Professional Rain Cover for CANON EOS Digital SLR & NIKON D Series Camera small

First, this is exactly the same rain cover that Canon sells (I have the medium from Canon) but at a fraction of the cost. Second, it does the job of protecting the camera/lens in the rain/snow/whatever. However, it it not easy to use/figure out. The directions (whether for this or the Canon version) are not clear and it takes quite a bit of fiddling to figure it out thus I HIGHLY recommend practicing with it before going out. Sizing is a challenge, i.e. if you have any Canon lens at or below the 18-200mm zoom, get the small. I use the medium for my 150-500mm Sigma thus you should have an idea of how big these covers are. Unlike many covers, this cover easily works with a tripod.

I really like the rear window that enables me to see the back and top of the camera. The small version also has slits for putting your camera strap through and they work well. As you can see from the pictures of this cover, your hands go up from the bottom, thus, if you're hands are wet, the water flows downwards away from the camera/lens. The cover recommends using your lens shade and I heartily agree. The lens shade places the glass further away from the rain and makes for a better fit of the cover.

I spent a lot of money on Canon's brand of rain cover (the large for my 300mm f/2.8) I then purchased the JJC RI-8 Rain Cover for my smaller Canon 70-200mm f/2.8. I use both lenses on Canon 7Ds and 5Ds. I can tell no difference between Canon's rain cover and JJCs rain cover, except Canon has its logo plastered on the side of the rain cover at the lens barrel. Now some people like to show off their expensive cameras and lenses, but I really, really don't! I shoot in some pretty dodgy locations sometimes and I don't want to advertise what kind of gear I'm carrying. So logos are kind of useless to me. I did not give JJC five stars for only one reason: It comes with three replaceable eye pieces and there is no indication which eyepiece fits which camera. I eventually figured it out by trial and error, then marked the appropriate ones. One fits the 7D, one fits the 5D, and the third one fits nothing I own. But before I spend any more money on canon's rain covers, I'll try JJC's in the future.

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First off.

Let me say that I was a bit concerned after reading the other reviews. While they almost all said that it was hard to figure out, the ONLY trouble I had was fitting the rubber eye piece inside the eye piece frame. (it's a bit like putting a bike tire on a rim..you have to work your way around while holding it in place)

The white material is soft, flexible, and LOOKS like it will repel water (I have not tried it out yet). After the above assembly, the eye piece is an open hole, allowing you to see your subject clearly. (no looking through vinyl material like some others) The only vinyl material is around the eye piece, which allows you to see the various buttons, top of camera, and LCD view finder on your body.

There is PLENTY of space for just about any type of tripod head (I use a ballhead). In fact, the only problem I can see is if you use your camera "off tripod", where the extra material might get in your way. Still. There is enough Velcro pieces on this where I'm sure you can tuck it all in and secure it just fine, while still leaving room for your hands. I would not use this off tripod because I would worry about rain running down the camera straps. But that's me.

There are instructions included, but I didn't even see them (still in the handy carry bag) until I was re-packing the rain cover (shows you how easy it was to figure out). I might not have had the set up exactly like they said, but I can see there are several ways you can make this work depending on your set up (again, plenty of Velcro).

They supply a total of three rubber eye pieces (in case you drop one). Not just the small rubber piece that you insert, but these are actual eye pieces that slide down over your body's viewer (you have to remove your makers eye piece to use it, so put it in your pocket or some place safe while you use the other)

While I bought the SMALL size, It measured 17 inches from the back of the camera to the end of the tube your lens goes in. I also tried it with a couple other lenses, a shorter prime lens (35mm), and an 11-16mm zoom. The fit is fine so long as you tuck in the extra material before you Velcro everything down. Just use a bit of fore thought when tucking extra material in so you dont channel water back INTO your camera.

I've posted some photos that I took of the set up, to show the various parts of this cover. (I had to use my point & shoot, so please excuse the quality)

One piece of advice....put everything together at home a time or two before trying it in the field. When in the field, put it together in the car BEFORE going out in the rain. Just makes sence to me.

There is no doubt that I would advise a friend to buy this, as I will do just that (every shooter I know lives in Oregon and Oregon is WET!)

One reviewer said this is the same rain cover that has the 'Canon" logo on it. If this is the case, I can see no reason to pay the extra money for the logo only.

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Perhaps it is my lack of experience with rain covers, but this thing is a pain in the rear! Solid material, would trust it to keep water off the equipment. Eye part is hard to put on and figure out. JJC sells a cheap cover for a buck or two that works fine if you are in light rain, with the bonus of being able to use a flash.

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Love the quality and material.

Definitely good accessory for bad shooting conditions.

Love the way your hands are covered too.

Do i use it ? No, not really. In fact i try not to shoot in bad weather condition just to avoid having to deploy protective gear.

Nikon D5100 Digital SLR Camera & 18-55mm G VR DX AF-S Zoom Lens with 55-200mm VR & 500mm Te

I am very disappointed in the tele-converter that came with the bundle. It does not appear to do anything with the Nikkor lenses that came in the kit. The actual lenses are great. Not much in the way of informing the end-user on the (also included) 500mm non-Nikon telephoto lense. The camera is great and the pics so far appear to be of a better quality than my old 8 mp SOny F282, although it is not going away!. The bag is quality stuff along with most of the other gear, but getting back to the converter and the wide-angle they are pretty sorry unless I am missing something on their use. It was great get the memory card as part of the deal. Had I known what I know now I would have purchased the body, then a zoom 300mm lense and used an old Vivitar 2x tele-converter with an adapter for Nikon as it had been used on a Minolta SLR camera (still have). It was my fault not getting the larger zoom lense as the 200mm just does not get the range I need. Therefore I am still going to have to spend additional funds (which I do not have, thanks Obama) and get the longer lens. Probably will wait until I can afford a 400mm or better lens. So camera good, some other stuff not good! Would not buy a bundle deal again.

Sony Cybershot DSC-H10 8.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot

I exchanged a Canon SX100 for this camera, and I am so glad I did. This camera is lightening fast with flash shots (compared to the VERY SLOW Canon). Indoor pictures are great as well as outdoor. I have taken a ton of pictures and very few have been slightly blurry, most come out clear with good color. Flash looks natural, as opposed to the canon which would either over or under expose shots. I love that the camera is compact and small enough to fit in a regular camera case, but yet still has the long reach 10x optical zoom. I also love the 3" LCD.

Pros:

-Compact with 10x optical zoom

-3" LCD

-Good indoor photos

-No delay in between shots

-Battery meter always showing

-Slide show with music is too cool!

