Canon PowerShot SD800 IS Silver Digital Camera

AMAZING

Posted Nov 14, 2006 - This camera is absolutely amazing, on a recent trip, more of my picutres came out clear then my cousins' when we both had image stabilization on. They had Sony, I thought the pictures would be comparable, but my pictures definately handled the shake better. At night I was able to get beautiful clear pictures atleast 50% of the shots with the flash off and image stabilization on in vegas. Normally night shots of lighted scenary are impossible without a tripod on a digi cam, but this definately changes that. The other pictures come out crystal clear, battery life is great and the camera starts up really quick, meaning you won't miss a shot. While other cameras do have the same features, nothing beats a Canon in my mind.

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Great little compact camera

Posted Oct 24, 2006 - I have been a Canon compact digital camera for years now. Started with the S50 (too big & heavy), SD300, then SD400, followed by SD700 and now the SD800. I have loved my SD700, but decided to upgrade as it featured a wider angle lens. This would be great for close quarters shooting (small room, restaurant) where you cannot always "step back" to get everyone in. I also take alot of landscape & citiscape pictures, so this would come in handy. My first impressions are that I think it is a step down from the SD700. It feels a little flimsier in the hands. Not sure what material they are using, but it just doesn't seem as solid. The battery compartment door is unbelievably cheap!! It is like Canon deliberately designed it this way so that they will collect on repair bills down the road! It will break off, it is that cheap! The SD700 had a very solid battery door, with a nice action when you opened it. Oh well. They button layout will also take some getting used to. I do like the jog dial for mode control better, as it is easier to move than the SD700. Pictures to me a top notch. People claim there is distortion and other side-effect at the edges of the pictures when shooting wide. I don't see it, but I'm sure it's there but my eye is not trained enough to recognize these things! :-) Please explain to my why they bother including a 16MB SD Card?! I cannot believe that anybody manufactures these anymore!! Why not include something useful?! The capacity is about five full-resolution pictures. I guess all it gives you is the ability to play with the camera right away. Oh, and don't believe the pricegrabber listing which states a 32mb card. It is a 16mb card. The movie mode works quite nice when using a fast SD card. Don't use a slow card, or your movies will get truncated into small 30-second (or so) chunks. I was able to zoom while recording, which is nice. I am quite happy that the prices on these have been dropping. The SD700 can now be had for the low $300s and this camera for the mid $300s (as of 10/20/06). The SD700 was $500 when it came out in April 2006! My big question is whether I would do the upgrade again, given the chance. Since I like the wider-angle lens, yes. But if this is not important to me (or you!), I would stick with the SD700. It's cheaper, seems better built and you won't even notice the 1megapixel less in resolution.

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excellent ultra-compact camera

Posted Nov 7, 2006 - I just have this camera for 30 days and my first impression with this camera is high. I bought this mainly because it has image stabilizer, new DIGIC III processor, and wide angle lens. Build-in quality is decent, despite of plastic battery door that many other reviewer complaint, I found this is not a great deal. This camera made in Japan, so you can be sure the quality of this camera is strong. Picture was great. I try macro shot and the picture comes up better than my Nikon D50 camera. There are many other features like color swap, color accent, multi-shooting modes that you need to play with more to get familiar with this. I will give you more updates after downloading the pictures. Highly recommended! Updates 11/7/06 I downloaded the pictures and it comes up beautiful, crisp, natural color. Didn't notice any corner softness. Stabilizer works great. Macro shot also excellent. I can take very2 close pictures while my Nikon DSLR unable to focus within very close distance. One thing that I really enjoy is color accent feature. Just pick any color from your object: live! , and the camera will automatically select only the color you choose to be taken. Other than that, will be black & white. For example you want only flower shown in color on your picture. isn't that cool? I really recommend this camera for everyone. Even great backup for amateur/professional user.

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Canon makes the best camera

Posted Oct 27, 2006 - This camera is excellent on picture quality, it works very good on low light conditions at HI ISO mode with no blurry or noise wich it handle it great at any level below ISO 800. By the way, any camera (I don't want to know wich brand) make noise above ISO 800 including this one and you don't need to set it at ISO 1600, also, it has a 3.8X optical zoom wich is a lot better than digital zoom, so digital zoom loose picture quality and optical don't and is the only one that has more optical zoom in it's class others have 3X optical only. I'm not a professional so I like this camera so much because it has automatic features wich is less complicated for me and it's very fast at start up after 1 sec. i can start shooting, also it has a very good quality on movies thanks to it's new standard 30 fps format and very good sound. Bottonm line: This a excellent choice for its picture quality, fast performance, build quality, attractive, nice LCD and simple to use after reading and understanding the manual so you willhave the maximum experience. Note for people who dislike this camera: some people said that it exploded when raining, well I'm sorry to say that all electronics will shock even with humidity, so don't expose any camera even to the 'little rain'. and it doesn't mean is not good camera. Other thing: I think you cannot have a full manual controls on a compact camera because is only a point and shoot camera and will involve a learning curve of how to use every single feature. So, if you want full manual controls I recommend you a SLR camera wich is the BEST on pic quality and have more range of manual controls from interchangeable lenses to a high megapixels!!! this camera SD 800 IS is designed to take quick pictures without loosing quality thank's to ImageStabilizer, ULA lenses, DIGIC III , it's 7.1 Meg. wich is big improvement from the SD 700 IS. and good quality on low light conditions!

