection (night, portrait, fireworks, outdoor, etc.) If you're like most people, you'll never use these settings and you'll just leave it set to Auto mode. The "snow" mode does help properly adjust the white balance when taking pictures outside in the snow.
There is one benefit to using the included "P" (Program) mode - you can set the camera to Continuous Drive mode, where you can hold the shutter button down and the camera will take pictures continuously. It'll take about 1.3 pictures per second (depending on the exposure, and no flash), according to the manual.
Included Software
The camera includes two software packages: ZoomBrowser and PhotoStitch. These utilities provide all of the basic and advanced functions you'd expect: downloading, printing, viewing, organizing, editing, and converting still pictures. PhotoStitch is one of the better stitching utilities I've used to create panoramic photos (a panoramic is a photo that's stitched together from a series of adjacent photos).
Other Features
There's a standard tripod mount on the bottom. The E1 has a USB port and an AV port (with an included cable) for viewing pictures on a TV.
Summary
This camera takes fantastic pictures. The image quality is almost as good as my much more expensive Digital Rebel XTi (as you would expect, since it's basically the same image sensor). The video quality is great, and the 4x optical zoom is very nice. There's little to complain about with this camera, and we have been very happy with it. The only real complaint is the red-eye with the flash, but I think this is no worse than any other compact I've used, so I'm giving this camera a high rating.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 161 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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