Canon SD980IS Gold Prices, Reviews, Sales, Compare
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Canon SD980IS Gold Prices, Reviews, Sales, Compare.
Product: Canon SD980IS Gold Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
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The SD980 camera is exquisite puny, and will fit in almost any pocket. Because it doesn't have any distinguished protrusions, it is easy to grasp it out of the pocket without accidentally pulling out other things as well. It feels profitable in the hand, and I personally don't have a pickle with the lack of a hand grip or viewfinder. The body is almost all metal, and has a nice feel.
Without unimaginative you any further, let's stare the cons and pros of this camera:
The pros:
1. 24 mm wide angle. This is very impressive, and very few compact cameras have it. What 24mm means is that you can acquire pictures in tighter spaces, capture pictures of tremendous groups without though-provoking aid too great, and nice landscape shots.
2. The corner sharpness is gargantuan. Almost all of the other cameras that I viewed narrate samples of have very soft corners at wide angles. Soft corners means that the details in the 4 corners of the represent are awful, and if you idea the image at 100%, or if you need colossal prints, this will prove.
3. At ISO 80, the portray is glowing neat. Now you have to understand that most if not all the cameras that exercise a 12MP 1/2.3" sensor utilize the same sensor, probably made by Sony. So everything else being equal, the noise is the same for all of them. What is different is how the camera tries to prefer the noise (noise reduction) . Even at the obnoxious ISO (80), there is some noise reduction, which gets rid of most of the noise, but with it some of the detail is lost as well. Canon generally does a gorgeous pleasant job keeping most of the detail and grasp most of the noise (again, at ISO 80) . Each camera manufacturer does it differently, and I like the Canon device best. At higher ISOs, even at 200, the detail begin disappearing, and more noise is visible. I would not employ an ISO over 80, unless if I really, really have to. I'd rather have a shameful shutter accelerate and rely on the IS feature, which works exquisite well, and capture multiple shots hoping that at least one is pleasant.
4. Even though there are no manual controls, you aloof have AE (auto exposure) and AF (auto focus) locks, both in the detached describe and movie mode. You will need to read the manual for how to exercise them, they are hard to salvage. AE is enabled in a different arrangement in the aloof and movie mode. So with AE lock you can sort of simulate a manual shutter hasten, by pointing the camera to an spot that fits your needs (such as the sky or ground) and purchase the AE lock.
5. HD movie, which looks graceful helpful. It is not using MJPEG, which means that you can pick up a smaller file size, so more movie can be recorded on an SD card. However, the movie might not play on older (slower) computers. I didn't try to play it on a netbook, but I would not seek information from it to work well on netbooks.
The cons:
1. There is no hardcover manual. You can find it online, or from the CD that comes with the camera, but it is nice to be able to hold a fast reference guide with you in the field, at least until you acquire dilapidated to the camera controls. They wasted a paper with insensible warnings about copyright violations and a useless "getting started" manual, but the hard to score things are in the PDF file. The really useful things, such as AE LOCK, AE Lock during the movie, and AF lock are very hard, if not impossible to score without the PDF file. First I view those options are not even available in the movie mode, until I read the manual.
2. The macro mode is not very useful, because the minimum focus distance is 5 CM (2"), at 24mm. At such a wide angle, the captured region is dazzling broad, so you can't acquire very conclude.
3. No manual controls, no RAW succor. Certain, most people don't need those features, but they don't cost anything, and Canon already has them, they unprejudiced decided to leave them out. The maximum shutter race is only 15 seconds, even though it could be as high as 30 minutes. Certain, the image would be noisy, and the amp-glow would collect in the draw, but why not let people earn their fill decision whether they gather those trade-offs or not?
4. You can't zoom in the movie mode. That's because the zoom motor is too loud, and it would bag recorded in the movie. However, there are situations where you are not eager in the sound, so it would be nice for Canon to give more freedom to the customers.