Cons: (Very minor and do not take away from camera at all)

-No automatic lens cover (has lens cap)

-No zoom in video mode (although if I want great video, I'll use my video camera)

-Comes with Shoulder strap I prefer wrist strap (Fixed by ordering a wrist strap off ebay for $2)

If you want a compact camera with a lot of zoom and good quality pictures, definitely go with this one. The only other cameras that have same features: Canon SX100 (too slow between flash, indoor shots are not good), Panasonic TZ3 (reviews say picture quality not good), and Canon G9 (only has 6x zoom and has a hefty price tag). To me, the Sony is the way to go for the average shooter who mainly shoots in automatic mode but occasionally plays with other settings. I have owned for about a week, if anything changes, I will update my review, but so far GREAT!!!!

I've had this camera for about three weeks and have taken several hundred pictures with it. It takes excellent pictures with amazing detail and color. Despite the fact that I am often photographing moving children, fewer than 5% of the pictures have been blurry. This camera's ability to take excellent action shots with no blur is one of its strongest features, in my opinion. A second superior feature of the camera, relative to the last camera I bought recently and returned (Canon Powershot SX 100IS) is the fast next shot delay. This camera is ready to take another picture, even after using the flash, relatively quickly. I say "relatively" because there is still a delay, but compared to the sluggish Canon, it is a great improvement. If you don't have the flash on, then the next shot delay is very fast. Also, the time the camera is ready to take the first picture from the time I take it out of the camera bag is quite short.

I have tried taking close up pictures of jewelry with the macro setting, which is only a one-button press. I thought it did a pretty decent job, although I did have to play around with the lighting to make sure that the flash didn't get reflected.

Another superior feature of this camera, relative to the Canon mentioned above, is the operation of the zoom. I find that I can control the exact amount of zoom with the button, whereas with the Canon, the zoom seemed to jump discontinuously.

For the amount of power (meaning the 10x zoom) and precision of this camera, it is very light (under a pound) and compact. I was able to take a whole series of shots at the playground using just one hand with no trouble, and the weight of the camera did not cause my hand to get tired.

Another feature I really like is that after taking a bunch of pictures, you can review them as a slide show with music and special effects. I did this at the end of a dinner party and was able to instantly show guests a slide show of the dinner on the camera.

As far as negative features, there are only two that I have discovered. The first is that there is a lens cap that has to be put on and taken off manually. You attach the cap to the camera strap with a string, so it's not a big problem; just a little inconvenient. In contrast, Canons' lens covers are built in, and the lens is covered with just a press of a button. The second negative feature is common to all Sony products and that is their proprietary accessories. The camera requires a Sony rechargeable battery (one comes with the camera, as does the recharger, but I bought an extra one) and a Sony pro-duo memory card. For me this is worth it because I really like Sony cameras.

In summary, I think this camera takes excellent pictures while being lightweight and compact. It's a good camera for a person like me, who often wants to take pictures of kids moving without having to mess with a bunch of settings to change the camera speed. I am very happy with this camera and highly recommend it to people who have similar needs. Sony Cybershot DSCH10/B 8.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot

Buy Sony Cybershot DSC-H10 8.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot Now

Tired of carrying around a much larger SLR camera with interchangeable lenses and small view screen I found the H10 a very nice replacement. The 10X zoom is more then enough for my travel picture needs. In Alaska I zoomed in on a bald eagle resting on a distant electrical tower. The large 3" viewing screen allows me to compose my picture without wearing any glasses. Mode selector knob easily allows me to find the right picture taking mode. Virtually no shot delay and multiple shooting mode works machine gun fast. Steady shot is always on, removing any moves I may make and later blaming on the camera. Taking pictures at twilight and night resulted in very high quality pictures. Issues? With a 4gb memory chip I tend to overshoot, bringing my battery to exhaustion. No problem, added an extra battery and off I go. Yes you can read where other reviewers will complain about what the H10 will not do. Then again, if you take the time to fully read the manual several times, practice with the camera and learn from your mistakes, you will find the camera is fine. It's the operator making the mistakes. Nice job Sony!

Read Best Reviews of Sony Cybershot DSC-H10 8.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot Here

PROS: Big screen, great zoom, lightweight, conventional cap, great flash, many features even fancy ones (music and so).

CONS: None.

It is a good camera, something not too pro, but with so many features that you'll feel like a pro. Specially the zoom (10x, wow!). The big screen, despite delicate, helps to detect blurs that cannot be easily appreciated in smaller screens (it gets greasy easily, so use a plastic screen protector). However, I would qualify the zoom, at its full length, with an 8, so far. Sometimes it is blurry (very little, but is), and sometimes not (in similar conditions shots), so I guess that it is not a 100% steady, but is ok considering its competitors (minor zoom and even more sensitive to movement). Just hold it firmly.

The lack of built-cap I cannot be sure if it is one of the "cons" because I had two Canon before this Sony and both suffered damage in its cap at any point (It did not close properly, it bended, did not open, etc.), so an old fashioned cap is ok as long as you fix a thread (are many on the market) to avoid losing it.

I like the flash also. It is strong, long and has different ways to use it: there is one that allows illuminating the whole scene, instead of just the proximity, so it is very useful for indoor pictures. You'll get beautifully illuminated interiors, with or without people. This is different from my previous Canon cameras.

It takes time to become a pro in the use of all its features. It has plenty. If you just want to focus and shot, then buy something less expensive. The features are promisingly great, but I am not so fast using it, I take my time. If you are going to a trip, is better that you become more than familiar with this little thing before so it can do a great job. Otherwise you will find yourself shooting in automatic all the time, and if that is so, why this camera then?

UPDATE, FROM A TRIP (2009):

I have just returned from a three week holiday with my husband and my 3 y.o. boy. I shoot more than 2000 pics... it's crazy, but the camera is so powerful and versatile that you enjoy shooting around.

This wonderful machine survived my boy, an outrageous number of shots, some strikes, bad weather, many bumps, etc. It's like the Jungle Jeep of Digital Cameras. My two previous Canons were not successful in similar conditions (the automatic cap was the first thing to fail and at the end it was necessary for me to open it with my fingers).

The more I used this Sony, the more I was in love with it. While in vacations you need to be very familiar with different settings to get the picture (i.e. in a sightseeing tour, a museum where no flash is allowed) and sometimes everything happens so fast that you really need to change settings right away to get that shot. Well, this camera is like having many cameras with me:

When it was very sunny outside, I used ISO 100 and I got wonderful blue skies, when it started to rain, I changed ISO to 400, when it was getting darker, to ISO 800. When I was in a museum where no flashes were allowed, I used my high ISO and so on.

