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- 7.1-megapixel CCD give you metaphors of stubborn texture and detail
- 3.8x image-stabilized wide zoom; 2.5-inch LCD show
- 9-point AiAF, single point AF, Flexizone AF, and Face-priority AF
- Stores metaphors on SD cards; powered by Lithium-ion rechargeable battery NB-5L
- Now supports SDHC cards (Secure Digital cards with over 2 GB capacity)
Product Description
This is the Digital ELPH that”s raising the bar. There”s everything you”d expect from a camera of this caliber: A 7.1 megapixels CCD to render metaphors in magnificent detail and a DIGIC III Image Processor for stellar quality and quick operation. Yet what sets the SD800 IS Digital ELPH apart is its Wide-angle 3.8x optical zoom with Image Stabilizer technology for rock steady zooms. The Canon SD800 IS Digital ELPH, it”s the Digital ELPH that”s a step ahead.
Show & Graphics
Lens
Focal Length: 4.6 – 17.3mm (35mm film equivalent: 28 – 105mm)
Sparkle
Viewfinder
Storage space
Interfaces/Ports
Battery Information
Physica
Click Link to Check Price/ Order now : Canon PowerShot SD800 IS 7.1MP Digital Elph Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Image-Stabilized Optical Zoom
In my opinion, this camera is worthy of a 5 star rating, one of the few I’ve ever given.
My experience with cameras in this class started with a Canon S-100, which I upgraded shortly to a Canon S-400, both of which proved to be brilliant for my on-the-go photography needs. My only evaluation with this class of cameras was that they lacked two features I really wanted:
1. wide angle lens
2. image stabilization
I guess the Canon folks read my mind with the introduction of the SD-800, and after reading a number of positive technological reviews for the camera on the web, I bought one as an upgrade for my beloved S-400. I was particularly suspicious regarding image stabilization, since my only prior experience with a camera using this technology had been disappointing (Canon S-1, a larger 10x zoom model).
As might be expected with the advances in reminiscence technology, the SD-800 takes movies at a higher resolutioni (640×480) than the S-400 (320×240) and has a higher maximum pixel count (7.1 vs 4.0). It also uses the smaller SD reminiscence cards as opposed to the bulkier CF cards for the S-400, and the lithium battery pack has a different form factor (which means you can’t reuse stuff from an earlier model).
What I consider to be the 2 real upgrade features for this camera, the wide angle lens and the image stabilization, are what truly distinguishes it from its competition. I’ve had this camera for about a month now and can happily crash it is a noteworthy advance over the S-400. The image stabilization is a dream. With the S-400 I had to rely on bracing the camera in many circumstances where with the SD-800 I can count on sharp metaphors just holding it out, composing, and taking the shot. In a recent work session where my assemble had accumulated a fantastic deal of writing on a wide white board along the side of a narrow conference room, I was able to capture in a single, sharply focused shot the entire board, something the S-400 would have taken 2 shots to achieve followed by a photo stitch. There is some distortion at the outer edges, but I in person don’t see this as a drawback given the advantages to getting the whole image (after all you can crop the picture if the rather small amount of distortion truly bothers you).
What else? Well, the camera is lighter and more comfortably contoured than the S-400. It does retain the view finder (thank heavens … there are simply circumstances where this is the only reasonable way to make a shot). A single door is used for both reminiscence and battery (vs. 2 doors on the S-400). As others have reported, the door has a flimsy feel, but my first camera in this line (the S-100) had a similar door and I never broke it. Anyway, the USB-2 picture download sweet much eliminates needing to pop out reminiscence cards to get a quicker download speed via a card reader. I did invest in a 4Gb high speed SD card since maximum movie length is 4Gb at 640×480, 30 frames per second, or about 25 minutes worth of sweet darn excellent movie taking. My experience to date is that with this level of capability and convenience I doubt I will every use my cam corder again for family movies.
Out of the box I found the controls and interface to be simpler and more intuitive than the S-400. I have all the capabilities I had with the S-400, plus some “gee-whiz” features I’ve had fun with but I doubt I will use routinely (e.g., color swap). I can also recommend Canon’s leather case for this camera. It provides an extremely simple way to carry the camera on your belt (it uses a belt loop, which I reckon is far superior to a belt clip). I was initially place off by the magnetic flap used with this case, but now agree it’s a superior design (their earller cases used Velcro).