Some other things to consider:
1. Even though many people consider that a 5X zoom camera goes glorious far in magnifying distant objects, what the 5X means is the ration between the focal range in mm. In this case, it is 120mm/24mm. 120mm is a magnification level of fair 2.4 times, compared to the human spy (which has a focal distance equivalent of ~50mm) . This means that if you are involved in taking pictures of birds or wildlife, this camera might not be generous for you.
2. As with any other 12MP camera on a 1/2.3" sensor, anything above the rank ISO will be noisy. ISO 1600 is almost unusable, ISO 3200 is even more unusable and the image size is 1600x1200 pixels.
3. The lens is lovely dreary at the tele extinguish.
4. There is some shameful to moderate purple fringing, but better than some other cameras. I am dazzling picky about purple fringing and I serene like this camera.
To sum it up, this is a very capable camera for almost everyone, unless if you need fine macro, wildlife, or grievous light capabilities. I really wish Amazon allowed a 10 stars system, because this camera deserves 9 out of 10. However, I am going to give it 5 stars, partially because I believe that despite some of it's flaws, it is a very wonderful camera, and partially because some previous reviewers gave it unfair ratings.
[edited on October 11]
Now that I ported CHDK to some extent so that I can accumulate RAW files, it seems that the camera does some cheating.
At the wide angle, the portray is cropped and some distortion correction is done, then the image is UPSAMPLED (interpolation) to 12MP. That's not very gracious. However, there is a satisfactory side to this, if you consume the RAW image (which is graceful distorted, but can be fixed on the PC) then you acquire an even wider angle, about 22mm or so.
Ok so after reading so many negative reviews about this product, I decided to acquire my hand on one to gather out. Lucky for me a halt friend of mine bought it and I got a chance to bustle through it for a while. After playing with it for hours, I figured out that most of the negative reviews on this product are simply ridiculous and accomplish no sense at all. So here is what I manage to work out with this spectacular camera.
Starting with the EXTERIOR:
The body of the SD980 is sleek, stylish, narrow and thin honest like that of the SD960. It feels quite firm and durable for its size. Nothing less than SD800 or SD880 since some people inaccurate this body as plastic but it is NOT plastic. The front cloak and aid is metallic and only the rims around camera has a rubbery feel to it. The buttons got prick short to only 2 buttons for playback and menu along with a dial like all current SD series. So fine remarkable after a few minutes I got exhaust to this camera like I was on any of the SD800 or SD880 and SD960. For those with larger hand, holding this camera with 1 hand is definitely will be somewhat of a challenge. There is a limited wavy grid come the playback button that train to aid as a grip but it only works for those with smaller hands. My hands are not too grand or too puny so I could actually employ this camera with one hand without any scrape.
The MENU & FEATURES:
Canon has replaced their menu with something modern. Quite simple, exquisite positive where everything say to be. All the shooting mode are together, ISO is easy region. Also has custom white balance nearby for those who know how to employ it. Everything is push to the left side of the conceal and all you have to do is scroll up and down and enter the sub menu to adjust the setting. I really like this layout since it somewhat give the camera a more stylish sight on the menu instead of filling up your whole mask with menu and words. Also, Ive seen some of the previous reviews complaining about taking 2-4 steps to delete a record. FOR GOODNESS SAKE PEOPLE READ THE ON Camouflage TIPS!!! It only occupy 1 easy step to delete the photo! On your playback hide, if you want to delete a photo all you have to do is press on the veil, trail your finger downward and to the left (backward L shape) and it will delete the image!!! Why would you go into the menu and go down to delete and then enter the sub-menu to delete? Ok so they DO have that option too but using the cloak its not that hard! Canon made this camera so versatile that a monkey can work it. So you can scroll through the images in 3 different ways, how can ANYONE complain about that? In playback mode you can simply employ the DIAL to press relieve and forth and navigate through the pictures the stale plan. Then you have the touch conceal to scramble the photo left good, tap to zoom in and double tap to zoom out. Also you got the motion sensing function, shake the camera up or down to change the image. 1 hand user can do this easily! Same for the Delete functions, there are 2 to 3 ways to can delete an image. So grasp your time and play with it a bit more to win out all of the functions.