When I wanted to get beautiful landscapes at night, I used M (manual) settings, easy to use, with lovely results.

When I wanted to do some beautiful B/W pictures or Sepia, or change size to landscape, it was very easy.

When I wanted to make skylines or just silhouettes, I changed the point feature and pointed to the source of light (taking care of my eyes) and the results were beautiful. I.e. There were lovely colorful skies, so I pointed to them behind a nice sculpture.

I also had a lot of fun by using the flash (never before I had enjoyed the flash so much) because the "flash keeping landscape clear" really does it. I mean, no more beautifully lighten people in a dark surrounding.

It was very easy to use a tripod, and knowing the settings of the camera I enjoyed to make self portraits of me with my family. I recommend the "Gorilla pod". I attached it to the stroller everywhere! Having a little boy, I learnt to make sequences of shoots with the auto-shutter.

I have recently purchased the Telephoto and adapter rings to use my old filters with this camera. Once I have tried them enough I would write the proper reviews.

UPDATE, 3 YEARS LATER (2011):

This camera has been a joy. Unfortunately it has started to fail. Early this year I had a problem with the zoom and I got it fixed, happy again. But just returning from another trip the flash has gone. It actually pops out and everything but the light doesn't come out. I will not get this repaired since it is expensive and I am afraid that it may have some other issues inside just about to come into surface. It been a lovely camera: survived many trips and tons of nice pics despite my roughness and adverse weather conditions. I WILL BUY ANOTHER JUST LIKE THIS ONE. I think that this is the best recommendation for any product.

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I really liked this camera most of all for its speed in taking the pictures, captured my dog so clearly as he was jumping in the air, awesome!! Zoom is great. I would have kept this camera for the great pictures but the following reasons really annoyed me:

1. the lens cap has to be taken off manually, hangs by a string, no clip to attach to the camera strap. If you don't take it completly off it gets in the way of shooting.

2. the on/off button is very tiny and is flush on the top of the camera making it sometimes difficult to turn on or off especially in a hurry.

3. no delete button, have to go through too many steps to delete a picture.

4. should be an indentation on the back for your thumb to rest and a better grip.

Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

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.

Ok so after reading so many negative reviews about this product, I decided to get my hand on one to find out. Lucky for me a close friend of mine bought it and I got a chance to run 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 make 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 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.

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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.

Read Best Reviews of Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Here

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.

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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.

Speco Technologies Weather-Proof Day/Night Color Bullet Camera with 48 IR LEDs

I have owned many IR Color Cameras over the last few years. I live in an area of some extreme weather conditions and most cameras have failed within a short persiod of time. When I pulled this camera from the box I knew it was different, it has a solid build and professional weatherproofing. The camera mount is also very heavy duty and easy to work with. The picture is outstanding both day and night. Now I only hope it will stand the test of time and elements. Stay tuned.

I purchased 4 of these cameras last fall from a seller here on Amazon. I installed them and already one has failed. I call Speco to get a return authorization for the 5 year warranty on the camera to find out that the person who I bought them from on Amazon is not an authorized seller of the product and my warranty is not valid. By buying their Product, you are not granted the warranty unless you buy it from an authorized Speco Dealer. No Warranty and a dead camera in under a year. I asked the Speco returns agent if they knew about this happening and he said yes it happens a lot. I said why don't they stop it and his response was this: "we want our cameras to sell and we are not concerned about who sells them..."

But they are very concerned when it comes to using the awesome 5 year warranty.

Lesson from this: Speco does not care about their product, only just selling. Buy another Product or call Speco Warranty Number 1-800-645-5516 and find out if the seller you are about to get a great deal with is an Authorized seller.

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Canon EOS Rebel T3 12.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Zoom Lens + 16

This is my first SLR camera and I love it. I did extensive research before purchasing the T3 and could not be more pleased. This kit is the best price on the market and it shipped very fast. The camera took amazing pictures right out of the box. I have two kids and the quick shutter speed is perfect when they can't/won't sit still. The action shots are crisp and high quality as well. I rarely use the flash even for indoor shots. The auto mode increases the ISO level and makes the pictures look soft and beautiful.

I also read Digital SLR for dummies and picked up some great tips on how to make my amateur pictures look professional. I would highly recommend the T3 and the value kit.

Buyer beware! The camera bag in the picture is not the camera bag that you receive with this product. The bag that you receive is much smaller and can barely fit the camera with just the one lens.

That being said... this is a great package. It's worth it just for the camera, the tripod (which is nice), the memory card, and the extra battery. I paid the extra 10 bucks for shipping and it arrived the next day so that was awesome.

Bottom line: great package, but the bag sucks. Be prepared to buy a different bag and factor that price into your decision.

JB

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This purchase is perfect for a beginning or amateur photographer and includes everything who is ready to start the digital world of photography. I'm a college student who is just starting a major in photography and this is going to be perfect for a starter camera. The Canon T3 camera is very light weight and perfect for on the go life styles. One of my favorite things in the deluxe accessory kit is the camera bag because it fits everything that you get in the kit (except for the tripod, but that has its own case with a handle) and much more!

Read Best Reviews of Canon EOS Rebel T3 12.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Zoom Lens + 16 Here

First and foremost I ordered this item on a Friday and It came the following Monday, so shipping was excellent!

The camera in itself, the Canon EOS Rebel T3(1100D) is an exceptional camera for everyday and professional use. It has the capabilities of shooting with an Iso from 100 to 6400, it is comfortable to hold, very lightweight due to the hard plastic design, and the user interface is very easy to navigate.

The accessories, some good some bad. The SD Card is a 16 GB SDHC class 10, which is a very nice card, plenty of space when shooting just in Jpeg 12 Mp, it gives you well over 2000 pictures to take. The memory card reader is nice if you don't have an SD card slot on your PC. The Hdmi cord is a nice accessory but when I used it, it seemed to cause static noise on the picture on my hd tv. The tripod is an ok built tripod, when fully extended the lower legs are very thin and feel flimsy so take precaution when using this outdoors or near children. The bag definitely seems small, but It manages to fit the camera, an 18-55 MM lens that comes with it, and a 50 MM lens. I do recommend any user to purchase the Canon 50 MM F/1.8 lens. It is definitely a lens to have handy and its only around 100 dollars. As far as the lcd screen protectors, you have to cut it yourself to fit to the screen and they were really blotchy and bad when put on, so definitely pick up different ones or none at all if you take care of your equipment. Comes with an extra battery which is definitely handy when out and about. The table top tripod is actually really cool! Its so compact and structurally very well built. The memory card wallet is a nice addition too, not the best, a little tight, but definitely also comes in handy.

