Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Gold)
- 3.0-inch wide touch-panel PureColor System LCD; updated Active Display for quickly switching between images with a shake of the camera
- Capture 720p HD movies; HDMI output connector for easy playback on your HDTV
- 5x optical zoom with ultra-wide 24mm lens, plus Canon’s Optical Image Stabilizer; 12 megapixels for amazing resolution and editing
- Improved Smart AUTO intelligently selects from 22 predefined shooting situations
- Capture images to SD/SDHC memory cards (not included)
Canon Power Shot SD980IS 12MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Gold), Pure Color System LCD and playback functions are also performed with the flick of a fingertip: switch between images, scroll, magnify a portion of a photo, and control movie playback. This new natural interface makes camera operations fun and easy. With 12.1 megapixels of resolution and Canon’s latest DIGIC 4 Image Processor, the SD980 IS produces brilliant, life-like photographs with rich color and stunning detail. 5x Optical Zoom Lens, with an equivalent zoom range of 24-120mm, Canon’s 5x Optical Zoom Lens captures everything from sweeping landscapes to telephoto action pictures. HD Video Recording, the SD980 IS captures beautiful, 720p HD video – from live concerts to family vacations, the SD980 IS is the HD Video camera that you can, and will, take with you everywhere. Connect the camera to your HDTV with an optional HDMI cable and enjoy your memories in 100% d
List Price: $ 249.00
Price: $ 187.99
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The Best In Its Class!!!,
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…
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|A really nice camera, with a few shortcomings,
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…
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