The TOUCHSCREEN:
Canon decided to throw in a bonus touchscreen for this particular model and I must say its something recent for the SD series. At first, you might have some awkward feeling since its not as sensitive as iPhone, however this is one of the more current style of touchscreen where it require a bit more pressure so that you wont ACCIDENTALLY change any setting. Most of the phones now are this type of touchscreen not the iphone touchscreen. The original Nokia N97 and other modern phones like samsung touchscreen ones also weak this kind of LCD that require a bit more pressure. After using it for a while I was already consume to the touchscreen and flipping photos help and forth quite comfortably. The only spot Ive seen with the touch veil so far is the touch focus, sometime when your focus point is so miniature the camera dont know what you are trying to focus on but after 2 or 3 tries it does focus. Im getting the hang of it though. Again, as I was mentioning before, the touchscreen is a bonus to the dial pad, it allows you to do what a dial pad can also do but FASTER. So you can delete image, scroll through images, status flash, focus point, anything else with ease by using the touchscreen. I admire this camera for this particular feature too.
IMAGE QUALITY:
The main fragment of this review, image quality. So some of previous reviews mentioned about fuzzy photos. I dont know what you did atrocious but I have my SD880, my sister's SD800 and this D980 side by side shooting the same thing. When I inaugurate them up the images is about the same!!! Sharpness is gorgeous distinguished the same I would say in some cases the SD980 is sharper! and the color is more vibrant than the other 2. Noise isnt so abominable at 400 as few has mentioned. You must understand this is a 12mp, so more flaws will be seen at larger size, but to downsize to the same resolution, the images from the SD980 is probably better than the SD800 at most of the time. I have some improbable shots came out during my test play with this thing. The only "Fuzziness" I can seek is from the hand shake at stupid shutter or no flash mode. But even then i rarely earn those, I do have very sincere hand from shooting DSLR so I can hand fill this camera at 1 sec. I objective fancy how I can utilize touch focus on anything anytime and it works well for me. This thing has so considerable manual functions that Im starting to like it more than SD880 or SD800. So there were a few comments about not having MANUAL. So I checked the SD880 and SD800 manual functions, and this camera can do sparkling noteworthy everything the same in P mode! It can place Flash, ISO, Long Shutter, EXP Compensation, Uninteresting Sync, Shooting mode, metering, WB, Macro with touch focus is NICE, you can even position how long the long shutter can be, how many shots to recall when its on timer mode! Try doing that with the SD800! With such flexible settings I can win some really qualified images from playing around with these features. If you've only shot AUTO and wrote a review on this camera, I contemplate you should give the camera another inspect, seriously. The Video is out of the put a question to, crisp and sinful nice! Someone said you cant zoom during video and you hear the motor of the zoom. That is Defective! YOU CAN ZOOM, for 5x optical, you only hear the motor zooming when you kick in the Digital zoom! I always avoid digital zoom anyways. So The HD video is a plus on this thing. 24mm wide allow me to accept some really nice shot, I esteem the wide angle shot and very useful for me in some cases. Playing with ISO 400-800 I noticed the SD800 and SD880 also have really abominable noise as well. To be resplendent, I also tried resize all of them to the same size of 8mp and sd980 is showing some very impressing image quality at that size. They are point and shoot, obviously they aren't going to sigh astounding photos like 5DmarkII at 3200 ISO. So I believe we should cleave it some slow and disappear on with it. It's doing radiant and I reflect this one shriek what canon promised.