OverallFor the price that you get the Canon T3 with 18-55 MM lens, this is definitely a great pick up for anyone who is interested in getting a D-SLR and starting something new. This was hands down one of the better kits that the site has to offer for its price. But like I mentioned, picking up the Canon 50 MM f/1.8 along with this kit will make it worth your while!

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We purchased this camera and Deluxe Accessory Kit for our honeymoon. The camera works well, just as you would expect a Canon product. However, the Accessory kit is a completely different matter. The Camera bag sholder strap broke within 1 week of use. This was due to the cheap plastic that attached the strap to the bag. After "fixing" the attachment with a metal link, the latch that holds the bag then broke. At this point I'm wondering what is so "DELUXE" about this accessory kit. I would not recommend the accessory kit, you would be much better purchasing a quality bag separately. We were very disappointed in the quality.

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Sony Alpha NEX-7 Digital Camera Body and E 18-55mm OSS Lens -Black with E 55-210mm Lens , 32GB Card

VERY PLEASED: I purchased the NEX-7 kit after reading the review by Damian Gadal on Amazon.com. I test ran the camera before I purchased it online. My purposes were: LIGHTWEIGHT and tack sharp. Those needs were met. I had to wait a couple of months to purchase the expensive, 3rd party, adapter by Metabones that will allow me to use my Canon system of lenses with the NEX-7 camera, saving me a lot of money. The downside of the adapter is that manual focusing of the non-Sony lenses is required. Small inconvenience. Metabones was so sold out that I had to get on a waiting list for the $400 item. It became available yesterday. There is an excellent demo of the NEX-7 by Michael Reichmann on his "Luminous Landscape" web site that shows the relative size and weight of the body and the set of lenses, in comparison to other cameras.

A bonus is all the in-camera things that the NEX-7 can do,--it does HDR in-camera, it stitches together a panorama after you have "waved" the camera in a semicircle, it will take a "partial color" picture, eg. showing the red in red roses in front of a Victorian house that it desaturates into a black/white background, it will create a sepia-toned image in-camera, and lots of other fun effects.

One reviewer carped that he did not like the Menu setup and expected something more like the Canon and Nikon menus which I find to be a burden. I love what Sony has done with their menu. The entire camera is a hybrid between a heavy high end camera and a lightweight pocket camera. I have both and now PREFER the lightweight camera that does all the same things, plus some neat effects. The only niddly thing, if forced to find something negative, that I can say is that the focusing of the liveview NEX-7 is a tad slower than my Canon lenses. I can live with that. It is not as slow as a pocket camera which hesitates while it takes an exposure reading.

Delivery of the camera from Cameta was prompt. Well-packed (actually Sony over-designed the packaging and it's a bit like taking an origami apart)

Have had this camera for about 8 months now and love it! Amazing photos--I tend to use the intelligent auto function the most but plan to take a class so that I can use the camera to its full potential.

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This camera is a great one and replaces my Canon AE-1 perfectly. So wonderful to have a digital camera that produces images that are as good as film. The variety of different effects is astounding. The package includes all of the accessories that are needed. The tripod is not good however, so plan on getting a good one separately.

Read Best Reviews of Sony Alpha NEX-7 Digital Camera Body and E 18-55mm OSS Lens -Black with E 55-210mm Lens , 32GB Card Here

Konica Minolta Dimage Z6 6MP Digital Camera with 12x Anti-Shake Zoom

This camera literally blew me away when I started using its zoom feature. First of all let me start by saying I am a practicing amatuer astromoner, and quite familiar with quality..This camera posesses an APO lens..Apro chromatic for those who care. I took a picture of a distant mtn in NM, of a feature called "turtle back".

I was zoomed 12X and after examining the photo on my laptop, I discovered I had captured a pair of hawks in flight against the mountain. In the second photo, one of the hawks was framed perfectly aginst the turtle's front foot, and I was able to blow it up on my laptop further where I could actually see feathers on the wingline, and the hawk's beak with little or no pixel distortion..The 6MP really works. I would recommend this camera to any amatuer photographer

Well, I searched and searched and read every review possible--so I thought--during the summer once I decided to put down my Kodak dx4530 and graduate to something with a little more "umph". I made a decision on the Canon S2. Due to some confusion my order was cancelled and I had to pick something else quickly. I did--the Dimage Z6. This camera does everything imaginable! I am not going to rehash in detail the previous reviews. If you have the money and want fantastic pictures--this is a GREAT investment! The instruction manual is a little jumpy but with patience you will get it. The features on the Z6 are never-ending. Buy & Have fun!

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I have a digital SLR camera in a different and higher class than this camera. We bought the Z5 for my son and I found myself drooling over some of the functions in his camera. Don't let the term son fool you. Although 10, I was brought up by a photographer who never cut the corners on photo for him nor the family despite not being well off. My son has taken fabulous pictures on the Z% and the new six has very few if any changes. It did not need them.

The new Z6, is an absoloutely incredible machine with for me, only one major drawback, which is the manual need to lift your flash. As a semi or part time pro I have my flash attachment on all the time and even though this camera can change, by a convenient push of a button, thru several flash modes, the manual pulling up of the flash would be hard for me but may be due to habit. You would just have to always have it up and rember to turn off your flash if you ever want to. Fill flash is measured with the ambient light in the Z^ so the heavy shawdows are removed or the shade of darkness of he face by the brim of a baseball cap or the shade of tree branches in some of a person's face is gone. Right there your picur will be much more pro looking. There is a hot shoe for a flash attachment if desired. The perfect next step up from the pocket cameras and even if boasting 7 or 8 megapixels the optical zoom of this camera and the speed of the compressor chip are far more important.

The zoom is to 420 (yes I said 420 and in old film talk) and an automatic feedback as to whether you just took a picture within the correct ecposure. Also a little camera icon shows when you are zoomed to far out on your subject or to little light, showing you you need a tripod or do not take. The macro and fine macro modes are fabulous allowing you to take that flower or anything from your puppies face close up. No lens filters make it so your lens is suseptible to scratching but is well incased in the lens covering. The features of this camera including the use of the histogram, the editing features within the camera will probably never be used by some but who cares at this price.

