The SD980 camera is pretty small, and will fit in almost any pocket. Because it doesn't have any significant protrusions, it is easy to take it out of the pocket without accidentally pulling out other things as well. It feels good in the hand, and I personally don't have a problem with the lack of a hand grip or viewfinder. The body is almost all metal, and has a nice feel.Without boring you any further, let's see 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 take pictures in tighter spaces, take pictures of large groups without moving back too much, and nice landscape shots.
2. The corner sharpness is great. Almost all of the other cameras that I viewed picture samples of have very soft corners at wide angles. Soft corners means that the details in the 4 corners of the picture are poor, and if you view the image at 100%, or if you need large prints, this will show.
3. At ISO 80, the picture is pretty clean. Now you have to understand that most if not all the cameras that use a 12MP 1/2.3" sensor use 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 remove the noise (noise reduction). Even at the base 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 pretty good job keeping most of the detail and remove most of the noise (again, at ISO 80). Each camera manufacturer does it differently, and I like the Canon way best. At higher ISOs, even at 200, the detail start disappearing, and more noise is visible. I would not use an ISO over 80, unless if I really, really have to. I'd rather have a low shutter speed and rely on the IS feature, which works pretty well, and take multiple shots hoping that at least one is good.
4. Even though there are no manual controls, you still have AE (auto exposure) and AF (auto focus) locks, both in the still picture and movie mode. You will need to read the manual for how to use them, they are hard to find. AE is enabled in a different way in the still and movie mode. So with AE lock you can sort of simulate a manual shutter speed, by pointing the camera to an area that fits your needs (such as the sky or ground) and engage the AE lock.
5. HD movie, which looks pretty good. It is not using MJPEG, which means that you can get 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 expect it to work well on netbooks.
The cons:
1. There is no hardcover manual. You can get it online, or from the CD that comes with the camera, but it is nice to be able to take a quick reference guide with you in the field, at least until you get used to the camera controls. They wasted a paper with stupid warnings about copyright violations and a useless "getting started" manual, but the hard to find 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 find without the PDF file. First I thought 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 area is pretty big, so you can't get very close.
3. No manual controls, no RAW support. Sure, most people don't need those features, but they don't cost anything, and Canon already has them, they just decided to leave them out. The maximum shutter speed is only 15 seconds, even though it could be as high as 30 minutes. Sure, the image would be noisy, and the amp-glow would get in the way, but why not let people make their own decision whether they accept 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 get recorded in the movie. However, there are situations where you are not interested 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 think that a 5X zoom camera goes pretty 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 just 2.4 times, compared to the human eye (which has a focal distance equivalent of ~50mm). This means that if you are interested in taking pictures of birds or wildlife, this camera might not be good for you.
2. As with any other 12MP camera on a 1/2.3" sensor, anything above the base 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 pretty slow at the tele end.
4. There is some low to moderate purple fringing, but better than some other cameras. I am pretty picky about purple fringing and I still like this camera.
To sum it up, this is a very good camera for almost everyone, unless if you need good macro, wildlife, or low 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 think that despite some of it's flaws, it is a very good 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 get RAW files, it seems that the camera does some cheating.
At the wide angle, the picture is cropped and some distortion correction is done, then the image is UPSAMPLED (interpolation) to 12MP. That's not very good. However, there is a good side to this, if you use the RAW image (which is pretty distorted, but can be fixed on the PC) then you get an even wider angle, about 22mm or so.
Starting with the EXTERIOR:
The body of the SD980 is sleek, stylish, narrow and thin just like that of the SD960. It feels quite firm and durable for its size. Nothing less than SD800 or SD880 since some people mistaken this body as plastic but it is NOT plastic. The front cover and back is metallic and only the rims around camera has a rubbery feel to it. The buttons got cut short to only 2 buttons for playback and menu along with a dial like all recent SD series. So pretty much after a few minutes I got use 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 slight wavy grid near the playback button that suppose to serve as a grip but it only works for those with smaller hands. My hands are not too big or too small so I could actually use this camera with one hand without any problem.
The MENU & FEATURES:
Canon has replaced their menu with something new. Quite simple, pretty clear where everything suppose to be. All the shooting mode are together, ISO is easy set. Also has custom white balance nearby for those who know how to use it. Everything is push to the left side of the screen 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 look on the menu instead of filling up your whole screen with menu and words. Also, Ive seen some of the previous reviews complaining about taking 2-4 steps to delete a picture. FOR GOODNESS SAKE PEOPLE READ THE ON SCREEN TIPS!!! It only take 1 easy step to delete the photo! On your playback screen, if you want to delete a photo all you have to do is press on the screen, drag 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 screen 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 use the DIAL to press back and forth and navigate through the pictures the traditional way. Then you have the touch screen to slide the photo left right, 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 take your time and play with it a bit more to find 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 new 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 recent 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 recent Nokia N97 and other new phones like samsung touchscreen ones also used this kind of LCD that require a bit more pressure. After using it for a while I was already use to the touchscreen and flipping photos back and forth quite comfortably. The only problem Ive seen with the touch screen so far is the touch focus, sometime when your focus point is so small 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, set flash, focus point, anything else with ease by using the touchscreen. I love this camera for this particular feature too.