FINAL THOUGHT:
So Ive only broken-down this camera from my friend in approximately 2-3 hours and I manage to work out everything he was complaining about (multiple steps to delete, lack of manual, reviewing images, so forth..) . Now that he learned more about his modern camera he no longer complain about it. He started to exhaust the touchscreen more often as well. I like it so remarkable I impartial ordered one for myself prior to writing this review. I unbiased reflect people need to give their gadgets a bit more time as they recognize the thing. Honest because its a point and shoot doesnt mean you can judge you've figure it all out in that first 10 minutes of using it. This camera pack a lot of punch. A lot of features are there but Ive not mentioned them like how you can sort out images, current them, impress them, sort it out into categories and folders, and locking images so on. It's an fabulous camera. As a person who shoot with a DSLR I must admit this thing is doing grand. After I read so many negative reviews here I went on other professional photographers websites who hold this particular camera to research more about it and there even was someone who said the image quality is so friendly he ignore everything else poor about the camera. So again, give it another notice before you write the review. The camera was made so that you can have lots of options to work one function. I really dig the touchcreen + buttons combination, sterling thinking from Canon. Overall I give this camera a 5 because it's marvelous in image quality and ease of employ, battery life isnt too dreadful either. I also gave it a 5 since I contemplate people who gave it a 1 is not being elegant to the camera. This camera can easily engage the top standing in its class.
Do NOT produce conclusions on this camera based on your first impressions! After initially using this camera, I prepared a review that was going to blast it into the ground, and I was ready to return it. I decided to enjoy off and play with it some more, and I'm satisfied I did.
Background:
I'm no avid photographer, nor am I a digital camera expert. I owned a Canon SD800 for a 2+ years and loved it. All of my friends have Canons and they were all impressive (SD550, SD790, SD1100, etc), but the SD800 was the perfect camera to me. Perfect size, weight, comfort, race, functionality, and durability. It was extremely practical yet very efficient, all the while managing to see stylish and manufacture vast results. I've near to interrogate these characteristics from all Canons, so I had radiant high expectations when I bought the latest and supposed-to-be greatest in the Elph series.
Picture quality: Out of the box, you might be disappointed. The Auto mode is underwhelming at best, and at worst, unbiased unpleasant in indoor/low light situations. You might as well not even exhaust Auto mode. Thanks to some very sterling tips from another reviewer ("Radu Privantu"), with the moral settings, this Digital Elph can purchase spectacular photos. Turn down the Sharpness and Incompatibility, and play around with the exposure. Also, like Radu P pointed out in his review, your best bet is to remain in the lower ISO settings (I have huge results with ISO 80) . These settings have consistently produced the best results.
Long Shutter mode makes shooting noble low-light photos a reality, provided you have a accurate hand and a staunch subject.
Design: From most angles, this camera is as sleek and stylish as any other Canon. From the succor, the overall accomplish and specifically the button spot looks very tiring, and almost toy-ish. It has a nice size and weight to it (though it is slightly longer and more narrow than other cameras) . A few things though develop me feel like I have to handle the camera with outrageous caution. For one, there are no clear grooves or anything to rest against your fingers. Also, the texture of the camera itself has very runt friction or grip, so it feels like it can slouch out of your hands. At least on the SD800 I could exercise the mode dial as a grip point for my apt thumb, but this camera has no such luxury. There is the D-pad, but it'd be hard to utilize that as the grip point because I'd accidentally press a button. I don't witness myself taking too many one-handed snapshots with this one because of this.
Menu system: They swapped their old-fashioned tried and suitable menu system (cross-style, red and sad) for something that is exiguous more aesthetically stunning but slightly less practical. Some things you're veteran to finding in one site will be found in another. Not a scrape for the most piece but it may require a few extra menu sequences. For instance, the delete function (using the D-Pad) requires a 4 button sequence (SET-->SET-->RIGHT-->SET) versus the previous 2 button sequence (DOWN-->SET, or was it DOWN-->RIGHT-->SET? ) . Not a colossal deal, but after using Canons for so long it might be difficult to adjust.
Also worth noting, navigating through the menus or scrolling through photos is not as hastily as previous Elphs.