Smaller cameras will never match this in terms of optical zoom and also the portrait, landscape, and sports functions all work while still in automatic focus. This means you can hold your finger on the button and take one shot after another of your kids stealing first base and be in focus. I took my daughter jumping from a high dive on rapid spots fire and the water splashing back up is just gorgeous and in perfect focus as is she and her varring expressions as when climbing the ladder and coming down. The camera will stop if it does not detect enough motion and will chage back to a more normal state of autofocus which in most cases means you have to keep hitting the button versus holding your finger down on it.. Perfect for the multi use camera shooter. Can zoom in from a distance and can take moving so perfect for sports filming, portrait filming and landscape as well. Only those of very high calibder photography experience or ones activley photographing architecture or landscape may feel they need a wider angle lens and yet if this is a move up for you, this is not and will not be a problem. Most people feel a 28 lens to be wide angle to begin with and it may start at 17 I am not sure. I just dont shoot wide angle. Don't let Dimage fool you, even I a Cannon loyalist would never buy the Cannon in this league over this camera.

The camera uses print image matching so works great with almost every photo printer which for those newer to digital means the information on the s-disk talks to the printer when you are printing so your shots are clearer, moe detailed and the colors more accurate to what was taken or seen on the screen. Don't let the featrues scare you. They are there but a very great point and shoot camera as to the quality and the abilty for the camera and a photo printer to do it for you.

If buying the camera consider the best charger and best recharageable batteries as more expensive but better on batterey life and yet if you aare one to swear away anything but lithiom batteries this camera does extremely well when my husband's dimage of 3 years ago is an energy hog. If picking up in a store, remember you can take pictures through the large two inch LCD screen or the veiv finder. The veiw finder has vision adjustment so if it does not look good at first please adjust this. The Z6 gives one more megapixel than the z5, basically incresing you cropping ability as you probably wont be printing 24 by 24 posters. The processor somewhat faster then the z5 as well making what you snap your finger at what you take as no delay of notice. The z6 is about 1/5 more efficient battery wise which in some cases can save you. Not much better than the z5 as the z5 was and is a wonderful camera and was acually $100 more. It did not need changing.

The z6 has a Sleek new disign with the same size but looks gorgeous. Try not to use as a garbage can as it will use more energy and yes, there is a reson that some disks are cheaper than others. Do not go cheap on you disks. Nice battery feature in which the camera shows no batterey when plenty of juice, then a battery when about at the half way mark and one more with a little juice left. Draws your attention to it as it appears vs. changes. Stop at the last symbol of closly after that. A digital will never work it's best when low on power nor getting completley full on a card. At the highest shooting level at which all people should be on or buy a two megapixel to begin with a 516 chip has room for around 320 pictures. No case is made specifically for the camera and yet we found a great promaster for $35 that is cushioned and can be worn as a fanny pack or over the shoulder. MY moms smaller credit card canon fits in the front part of the case as altough this a "small camera to me" she feels otherwise and wants to take both on her upcoming cruise so she can slip the other in her evening bag. I myself would love this camera for a second one of lighter weight and yet under many situations could get the same as my SLR of much higher price,features and therefore quality. Although it hurts me to say it, computer leary people could add to this with the epson picture mate 4 x 6 printer with the lCD could never use a computer and still get bettter than costco processed disks. The HP and ohers would also work and yet he new epson at $250 but $200 onlin with a rebate has many more ediining functions. IF a previous camera uses a compact flash and you have to change over adding to the expense so be it. They are better, the way of the future and will last mush longer.

I can not say enough about this camera and I would never thought I would be suggesting anythig over a canon. Anoher nice feature which sounds like a gimic but is not is the anti-shake mechanism. It actually does help to lower the effects of a less than steady hand and so your pictues wiil be more likely to have the just right focus. If planning for an event please buy early and practice however whether you have experience or not. Due to the incredible zoom power you do need to have practice keeping your eye on things as the camera will not beep if a not a good shot and yet this camera wll tell you why so easy corrections can be made. The beep the camera makes when the camera locks into focus when pressing half way down is quiet and a good guide. It can easlily be shut off say at weedings, plays etc. Beep, solid white circle, press down, look at LCD for proper exposue OK and a glance at the picture and within a couple of seconds on to the next.

The camera has a playback mode to check pictures with magnigication to check for focus at the molecular level practically but a waste of time as you may be missing the next shot. Rapid fire is available and 3 consecutive quick shots so getting 3 but each slightly different. As with all cameras and with all kids, dont use the red eye reduction. This means the flash puts out usually 3 small flashes and then takes the pictue wih a bigger flash. You wiil have the kids in the next room and far to long for candid and making people look at you insread of getting that perfect side portrait veiw. Although a fine camera and a tendency of many of us to tend towards protection plans due to chips and complexity keep in mind the cost. The best of warranty plans and some worse than this do not cover theft and althogh they will tell you for even dropping the camera you must have a significant part of the broken up camera and must have the serial number intact. If you drop over the edge of the ocean, off the side of a cruise ship or inside indiana jones at disneyland are you actually going to go back and get the camera or jump off the cruise ship?

Using the stap is a much better insurance policy! You will be more upset about the pices than the camera so consider that when puchasing your s-disks. Better to have all shots on one card in the camera but if you lose the camera all gone or better for a few smaller so that all is not hopefully lost.? Depends on the person. JUST GET GOOD ONES. Also take a ton of pictures. This is what digital is about and at the hightest setting. Do not try to get more pictures by setting the camera at a lower resoluton. If you feel conscious of not having enough memory consider buying some thing like an IPOD with the capability of carrying pictures for you whille on a trip. This way you just have a great time with your camera and then can clean out on computer as should be when you get home. If intimidated get a hired person for $89,00 an hour in California to come, set up your system between your camera or card reader, your computer then to your photo printer. IF you use a printer for regular documents then this is your normal printing and can easily tell the printer to gear up the color and ink for a photo. Writ it down and do it.

Phot editing Programs can be hard but those in the high hundreds to the 2000 dollar range. For fifty dollars you can be storing, cropping, edtiting and burning to disk fun slide shows and burn them to dvd to watch and store forever. Remember the kid running bases, set the digitlal photos to a one second show and it will look almost like a movie in your slide show.