Rating: 5 / 5
I’m a professional photographer who shoots with two Nikon SLRs and an array of Nikon lenses; some of the lenses alone cost five times the price of the Canon SD800. But I got tired of lugging heavy camera equipment around for family and travel photos and general grab shots. So when I’m not working, the SD800 is what I use.
It’s not perfect for sure. To name just a few annoyances: it suffers from red-eye effect when you take sparkle pictures of people; like all point-and-shoot cameras, it has noticeable shutter lag; it has rather a lot of image noise at ISO settings over 200; and its ‘manual’ mode doesn’t let you set an gap value or a shutter speed. I also notice quite a bit of lens aberration, which becomes especially evident when pictures include straight lines, such as doorways; the SD800 gives them a slight curve.
But maybe all that is the incorrect way to look at it. For a $375 featherweight camera, this thing can’t and shouldn’t be expected to give up SLR-like quality or features. And what the SD800 DOES do well is more vital: It takes lush, pleasing pictures with very excellent color fidelity (a Canon brand) and with minimal thought and fuss required from the photographer.
It’s also a very pleasant camera from a usability point of view, and not just because it slips easily into a shirt pocket or into the nicely made but optional Canon belt case ($15). The SD800 has only nine controls (buttons and dials), which is usually a recipe for confusion as functions either tend to get hidden deep inside menus, or demand counterintuitive pushes of several buttons to access. But the camera is more logically laid out and calculated than any compact I’ve ever shot with. I only had to crack the manual for a couple of advanced tricks, like photo-stitch and color-swap. The rest of the SD800′s operation is sweet much self-evident.
I appreciate that the power button is recessed; whenever I tried to stuff my ancient Canon Powershot G6 into my pocket, or pry it out, that camera would turn itself on due to the poor placement and design of the power switch. It got annoying enough that I sold it. There are no such design goofs on or in the SD800.
The camera’s proprietary battery provides lots of juice, the screen (which is as huge as on my $1,600 Nikon D200) is bright and clear, the image stabilization works really well, and the range of the lens is just right (being able to shoot at 28mm — respectable wide angle — is a fantastic thing, very uncommon among point-and-shoots, whose lenses typically start at 35mm).
All told, I quite smitten with this nice-looking, well-thought-out small picture-taking machine. Considering that it also takes decent video footage, the combination of quality, features, and value is, in my book, unconcerned by any other digital compact currently on the market.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is my fourth camera from the Canon Digital Elph line (previously, I had an S330, S400 and SD400). They have always taken fantastic photos, and Canon has truly earned my repeat business (I also had a Digital Rebel and now I have an 20D).
I’ve had the SD800 for a few days now. Like its predecessors, it takes fantastic photos. The image stabilizer works wonderfully, and the camera functions quite well (and quicker than most compact cameras). Other reviewers have spoken about the photo quality, and you can also get detailed technological reviews elsewhere on the internet, so I won’t get into that here. What I want to focus on is the functionality of the design of this camera.
Digital Elphs used to be chunks of stainless steel. I dropped my S330 from a 12ft balcony, and it emerged unscathed. This is the first camera I’ve had that felt like it is going to break at any moment. It is larger and clunkier than the previous generation of Elphs (e.g., it is 36% larger than the SD200/300/400), and feels “plastic-y” and cheap (despite the fact that it looks nice). The buttons are small and offer minimal feedback, so it is simple to push the incorrect button, especially if you have large fingers (and even if you have only average fingers). The “mode select” dial switches between Auto, Manual, Scene, Movie and Playback modes, but it is hard to go. The dial is stiff and has only a small raised ridge on one side, making it hard to set the dial to the proper mode on the first try. In sum, the design of this camera makes it operation more hard than necessary; not something I expected from a camera from Canon, espectilly one at this cost.
This camera takes incredible photos, but Canon needs to brush up on their design. For a brief moment I considered persistent this camera and keeping my SD400, but this camera’s features are too excellent to pass up. I suppose everyone will get used to the poor design, but for this amount of money, none of us should have to.