IMAGE QUALITY:
The main portion of this review, image quality. So some of previous reviews mentioned about fuzzy photos. I dont know what you did wrong but I have my SD880, my sister's SD800 and this D980 side by side shooting the same thing. When I open them up the images is about the same!!! Sharpness is pretty much 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 bad 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 amazing shots came out during my test play with this thing. The only "Fuzziness" I can see is from the hand shake at slow shutter or no flash mode. But even then i rarely get those, I do have very steady hand from shooting DSLR so I can hand hold this camera at 1 sec. I just love how I can use touch focus on anything anytime and it works well for me. This thing has so much 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 pretty much everything the same in P mode! It can set Flash, ISO, Long Shutter, EXP Compensation, Slow Sync, Shooting mode, metering, WB, Macro with touch focus is NICE, you can even set how long the long shutter can be, how many shots to take when its on timer mode! Try doing that with the SD800! With such flexible settings I can get some really good images from playing around with these features. If you've only shot AUTO and wrote a review on this camera, I think you should give the camera another look, seriously. The Video is out of the question, crisp and wicked nice! Someone said you cant zoom during video and you hear the motor of the zoom. That is WRONG! 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 get some really nice shot, I love 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 bad noise as well. To be fair, 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 deliver amazing photos like 5DmarkII at 3200 ISO. So I think we should cut it some slack and move on with it. It's doing fine and I think this one deliver what canon promised.
FINAL THOUGHT:
So Ive only used 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 new camera he no longer complain about it. He started to use the touchscreen more often as well. I like it so much I just ordered one for myself prior to writing this review. I just think people need to give their gadgets a bit more time as they explore the thing. Just because its a point and shoot doesnt mean you can think 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, favorite them, tag them, sort it out into categories and folders, and locking images so on. It's an amazing camera. As a person who shoot with a DSLR I must admit this thing is doing great. After I read so many negative reviews here I went on other professional photographers websites who own this particular camera to research more about it and there even was someone who said the image quality is so good he ignore everything else bad about the camera. So again, give it another look 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, excellent thinking from Canon. Overall I give this camera a 5 because it's excellent in image quality and ease of use, battery life isnt too bad either. I also gave it a 5 since I think people who gave it a 1 is not being fair to the camera. This camera can easily take the top standing in its class.First of all let me just say that I really wanted to love this camera. The design looks great, it feels solid in your hands, the wide-screen touch screen is fun to use, and the ultra wide angle lens opens up tons of creative possibilities. Sadly I fell out of love very quickly after taking some test shots with this camera.
I compared my test shots to my previous pocket cam, a 6MP Casio which produces satisfactory photos in good light and poor photos in low light conditions.
I love the twilight photos I was able to take with this camera while walking around Union Square in San Francisco. The colors were great, photos had good detail, the street lights sparkled and most of the photos came out relatively sharp thanks to the stabilized lens. I was thrilled that the photos were much better than what I was able to produce with the Casio.
Indoors in the evening the camera work just as well for such a small camera, I took very few flash photos, but all the available light photos I took in a dimly lit living room turned out very well for such a small camera. Sure there was plenty of noise if you looked at the low light photos up close, but over all the immages were ery pleasing to the eye when viewed on a 1080P, 52" HDTV.
Then I took the camera outside on a sunny day. Colors were decent, but the photos were very soft as if the lens were dirty. This was especially noticeable when taking photos of trees, flowers, grass.... anything detailed looked blurred, buildings and people looked fine. Daytime photos also lacked contrast, giving them a very flat quality. I tired different settings, I activated the enhanced contrast setting, it helped a little. I activated the foliage setting and it improved the detail as well, but my old Casio still produced better photos in auto mode when compared side by side on my HDTV. I left the camera on auto ISO mode and most of the daytime photos were taken at 80 to 120 ISO.