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Great Camera.

Posted Oct 14, 2006 - I am happy with the purchase of this camera. I've waited for the SD800IS to be available to replace my Minolta Dimage XT. Of course the improvement was huge. The IS is what made me purchase this over the SD900 and the wide angle lenes is what made me decide over the SD700. The image stabilization works wonderfully. Compared to my friends SD550 and my old Dimage it blows them away. I played around with my SD800 to try and get some blur, but it took significant movement on my end to get some distortion. I feel that this camera will last me for years, and I'm happy I waited to replace my old camera with the SD800IS.

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Canon SD800

Posted Nov 13, 2006 - Another one of the Canon SD family. Great camera. 7.1 megapixel, image stabilization (like the SD700), ISO 1600, DIGIC III processor for faster picture writing, LCD display that is great at low light. I did extensive check on this camera and I would definitely recommend it.

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Canon Powershot SD800 IS

Posted Dec 2, 2006 - I bought this camera for my wife to make the transition to a digital camera. As such, several things affected my purchase decision: compact size, uses SD card, Canon quality and the Image Stabilization. While this will be her camera, items such as the zoom, quick start-up, and optical viewfinder made this a desirable camera for me as well. Pros - the compact size enables camera to easily be carried in coat pocket or purse. I've found this important, as to take those candid shots of the kids, I need to actually have the camera WITH me. On the other hand, this camera is large enough that I can actually find the buttons (though I wouldn't want to operate it with gloves on). A majority of todays cameras use SD cards, but enough don't that this is a decision factor. My laptop and PDA both use SD, so the compatibility is a plus. Lastly, the image stabilization was a key factor. My better half seems to have a problem holding the camera steady (could be the 3 y.o. pulling on her arm?), so I wanted IS. Several brands offer this, but Canon seems to do it well. Cons - not much that I can really criticize. The 16Mb SD card that is included is obviously a joke. As a consumer can get a 512Mb (or even a 1Gb if you search real hard) for under $10, you'd think they would include something a little more substantial. A case would be nice, or even just a sample screen protector. Some people have complained about the price, but on sale locally I found it for about 20% off of MSRP. Prices will drop after Christmas 2006. I've used a Powershot G2 for a few years now and have been VERY happy with Canon digital cameras. I will make the move to a digital SLR next year, and Canon will receive STRONG consideration, even though I have Nikon lenses. The SD800 is NOT a digital SLR, but it is a strong contender in the point-and-shoot category and is very good for snapshot photography.

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SD800 IS

Posted Nov 28, 2006 - I like it! Nice color, good quality, easy to carry out, i already took a lot of pictures, it is the best cannon digital camera I think! I will strongly recommend to my friends.

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Good camera for the money

Posted Nov 29, 2006 - I purchased this camera for my wife at the same time I bought the SD900 for myself. We visited an orchid show in Atlanta and used the excellent macro function to take some wonderfully detailed photos of these beautiful flowers. The macro was easy to use through the onscreen focus boxes. Once downloaded almost all of the photos were in focus. I was very happy with this feature. The stability function worked great when focusing in on distand objects. I wish my SD900 had this feature! I believe the 7MP is sufficient for most uses and it proved to be the case for my wife. We are both happy with the quality of the photos we have taken so far. I cannot say enough about the vitality and true to life colors that the canon camera will give you; I have had other brands but always keep coming back to canon for these reasons. Save yourself the heartache and buy this camera, you will not be disappointed

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Great slim camera - As SD series always be

Posted Nov 16, 2006 - I'd recommend this camera to all types of users. It will produce the goods consistently. I've been using SD series as my daily camera since SD300, then SD400, SD500, SD600, SD630, now this one. They are always good. The SD800 has two great features that I like: Image Stabilizer and the Face detection. Both works great. SD800, however, produce image noise at night or indoor, and soft corners at 28MM wide angle, comparing to my Canon 5D with 24-70 USM L lens. Well, I guess that's unfair to compare these two.

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This is a great camera

Posted Nov 20, 2006 - I love this camera. The look of it is awesome and pic quality is very good too. I took only few pictures, but love all the outcome. I upgraded from Nikon 2200 and it was a big difference. I also bought a 1 GB SD card. I was initally planning to buy either the SD600 or SD700IS. But since I got a good deal on the SD800IS for the price of SD700IS, I went and bought the SD800IS. So far, I love this camera.

