Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital Camera Review
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS follows up on its predecessor by adding optical image stabilization and a little more resolution, bringing the total to 8 megapixels. The SD1100 also aims to be trendier than before with its compact body and availability in spunky colors: Rhythm & Blue, Swing Silver, Melody Pink, Bohemian Brown, and Golden Tone.But while the SD1100 IS is an attractive package, the image quality leaves something to be desired. Color in the images it captures is good, but there is a lot of noise in images taken in anything other than bright light.
Likes
- Trendy, compact camera
- Wide views on LCD
- Image stabilization
- Cool picture effects
- Fast, accurate face detection
Dislikes
- Weak, poorly-placed flash
- Tiny controls- Poor handling
- Slow 1.3 fps Burst mode
- Flimsy battery door
Conclusion
The Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS makes quite a fashion statement with its multiple color offerings and body that is so compact it could get lost in your pocket. This Digital Elph makes some common sacrifices that all compact cameras make: handling isn’t very comfortable, the buttons are generally small, and the components are crammed together so the flash can be easily covered by the fingers. The Canon SD1100 is physically attractive, but its images aren’t always as beautiful. Images look good when taken in bright light with the ISO set low, but images taken with high ISO settings are noisy and can look somewhat unpleasant. They are hardly suitable even in low-resolution formats for blogs and e-mails – much less for prints that will sit in an album for years to come. The $249 price tag is inexpensive for a trendy 8-megapixel Canon digital camera, let alone one that has an optical image stabilization system. But the image quality is the big trade-off here; in anything other than bright lighting, you get images that have a serious amount of noise. Whether the portability of the camera is an acceptable trade-off for this is up to you, but it does detract from the attractiveness of the camera.