Playback on the camera is also in the version of slide show if you wish, so if traveling with friends or at grandmas house and the disk has been cleaned up they can see the ones you took that morning and haven't had the time to even go home and download to computer. Buy a good high speed charger, THE BEST BATTERIEs AND TWO SETS and good memory cards, a cushioned case and go for it. IF not there, the ability and faith of digital will grow. Then the passion comes and you would never dream of having anyone but you print your pictures. Much more fun to have a file and slide show of each Chistmas for a few years, a little of each, with music and typed christmas lists and now if you want can record the annual reading of twas the night before Christmas and have that play on DVD while your pictures show. Hard. NO. Need to learn. YES. For those hesitating come on over to the other side and join the speed and abitlity of the reality and reason for digital, Never again will you pick up the doubles you ordered with only one good shot for $25.00 and for the others with a slower processor, less meagapixel or less optical zoom digital camera you will always be frustrated with the quality of your pictures as your dont have the resolution to crop and get rid of uncle Harry and his eyes shut. This is truly the best camera in it;s class on the market and I have tried the Canon. I have reserched this to the extreme, macworld agrees with me as does several of the digital photo mags that rate cameras. Buy and enjoy. Use it as a point and shoot if you want and learn a new feature one at a time. Also , forgot a wondrful feature increasing where you can take pictures. It has the ability to change the exposure of light while still remaining in autofocus so can get great shots in say museums, the monterey aqauriam and other places not allowing or appropriate for flash, IF you are debating this camera over a $300 one becasue of size or money you don't know digital cameras!!!! Sorrry for any poor spelling. Ill and numb hands makes tuping hard. IF you are questioning the 400 camera, the 35 dollar case, the 100 on two good 256 s-disks and the 50 for the battery charger nd the 15 for the extra batteries you are fogetting all the pictures you have in envelopes blurred and no good as you did not throw our or go look at them. IF you ex whatever wasnt in the picture because you could now crop them out would you like it better? Do you have fair haired kids with bright red dots staring back at you looking like aliens. Do you have a garbage can on the side of perfect shot of the family all together for once and dressed up. Is it slightly out of focus. All of those would be good if digital and all that money spent for all those prints that need thrwoing away would be gone and would you enjoy some occasionally if you had a slide show of that child now older and driving you crazy, would you like to havw on the tv via DVD pictures showing for a while you can walk by and remember whar once was also deinving you crazy and thru time brings out you oooh and ahhhs while they play to your or their favorie child hood memories. Or how about the trip to Hawaii you are still doing laundry from and yet seems so far away flash by you on your computer at work. Within minutes you can have 50 pictues with the same or different titles or comments on the web with notices to all the family that the baby is here. Young or old, digital is so enjoyable and you can even buy programs to make your bes freinds faces all distorted to play at a party or at a 3oth the person growing up and the growing old to 80, This camera will get you to what ever you want as so easy and so good. You will want to show off your pictures. Have fun. Start saving money and get those pictures out and going.

Read Best Reviews of Konica Minolta Dimage Z6 6MP Digital Camera with 12x Anti-Shake Zoom Here

12x Optical Zoom, 6MP, Movie mode, Auto Focus, Rapid Fire Shooting..................what more could you want for this price. I was looking to replace my 2.1 feature loaded digital with more megapixels and more optical zoom capacity for less than $250. Wasn't going to happen unless I settled for 4, maybe 5X optical zoom. I quickly figured out that for another $100 I could have much, much more than what I wanted and would not be looking to replace the Z6 in less than 2 1/2 years as is the case with the 2.1 mp I was using. No brainer in my book.

My soon to be 13 year old son has taken to it like a duck to water and has figured out nearly all of the main features. He delights in making movies which usually have to deleted the next day but this camera will teach him the craft and serve my purposes very well. Love the slightly larger size of this unit versus the rectangular box digitals that are myriad. It allows me to wrap my hands around it oh so securely and easily with the rubberized protrusion on the right side and I do not have to check every 3 seconds to make sure I am not obstructing lenses or pushing buttons that I ought not to be pushing.

Oh yes, the picture quality is tremendous and there is not a conceivable lighting situation that this camera can not handle.

If you learn the features this camera offers you will use it happily for a long time.

I upgraded to the 512mb Sandisk Ultra II flash card and it is very fast. Another reviewer on another site said that it increased processing speeds noticeably. Rebates are available until mid-November '05

Want Konica Minolta Dimage Z6 6MP Digital Camera with 12x Anti-Shake Zoom Discount?

I had shopped and researched for several months before buying this digital camera. Part of what played in my decision was the fact that I owned a Konica SLR for many years until it was stolen and was so happy with it. I also owned a Minolta with the same experience minus the theft. I compared this camera with some of what Nikon had to offer and felt that I made a good decision based on quality and price. I was so excited when my camera arrived and I pulled it out of the box. It is such a nice looking camera and I love the fact that it is more substantial with the bigger display operating more like a slr I am used to than a tiny little digital that you have to watch your fingers to keep them out of the shots. I have taken quite a few pictures in the last week since receiving this camera. Still shots and close ups of my adorable grandson are awesome right down to the dried milk on his chin. I am still working on the action shots but those seem to be my lack of skill and not the camera. I did take a short movie clip of my sons basketball game that came out really well. All in all I am very pleased with this purchase and now that I have bought a bigger sd card, come on guys a card that will only hold 4 pictures taken on a fine setting or 16 at standard lets get a little cheap here though I did appreciate the included batteries. That aside now that I am set with a reachargable set of batteries and the bigger card 512 mb takes 300 or so pictures on the fine setting. I am ready to go and having a great time taking pictures. I had one interesting thing happen which I don't think is the camera as the picture shows perfectly on the lcd screen but when I uploaded it to my computer and I click on the picture it is fragmented this has happened on 2 pictures and I am not sure if that is a memory card malfunction, the software that came with the camera, or my computer? Once I track that down I will feel better. Anyway I look forward to some long and happy fun taking pictures with this camera and also have already enjoyed the editing software and printing my own pictures. I intend on spending some time also learning the more advanced aspects of this camera and will come back and rewrite my review after I get a little more digital savvy.

Canon PowerShot SX1IS 10 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 20x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom a

Quick summary:

1. I really like this camera, especially being able to take HD video and optically zoom while recording. I also really like taking 4 fps of continuous shooting.

2. You really need to read (at least skim) through the instructions. Some of the ease of use benefits of a point-and-shoot were compromised to give you some of the versatility of a digital SLR. I'm not too crazy about the "Control Dial" to select menu options. Over all, the software seems a bit less intuitive than other Powershots I've used in the past.

3. Using Quicktime on Windows to view the HD video might result in jerky motion. HD video is smooth in Quicktime on a Mac. This is a Quicktime/Windows issue, not a camera problem.

4. The camera is solidly built, but it's a bit heavy. It's not ergonomically designed for extended video recording.

5. Consider reading and viewing a video demo by a professional at

Long version:

I was very eagerly anticipating this camera. The key feature in the Canon SX1IS is the CMOS sensor used in the SLR product lines. I got really excited about a single camera with HD video, 20x optical zoom, 4 frames per second of continuous shooting, articulated screen, and standard AA batteries. I've owned several Canon Powershot models, and I've been very satisfied with them. I'm also an experienced 35mm SLR person. I thought that the SX1IS was going to be my perfect camera... or actually the perfect gift for my wife.