Canon made a good camera when they designed the SD980, I just think they stuffed too many pixels into such a little camera and as a result the photos are very noisy, lack detail, and exhibit poor dynamic range.Do NOT make 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 hold off and play with it some more, and I'm glad 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, speed, functionality, and durability. It was extremely practical yet very efficient, all the while managing to look stylish and produce great results. I've come to expect these characteristics from all Canons, so I had pretty 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, just bad in indoor/low light situations. You might as well not even use Auto mode. Thanks to some very helpful tips from another reviewer ("Radu Privantu"), with the right settings, this Digital Elph can take spectacular photos. Turn down the Sharpness and Contrast, 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 great results with ISO 80). These settings have consistently produced the best results.
Long Shutter mode makes shooting good low-light photos a reality, provided you have a steady hand and a steady subject.
Design: From most angles, this camera is as sleek and stylish as any other Canon. From the back, the overall design and specifically the button area looks very plain 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 make me feel like I have to handle the camera with extreme caution. For one, there are no distinct grooves or anything to rest against your fingers. Also, the texture of the camera itself has very little friction or grip, so it feels like it can slip out of your hands. At least on the SD800 I could use the mode dial as a grip point for my right thumb, but this camera has no such luxury. There is the D-pad, but it'd be hard to use that as the grip point because I'd accidentally press a button. I don't see myself taking too many one-handed snapshots with this one because of this.
Menu system: They swapped their old tried and true menu system (cross-style, red and black) for something that is little more aesthetically pleasing but slightly less practical. Some things you're used to finding in one area will be found in another. Not a problem for the most part 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 huge 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 snappy as previous Elphs.
Touchscreen: I'm not crazy about touchscreen gadgets myself because of how impractical they are versus a set of keys or buttons. That said, I found it functional and efficient for the most part. I opted for the SD980 because it offered both the D-Pad and the touchscreen controls (kudos to Canon for that), but I do prefer using the D-Pad. I didn't have any problem bouncing back 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 much more than that. The touch focus feature is a godsend! Great 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 screen real estate (along the black 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 large array of options you can set it to.
The LCD quality is average. At 3" you expect to be blown away with a bright, crisp picture, but output can be fuzzy. This is to be expected though, and it is how most touchscreen gadgets are.
The screen 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 sure how scratch-resistant it is but I'm not going to use mine to test it ;). I bought a 3" screen protector but it ended up being way too small, so be wary of purchasing one.
There is also some light bleeding out of the edges of the screen. Not really noticeable unless the onscreen picture is dark.
Active Display: Useless piece of technology. I'd rather Canon not waste their time and effort to give us the ability to flick our camera around like a Wii remote just to scroll to the next image. It takes impractical to a whole new level. Yeah, it will ooh and ahh your friends, but I could never imagine using it when I just want to scroll through pictures. Especially taking into account that the camera has little grip (and it's not like you're always going to have the wriststrap on at all times). Someone just might end up tossing this thing into a wall. This feature doesn't directly take anything away from the product, and you can even turn it off, but I'd rather Canon put their efforts towards something a bit more useful.
Battery life: Decent, but haven't taken it through a real world test of all-day use. So far, I'd say it's what you'd expect in battery life when dealing with a large touchscreen and HD video. Something else to note is that the battery and in turn the camera get HOT. Not burning hot, but I don't remember older Canons getting this hot.
Video: Pretty HD. It does what it needs to do. Contrary to popular belief, (1) you CAN zoom, and (2) you can record longer than 10 minutes, depending on the size of your memory card of course. Also something to note, 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 right. Any product should perform at its best right out of the box, but don't let that take away too much from what this product's best could be with the right tweaks, because it stands up admirably against other upper tier point-n-shoots. The touchscreen turned out to be more than just 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 use. You won't regret it.
Other thoughts:
I think many of the bad reviews out there are a bit unfair. Does it really deserve 1 out of 5 stars just 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 own opinion, but look 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 use 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 just messing around with some of the different modes.I am a commercial photographer for 10+ years and I buy these pocket cameras because I want a camera with me at all times. They are Wonderful up until this one. I've had the 500, 600, 630, 800, 870 and now the 980. LOVE them ALL except the 980.
I bought this to replace my 870 which has been the best (IMHO) of the Canon line so far.
I liked the HD video idea, loved the wider lens however.... I got one and sent it back realizing the IS really doesn't work. the 870 was amazing hand held at 1". The 980 is not working, so I returned it Amazon's return is wonderful. The new one same thing, so it is either me or they are both broke or Canon went backwards on their Image Stabilization.
Picture quality I assumed would be better with the Digic 4 chip not near as vivid as the 870 chip. The images I find are "gray" in color not contrast.
Overall I can't wait for another Canon wide angle to come out so I can replace this. I would wait to buy or buy another model. The 980 is a disappointment and Canon should kill it and update it. My experience and 2 cents.
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