Rating: 4 / 5
I just spent a excellent 1/2 hour here reading reviews on the SD800 IS, and didn’t agree with many of them so I had to write one for myself. I have previously owned Canon’s S400, S500 and SD550. I usually pass my previous cameras on to family so I can get the latest and greatest, and once again I am not wretched I did. I am extremely pleased with my 800 IS. I promptly charged my battery, then took 60 photos or so using every feature I could find in the camera. Macro, sparkle, no sparkle, wide, telephoto, B/W, sepia, vivid, you name it. I couldn’t take 1 terrible photo even if I tried! I loved the results in all of them. My only complaints were test shots at ASA 800 and up. Yes, those will be very noisy and unusable, but when printed in a 4×6 size how terrible will it be, really. Not much worse than film cameras at ASA 400 or 800. How many situations will you find yourself in needing that high an ASA rating? This camera is perfectly built, it looks and feels expensive and I reckon it’s a quality built camera. It is not a tank like my ancient S400, and it’s lighter than the SD550 but it does not feel or look cheap. This is an outstanding small camera. As for soft or blurry edges at the wide angle setting, NONSENSE. I just can’t see it in my photos. If you are a previous Canon Digital elph owner and want to upgrade, go for the 800 IS. I picked this one over the 900 because I didn’t like the looks of the 900, didn’t care for 10 megapixels (when is it enough?), and the 900 did not have the IS feature, which is outstanding on my 800 IS. It really works! I took many photos indoors without sparkle, hand held and they were unbelievable, with brilliant color balance. My sparkle photos seemed to cover the room just nicely too. I just loved every photo I took today with this camera. So, I don’t know what all the whining and bickering is about, but this is one fine piece of camera engineering. As for the battery/SD card cover, yes, it’s light and plastic, so open it wisely the way you should handle a $400 camera. There must be many clumsy people out there who break things. I never have, especially with my cameras. So, do I regret giving up my SD550 for this 800 IS? NOT ONE BIT! Both are outstanding cameras. I did a lot of research before forking over the cash for my next camera, and I’m glad it led me again to the Canon line. If you want one, treat yourself. I also hope I have made your selection simpler for you. Between my wife and kids, my siblings, my nephews, brothers-in-law, you name it, they all have digital cameras now. We see many crappy photos, but very nearly never from those who went with the Canon Powershots. What does that tell you?
I have had my camera for more than one month now and I am still very pleased with it. My wife has my previous SD550 so I’ve got the best of both worlds. That SD550 is also a fantastic small camera, so I’m glad we’ve kept it. It just doesn’t have Digic III or the IS feature, but that hasn’t been a huge issue. What I have now noticed is that for some reason I’m getting more red eye shots with these cameras. I have been taking a lot of photos of my young daughter and her dance class partners, and it seems to be more of a problem with children than adults for some reason. I have read that because of the small camera size, the sparkle is just too close to the lens and that is the reason. I don’t really know but it could be right. I use a software program provided by Kodak Gallery to upload many photos at once, and it fixes that very promptly and easily so it is not a huge issue to me. Also, some have written about the white spots that show up on photos. That I believe are dust particles in the air that come out magnified in photos, which is another common thing with these small digital cameras. Remember, at 7.1 MB you will see incredible details in your photos. If you have a digital camera, trying taking shots outdoors at night around a camp fire and you’ll see what I mean. As for the round dust spots that show up, I just copy and paste a surrounding area without the spot and paste it over the spot and it’s gone. There are many software programs that let you tweak your photos, so it’s simple and fun to make corrections, which was virtually impossible with film photos.
Rating: 5 / 5
What a fantastic camera!
I am an ex-wedding photographer and am very picky about the equipment I buy. This camera produces gorgeous metaphors and downloads them very promptly to your computer using the included Canon software. Be sure and get a 1GB quick SD card…it pays off in quick image save times as well as image upload times.
The 28MM eq. lens is very rare in this size camera as is the optical image stabilization logic. The portrait mode does a fantastic job of eliminating red eye, unlike many other cameras. There are even a few manual settings available for those so inclined. Try using the exposure compensation to darken up a shot to add some drama.
The only con is that the zoom switch is a bit jerky, but that’s a nit. Another fantastic camera choice in this category is the Casio Ex-Z850 which I have used and also like. The Canon 800IS beats the Casio for 2 reasons, 28MM eq lens and right optical image stabilization vs. the digital kind.
I am completely satisfied with this camera and Highly recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 5 / 5