Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver) Review - A really nice camera, with a few shortcomings!



Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver) Click for larger image and other views

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Personal Review From Customer (Unbiased)

379 of 387 people found this review helpful. 5 A very nice camera, with a number of shortcomings By Radu Privantu The SD980 camera is quite small, and fits into almost any pocket. Because it has no significant outgoing, easy out of the bag, not wanting to draw other things too. It feels good in hand, and I personally I have no problem with the lack of a hand grip or the viewfinder. The body is almost all metal, and has a nice feel.

Without boring to continue, let's see the pros and cons of this camera:

The pros: 1. 24 mm wide angle. This is very impressive, and very few compact cameras have. 24 mm This means is that you can take pictures in tighter spaces, taking pictures of large groups without moving too far back, and good pictures of the landscape.

2. Corner sharpness is very large. Most other cameras I've seen examples of movies very soft corners at wide angles. Soft corners means that the details in the 4 corners of the image is poor, and if you see the image at 100%, or if you need large prints, this show.

3. In ISO 80, the picture is quite clean. Now you have to understand that most if not all cameras that use a 12 MP 1/2.3 "sensor uses the same sensor, probably made by Sony. So all else being equal, the noise is the same for all of them. What is different is how the camera tries to remove noise (noise reduction). Even on the basis of ISO (80), there is some noise reduction, which gets rid of most of the noise, but with it some of the detail is also lost. Canon generally does a good job of keeping most details and eliminate most of the noise (again, in ISO 80). Each camera manufacturer does it differently, and I like the best way to Canon. At higher ISOs, even 200, the details begin to fade, and more noise is visible. I do not use an ISO of more than 80, except if I really, really have to. I'd rather have a slow shutter speed and depend on the feature, it works pretty well, and take multiple shots with the hope that at least one is good.

4. Although there are no manual controls, you still have AE (automatic exposure) and AF (Auto Focus) locks in both still image and movie mode. You need to read the manual to learn how to use them, are hard to find. AE is activated differently in still image mode and film. So with the AE lock you can sort of simulate a manual shutter speed, the camera pointing to an area that suits your needs (like the sky or the ground) and performing AE lock.

5. HD movie, it looks very good. Not with MJPEG, which means you can get a smaller size, the film can be recorded on an SD card. However, the film could not play on older (slower) computers. Do not try to play on a netbook, but I would not expect it to work well on netbooks.

The cons: 1. There is no hardcover manual. You can get online, or from the CD that comes with the camera, but it's nice to have a quick reference guide with you on the field, at least until you get used to the controls of the camera. They lost a document with the stupid warnings on copyright violations and worthless "to start" manual, but things are hard to find in the PDF file. Things really useful, such as AE, AE lock during the movie, and AF lock is very difficult if not impossible to find without the PDF. First I thought that these options are not yet available in movie mode, until I read the manual.

2. The macro mode is not very useful, since the minimum focusing distance is 5 cm (2 "), in 24 mm. In a wide-angle capture area is quite large, so that it can not be very close.

3. There are no manual controls, no RAW support. Sure, most people do not need these features, but does not cost anything, and Canon and have simply decided to shelve. The maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds, although it could be as high as 30 minutes. Sure, the image is noisy, and the amplifier glow in the road, but why not let people make their own decision whether to accept compensation or not?

4. You can not zoom in movie mode. That's because the zoom motor is too high, and are recorded on film. However, there are situations that are not interested in the sound, so it would be nice for Canon to give more freedom to customers.

Some other things to consider: 1. Although many people think that a camera with 5X zoom is growing far enough distant objects, which means 5 times is the relationship between focal length in mm. In this case, 120mm/24mm. 120 mm is an increasing level of only 2.4 times compared with the human eye (which has an equivalent focal length of ~ 50 mm). This means that if you are interested in taking pictures of birds and wildlife, this camera can not be good for you.

2. As with any other camera in a 12MP 1/2.3 "sensor, anything above base ISO is noisy. Is almost unusable ISO 1600, ISO 3200 is even more useless and the image size is 1600x1200 pixels.

3. The lens is quite slow at the telephoto end.

4. There is some purple fringing low to moderate, but better than some other cameras. I am pretty picky about purple fringing and I still love this camera.

In summary, this is a very good camera for almost everyone, except if you need a good macro, wildlife, or the ability to dim light. I really wish Amazon allowed a system of 10 stars, since this camera is worth 9 out of 10. However, I'll give it 5 stars, partly because I believe that despite some of its flaws, is a very good camera, and partly because some previous reviewers gave scores unfair.

[Published on October 11] Now that I have CHDK ported to some extent, so you can get the RAW files, it seems that the camera does some pitfalls. In the wide angle, the image is cropped and some distortion correction is done, then the image is upsampling (interpolation) of 12MP. That's not very good. However, there are a good side to this, if you use the RAW image (which is quite distorted, but can be set on the PC) then you get an even wider angle of 22 mm or less.

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Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: # 1768 in Camera & Photo
  • Color: Silver
  • Brand: Canon
  • Model: SD980IS Silver
  • Dimensions: 0.90 "H x 2.10" W x 3.90 "l, 0.29 pounds
  • Screen Size: 3

Features

  • 3.0 inch wide touch panel LCD PureColor System; Show active date to quickly switch between images with a camera shake
  • Capture 720p HD, HDMI output connector for easy playback on your HDTV
  • 5x optical zoom ultra-wide 24mm lens, plus Optical Image Stabilizer Canon's incredible 12-megapixel resolution and editing
  • Enhanced Smart AUTO intelligently selects from 22 predefined shooting situations
  • Capturing images on memory cards SD / SDHC (not included)

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