Touchscreen: I'm not crazy about touchscreen gadgets myself because of how impractical they are versus a station of keys or buttons. That said, I found it functional and efficient for the most fraction. I opted for the SD980 because it offered both the D-Pad and the touchscreen controls (kudos to Canon for that), but I do seize using the D-Pad. I didn't have any spot bouncing benefit and forth between the two like some online reviews said they did.
I originally wanted to call the touchscreen what it is, a blatant gimmick... But it's noteworthy more than that. The touch focus feature is a godsend! Tall for shots that you can't count on the autofocus to render. The touchscreen also allows for some on-the-fly adjustments, such as exposure, though I wish they would've utilized more of the conceal genuine estate (along the shadowy side bars) to add more on-the-fly adjustments. Would've liked more flexibility with the four Street Fighter-esque playback gestures. They're customizable, but they don't offer a spacious array of options you can situation it to.
The LCD quality is average. At 3" you quiz to be blown away with a radiant, crisp record, but output can be fuzzy. This is to be expected though, and it is how most touchscreen gadgets are.
The mask itself is a smudge magnet. And it doesn't sink in very far from the surface of the camera, leaving it more vulnerable to scratches. Not determined how scratch-resistant it is but I'm not going to employ mine to test it 
. I bought a 3" conceal protector but it ended up being contrivance too tiny, so be wary of purchasing one.
There is also some light bleeding out of the edges of the mask. Not really noticeable unless the onscreen describe is shaded.
Active Display: Useless fragment of technology. I'd rather Canon not slay their time and exertion to give us the ability to flick our camera around like a Wii remote unbiased to scroll to the next image. It takes impractical to a whole original level. Yeah, it will ooh and ahh your friends, but I could never imagine using it when I objective want to scroll through pictures. Especially taking into record that the camera has exiguous grip (and it's not like you're always going to have the wriststrap on at all times) . Someone objective might raze up tossing this thing into a wall. This feature doesn't directly catch anything away from the product, and you can even turn it off, but I'd rather Canon attach their efforts towards something a bit more useful.
Battery life: Decent, but haven't taken it through a right world test of all-day utilize. So far, I'd say it's what you'd examine in battery life when dealing with a gargantuan touchscreen and HD video. Something else to heed is that the battery and in turn the camera gain HOT. Not burning hot, but I don't remember older Canons getting this hot.
Video: Blooming HD. It does what it needs to do. Contrary to favorite idea, (1) you CAN zoom, and (2) you can report longer than 10 minutes, depending on the size of your memory card of course. Also something to sign, the sound that is recorded while operating the zoom dial isn't a dealbreaker, but know that it is there and it is noticeable.
Final thoughts:
The Canon SD980 does have some shortcomings, but it also does a ton of things true. Any product should fabricate at its best accurate out of the box, but don't let that remove away too worthy from what this product's best could be with the factual tweaks, because it stands up admirably against other upper tier point-n-shoots. The touchscreen turned out to be more than unbiased a gimmick, with 'touch focus' being the best feature any of the Digital Elphs have to offer, IMO.
I recommend this camera to anyone WILLING to give it a chance and not write it off after the first 10 minutes of exercise. You won't regret it.
Other thoughts:
I consider many of the dreadful reviews out there are a bit unfair. Does it really deserve 1 out of 5 stars impartial because it doesn't meet YOUR expectations? Only an off-brand Walmart-exclusive camera that takes no better pictures than my cell phone should warrant a 1 star rating. Taking into consideration what this camera offers compared to other PnS cameras with similar specs, no legitimate review should be under 3 stars. I know everyone has their occupy thought, but seek at it realistically. If you feel this camera deserves 1 star or even 2, what would you rate the aforementioned off-brand Walmart camera? Please utilize perspective when reviewing. I officially rate this camera a 4/5, but I'm going to give it a 5 to balance out the ridiculous 1-star ratings.
***EDIT 9/17/09 - Uploaded some sample pictures to Amazon's gallery. I was impartial messing around with some of the different modes.