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sd800

Posted Nov 26, 2006 - The best thing about this camera is its wide-angle capability. try it in a store nearby and see for yourself. Image stablization works very nice and you won't blur the image even with 1/4" shutter speed. Of course lower than that you will have to use a tripod. The high ISO performance of this camera doesn't work well as I expected. upon iso400 the noise becomes pretty noticable, compared with the SD450 I had. I don't know why, it is said they update the noise reduction engine in this camera but it doens't seem to improve the image quality. The corner softness is also pretty noticable, but of course this is not a DSLR and you get what you paid. Overall, nice little camera (although a little bigger than old SD series). It is not perfect as I just said but what can you expect from a small point and shot camera like this? at this price line it does its job pretty well already.

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Good Camera, perhaps a little pricey

Posted Nov 18, 2006 - I've had this camera for 2 weeks now and it is a really great camera. I upgraded from a 2megapixel Fuji camera. I chose this item because of the reviews stating that the canon lens is far superior to competitors. I know very little about photography, but I don't see the clarity of the image being a great improvement over my Fuji camera. Perhaps if you took two photos of the exact same thing using this model and a competitor you could tell a difference upon very close inspection, but for snapshots I see no real difference. The wide angle lens is quite nice for taking a snapshot of a group of people or a wide outdoor scene. If you are taking a shot of a group of friends, it is nice not to have to walk far away from the group in order to fit everyone in. The image stabilization works, but is not perfect. You will still get blurry images if you don't make an effort to hold the camera very still. It will save some shots, but not all. I like using a compact digital to make 100-200 sloppy shots at a party or event and I just delete the bad shots. I do delete fewer blurry shots, but there are still a lot of camera shake blurry shots. I tried to take some shots in very low light to see how well the high iso settings work. Up to iso 400 you can get pretty good shots although blurr from camera shake will be worse. At iso 400 the image is acceptable in a dimly lit room without the flash. At iso 800 and above you can get an image in a very very dark room, but the image will be very very blurry. The camera feels very solid. The display is bright and easy to see in various lighting conditions. Like any camera display, it is still useless for getting a really detailed idea of what your shot looks like. You wont know much about the detail of your shot 'til you download the image to your PC. One thing that made me choose this camera over some others was the fact that it has a real peep-hole viewer like a film camera, but the display is good enough that I find myself framing shots using only the display. I have not used the canon software much, other than the image splice. The image splice software is amazing. Software in the camera helps you take overlapping shots and the desktop software seamlessly puts them together for incredible panoramas. I will likely never use the other Canon software, I like to use software I already own for photo manipulation. Once the canon software is installed, the camera is visible in windows explorer and the pictures can easily be copy-pasted into the folder of your choice. Canon's software will do this for you but I like to do it manually. If I had to make this purchase again, I doubt I would choose this camera. The Panasonic Limix DMC-FX01 has comparable features, similar resolution, and image stabilization for $150 less. For an extra $150 I expected to be blown away by the quality of the images, and I'm not blown away. I am satisfied by this camera and love it, I just think it is overpriced.

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Canon PowerShot SD800 IS Digital Camera

Posted Nov 22, 2006 - This camera replaces my old Kodak DC4800. The pictures are clear, sharp and the colors are vivid. The deleting of the pictures are easy, they give you two ways, immediate and then later, checking the ones you want to remove and then removing them all at once. Even though you can't use the zoom when taking movies, I found that I can make up for it by walking towards the subject. The movies are so smooth and clear. I can't believe the could fit it all in one small beautiful package. I would recommend the Canon SD800 to anyone who wants a great digital camera that takes movies, and it will fit in your pocket with ease.

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Nice Featuers - Disappointing Image Quality

Posted Jan 15, 2007 - I bought this to replace my 3.5-year-old 3.2 megapixel Canon S230. Indoors, my S230 takes better pictures. Image stabilization, in theory is great, but because Canon got cheap and is using smaller Sony sensors, they can't handle lowlight any more. Forget using automatic mode indoors. You need to set the ISO to 100 in manual mode to stop from getting grainy photos - that means slow shutter speed making the image stabilization nearly useless. This is the major disappointment. If you do a lot of indoor shooting, buy a Fuji F30. The 28mm wide angle is amazing and outdoor pics look good. For the same money you can get better pictures by buying TWO cameras: Panasonic FX01 for daylight photos (has 28mm LEICA lens ($215) Fuji F20 but has ~35mm lens but way better indoor picture quality ($150) The F30 is a step up and can match the Canon outdoors as well with use of the many manual controls and it costs ~$210 after Fuji rebate until 1/31/07

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