I am an amateur photographer whose primary subjects are my children playing sports. Since I work a lot, my wife actually ends up taking a majority of the photos. I was planning to get a digital SLR for her when I came upon the specs for the SX1IS. It seems as if Canon product managers have listened to everything I wanted in a digital camera. The biggest deals for me were

1. HD video with optical zoom enabled while you're filming

2. 4 frames per second of continuous shooting

3. 20x optical zoom

4. Ease of use of a point-and-shoot

Here are my series of reactions:

1. After the first set of photos and videos, I couldn't help but feel as if Canon has under-delivered on the promise of a nearly perfect camera for amateurs or perhaps my camera was defective. This was my review of the first batch of photos and videos: (please read on to the next section since my initial disappointment resulted more from ignorance and unfair expectations)

a. I wasn't getting anywhere near 4 frames per second.

b. In the AUTO mode, the photos seem to come out at a lower quality than my much cheaper Powershot A710 in AUTO mode. By lower quality, I mean that the color, contrast, and details appear not as good.

c. It is very cool to be able to zoom in and out while you are taking video, but the HD video footages came out jerky enough to be really annoying.

2. This didn't seem right, so I actually read the instructions and spent a few minutes googling for info. It quickly became clear that you really have to read the manual to use this camera effectively. The manual is not written especially well, but it contains the info you need. (FYI, I've NEVER read instructions on any of my other digital point-and-shoot cameras before, and I have been very happy with the thousands of photos I've taken.)

a. Getting 4 frames per second: I learned that you cannot shoot 4 frames per second in AUTO mode or SPORTS mode. SPORTS mode can only take continuous AutoFocus photos which is about 1 frame per second. Most of the other modes support fast 4 frames per second continuous shooting. In the 4 fps continuous shooting, only the first shoot will be in focus, the others will be out of focus if the subject moves towards or away from your camera.

b. Comparing photos from SX1IS with A710: I realized that I was taking photos at high zoom that the Powershot A710 was not even able to get, so this was not a fair comparison. For apples-to-apples outdoor photos, SX1IS does take superior photos, but indoor photos does seem grainier at similar zoom levels. However, the difference is really minor, and there are many many adjustments on the SX1IS that can more than compensate.

c. Jerky HD video playback: This is a really a problem with Quicktime on my Windows Vista (on 2.5GHz Quadcore CPU with 4GB of RAM & ATI Radeon 512MB graphics card, so not a hardware issue). I saw similar jerky playback with Quicktime on Windows XP. However, the videos play smooth and perfectly in Quicktime on a Mac OS X. By reading this review, I hope you don't get upset when your first HD video looks really bad because of the jerky motion. I'm sure that this is a temporary problem: either Apple will improve Quicktime playback on Windows, a better MOV player will be available, or software will be available to convert the MOV to another format that works better on Windows.

d. Further note: To make changes to a bunch of settings via the menu options, you have to use this ring on the function button (called the "Control Dial"). It's the knurled outermost concentric ring surrounding the FUNC. SET button. You rotate this to select the menu options you want. Well, maybe I'll get used to it, but right now, this ring sucks. It's easy to miss the your menu item because you rotate this ring with just enough force, but if you press a bit too much, you end up with different options. This will probably suck to another plateau when I'm in bright sunlight looking through the viewfinder.

Here are 3 other things you might want to consider before purchasing this camera:

1. The camera feels very solid, but this also means that it is a bit heavy.

2. The form factor is for taking photographs, so if you plan to use this primarily for the HD video, your hands/arms will tire out. It is a bit awkward to keep the camera steady for extended video. HD camcorder will probably be better for you if your primary motivation is to take HD videos.

3. See a professional review with a video demo at

I'm now having a great time taking lots of photos and videos with this camera. The 20x zoom, HD video, and 4 fps is worth the cost premium.

There is a lot to love about the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS. Being able to take photographs or shoot 1080p video (get a big memory card for video!) is the main attraction for this camera, and this camera delivers. The 20x zoom lens is FANTASTIC. Zooming in and out is painless, quick, and silent. You'll love the freedom this gives you. I love that this camera takes 4 AA batteries. These kind of batteries are available everywhere so you don't have to worry about running out of power like you do in cameras with a proprietary battery pack. The video screen on this camera is relatively big, bright, and clear.

But the camera is not without a few problems. Coming from a Canon D-SLR, the image quality leaves a little to be desired. At 100% magnification, the images are a little noisy. However, most people don't look at pictures at this zoom-level, and at normal print sizes, the images are sharp and noise is not really noticeable in real-world shooting. I personally don't like the neck strap. Maybe I just need to wear it in, but at its current stiffness, it sometimes gets in the way of the camera controls. The video looks a little wobbly sometimes due to the design of CMOS sensors (Google "rolling shutter effect"). However, I only notice it when moving the camera quickly (such as panning). The battery compartment doesn't open the way you might expect (look in the manual before attempting it). The on-screen menu is a pretty good but could be better. The viewfinder is electronic and the colors on it appear washed out, but it gets the job done. Finally, there are no threads on the front of the lens to mount filters on, but there are third-party adapters that will let you do this (Lensmate makes one).

However, I'm still very satisfied with my purchase and would not hesitate to recommend the camera to others looking for this kind of hybrid camera. I'm going on a trip in June and it'll be the only camera I take.

Buy Canon PowerShot SX1IS 10 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 20x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom a Now

I've been waiting for the HD-video-capable replacement for the SX10IS for awhile, and I'm glad I waited. There is a lot of legitimate discussion whether this, the successor to the SX10IS, is a worthwhile replacement, and the answer is contingent on what you want to do with a camera and how experienced you are with photography.

First, this camera has an incredible zoom range. I stood from several blocks away and photographed an entire seven-story building in NYC using the SX1IS's widest zoom setting. From the distance I stood I could barely see that the top three floors featured terraces. I took another photo at maximum zoom and could not only see the terraces but see with reasonable detail that someone with a yellow short-sleeve shirt was having breakfast on their terrace. Needless to say, if you have a need for a fast, high-zoom-capable lens, the SX1IS has it.

In terms of speed, the camera feels very responsive. The lens itself zooms and retracts quickly with little noise (even while shooting video) and I was pleased with the overall responsiveness. The focus settings need to be played with somewhat, but overall the camera feels quick as opposed to sluggish or slow. Also, this (over the SX10IS) is rated at 4fps, which is mighty quick.

Picture quality, overall, is very good. There is definitely fringing on the edges of a shot where the barrel effect of a big, zoomed-out lens appears, but overall I'm happy with the results. There are some issues if you are taking a shot that will wind up on the side of a bus in an ad, but even 8x10 shots will come out wonderfully.

The camera is a bit heavy, but given the lens and the technology stuffed into this thing, I didn't feel like I needed a massage after working with it for a few hours. It's lots heavier than my snapshot go-to camera, the Canon 880IS, but that's like suggesting a Maybach is a lot heavier than a Kawasaki Ninja. Apples and oranges.

Overall, I think this is a good camera. It is a great tool for people who really know what they're doing -which frankly isn't me. However, I have a general idea of what I want to accomplish and I'm willing -and going to -take the time to learn how to get more out of this camera. It's fine as an automatic point and shoot -a bit complicated, perhaps -but it will definitely save me the trouble and bother of going the dSLR route. Unless the lens on this camera is damaged, there should be no need to upgrade because the wide angle is great and the zoom is incredible. The lens could be a bit better at high zoom, but I'm satisfied with the results.

The main thing that this camera offers over the SX10IS is the capability to do RAW images and HD Video. The former is for serious users -I haven't installed my packaged Canon software yet and haven't even explored taking RAW images or how to edit them with Photoshop on the PC -but the HD video results are pretty amazing. I'm not sure how often I'll use this to do HD video but I can say without a doubt that I'd kick myself in six months' time if I wanted to use it to take some video and had to rely on 480p or 720p instead of full HD video. The quality is stunning and accurate, and with stereo mics the SX10IS does better at video than some fully-dedicated video cameras from several years ago.

A word to the wise: if you are willing to take the time to learn how to use this camera or are very experienced, you will enjoy using this camera. It's a bit pricey but I think it's a great piece of equipment. If however you are looking at this as an improvement on a little snapshot camera like the aforementioned 880IS and all you want to do is take portraits and the like, don't spend the extra money, get a snapshot digicam.

I'd recommend this to people who are either experienced or have a decent knowledge and understanding of photography, and also for people who would like to explore the mechanics of taking a photo beyond just hitting a button. It does produce some great photos, but it can really be frustrating. Bottom line: between the expense, the size of the cam itself and the tweaking necessary, if convenience is first and quality is second on your wishlist, this is not the right camera for you. You should go check out the Canon G10. If quality and the art of photography are the two highest items on your digicam wishlist, buy it and happy shooting.

Four stars and not five because of the lens fringe, the manual pop-up flash and the focus issues I originally experienced before I read through the manual. I'd have given this bad boy an extra star for RAW recording but I also deducted a star because you need to install proprietary Canon 'ware (both an app and a codec) before you can manipulate RAW images in Photoshop or elsewhere.

Overall, one hell of a camera.

Read Best Reviews of Canon PowerShot SX1IS 10 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 20x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom a Here

Let me preface my review by saying this is the perfect super zoom compact for me (on paper). I love everything about this camera but its reliability.

I've been really pleased with the HD video performance; sharp videos with good out of the camera color rendition, with some CMOS "wobble" on fast pans (more a function of bad videography technique however). Was pleasantly surprised with how still images capture in such an extreme 20x zoom lens. Is it a little soft at extreme aperatures? yeah. Is there chromatic aberation in the corners? sure. But this is a compact camera we're talking about here. ISO 400 is about the limit for me in regards to noise, but this is about par for the course as I've never been happy above 200 in all other compacts i've owned. The articulating screen is awesome and battery life has not been an issue due to rechargeable AA accesibility. For a traveller, this is a huge plus. Those who don't travel may not understand or appreciate this feature.

Where this camera fails in epic proportion is durabilty. My first SX1 lasted 3 weeks before it gave me the following error: "lens error, restart camera". This was after 30 or so pictures, and 4 movies; we're talking about 1 hour of total use, tops. Camera was never dropped or mishandled. Upon investigating online and forums, this seems to be an issue with both Japanese and US versions of this camera.

Perhaps I am just very, very unfortunate to get this twice. Getting burned twice makes me shy about trying it one more time and I hope you have better luck than I did.

Want Canon PowerShot SX1IS 10 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 20x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom a Discount?

I just returned (last night) from a 12 day MIT alumni safari trip in Tanzania. I've been a serious amateur photographer for 50+ years, and had planned to take my Rebel xsi and two zoom lenses. I bought the sx1 3 months ago to evaluate it, and after many hours of using it, shooting test shots vs. the xsi, and traveling with it, I decided to take only the sx1 to Tanzania. Four people in our group had quality DSLRs and big lenses; one had an HD DVR. I am VERY happy that I chose to take the sx1. I got many more very good stills and HD videos than any one else. The DSLR people did get some exceptional stills that are better than anything the sx1 could do, but I knew that would be the case. My sx1 was always with me, always a second or two away from taking a quick shot, and even mixing stills and HD video simultaneously. I love that you can zoom while shooting video. I used Energizer "ultimate lithium" non-rechargeable AA batteries. I got 800 stills and 45 minutes of video on the first set before the "low battery" warning.

For me, reviews that point out that the sx1 image quality is not quite as good as a DSLR+lens that are 4x bigger and heavier are not helpful. It is true, and should be obvious. The big lenses are also better in dim light. In good light and mid-distance scenes, I can't tell the difference in 8x10 images from my best DSLR and my pocket Canon SD970.

I had a choice of taking the sx1 on safari, with a total weight of 1.47 pounds including batteries, or the xsi plus a canon 17-85 and a sigma 50-500 zoom, total weight 7.05 pounds without cases and charger. The sx1 was more than worth the image quality tradeoff, and the ability to shoot HD video was a real bonus. I'm fairly new to video, but using PowerDirector I'm integrating stills and video, all 1080 HD quality, into a really attractive presentation.

I found that the Tamrac 5230 case was best for the sx1 on safari. I wore it on my belt, with the top unzipped (it has velcro and snap closures as well as the zipper). I put the spare batteries, lens cleaner, etc. in a big zip-lock bag and folded that in the bottom of the Tamrac, under the camera. The Tamrac would fit into the zip-lock bag in a downpour. I got an adapter (LensMate, I think), and kept a 58mm skylight filter on the lens, with no lens cap. I could wipe the filter clean quickly without worrying about scratching the lens. I kept a tiny tripod in the outer pouch of the Tamrac, and I was ready for anything.

If you are considering a camera in this size and price range, and you want the 20x zoom and HD video, you will love the sx1.

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