Canon PowerShot SD950IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 3.7x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Titanium) by Canon
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Digital camera reviews of Canon PowerShot SD950IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 3.7x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Titanium)
Digital camera Review: A awesome camera that really can take a beating.
Summary: 5 Stars
Kudos to Canon.for excellent service on a excellent camera.
This review is about the SD950 IS as well as Cannon's repair service.
Let me start off by saying that:
1) - This is my 6th digital camera
2) - I am very hard on my cameras
I am never without my camera and take no special efforts to protect it; when not in use it is carried in my pants pocket with loose change, or whatever I stuff in there. Understandably I have never had one last more than 2 years and it is not uncommon for them to look like they have been through a cement mixer by the time they are exhausted and replaced. My camera is with me 24/7; I would give up my cellphone before I would my camera. This is the most durable camera I have ever owned.
My cameras are not just intended to capture precious memories; when I purchase a camera I have two objectives in mind: it has to take decent photos; the wife and I love to travel and we take gazillions of pictures when doing so, plus it has to be sturdy. My cameras are not only used for our pleasure trips, but also as a note pad for reminding me of items I want to research; I am in a store, see a item of interest I want to know more about, I take a pic for reference later. Or I am driving, a song I like comes on the Sat. radio, I take a pic of the screen and look it up later at home. As well, while at work I used it while under machines to read a part number - take a pic, zoom in the image, write down the number, order the part. If a machines cycle was erratic, video the sequence, and email the file to tech support. I take pictures of clouds, a sunrise or sunset while driving, animals along the road, cars, buildings, people, on and on. I have taken many many thousands of photos - just at Walt Disney World alone - with this camera and it has never had a single issue where it would not start up even after repeated bounces off concrete floors.
As durable as this camera is though it still has one vulnerability. The environment where I used to work, a lumber and Mil work company, was very dusty and that, along with always being in my pocket, caused after a while little particles to began to make their way into parts of the camera. At first it was not really a issue, but a few months ago it was really beginning to affect some of my photos. When I zoomed in I would have small 'shadow' dots on the images where light was being blocked by saw dust, lint, and such. I brought the camera to a local camera shop that still does repairs for what I figured would be a simple cleaning only to find that for this type of job it had to go back to Canon. As you probrobly have read, that costs a flat fee of about $170.00. The thought of paying that much for a cleaning does sound crazy, but thinking about it; how great this camera has performed and the cost of an equivelent replacement, which since the 2 year mark as up I was prepared tp do, I decided to go for it. About 10 days later I was back at the store to retrieve the camera.
The camera I picked up looked a whole lot different than the one that came back - with one funny exception. The camera I gave them was certainly solid and in one piece; believe it our not there was not a dent on the titanium body even after 2 brutal years. There were scuff marks all over it for sure; in fact the protective layer over the LCD was so scuffed up it almost looked like a cat used it for a scratching post, and none of the white silk screened printing identifying the make, model, etc remained at all.
The store owner, reading the repair slip that came back with the camera, told me that Canon did not clean the lens, instead they replaced the entire lens component, as well as the viewfinder, the flash, the protective cover over the LCD, & the zoom control switch, they re calibrated it to factory specs ~AND~ finished it up by replacing the entire outer body of the camera (this Titanium body has no SN#). With the exception of one thing it looks like a brand new camera. The one thing they did not replace? The grungy, ratty wrist strap - but I'm not complaining.
That, without a doubt, was worth the $170.00 to me.
So, now you know it is a durable camera, but hey, a brick is pretty durable too but it takes crummy pictures. This camera takes beautiful photos - better out doors than indoors, but there are enough manual functions you can tweak to compensate, and the videos are awesome as well.
A number of reviews I have read speak about blurry photos shooting in low light environments. There are a couple ways I find that you can compensate. Certainly a tripod helps, but when I am spending 8 hours wandering around Walt Disney World I have no desire to carry a full size tripod. I will however make use of any fence post, garbage can, or any other solid stationary object I can find to rest the camera on, sometimes in conjunction with one of those tiny pocket size tripods. .I then make some tweaks on the camera; most of my photos are taken in manual mode; rarely do I use Auto. A nice feature on this camera is that you can set the print button for another function as well - I use it to adjust the light sensitivity adjustment. After I have the camera setting on whatever I am using as a base I switch the camera to timer mode and then knock down the sensitivity a couple notches. This is an important step when you are taking photos of photos of things like colorfully lit buildings at night. The camera will want to open its aperture all the way to get as much light as long as possible which gives you yucky photos - the colored lights are washed out and the whole image has a greyness about it. By reducing the exposure setting you will get a more natural look. To avoid getting the blurriness or streaking of the lights, use the self timer function. With the camera on a stable base set the timer, press the shutter control, and let go. And for crying out loud, unless you are attempting to shoot a person standing right in front of you, shut off the flash, it is only working against you landscape shots.
Which brings me to another thing. The flash distance on this camera is slightly better than most point and shoot cameras, but it really has its limits. I frequently am taking photos in a room that is cavernous and not very brightly lit. In Auto mode if my subject id fairly close they may be fairly well lit, but you can not make out any of the details of the room they are standing in. Canon does have a excellent flash attachment you can buy, it is not cheap but I am told works very well; now that my 950 is working so well again I plan on getting one. Look for the Canon HF-DC1 High Power Flash. Until you get one you can tweak your exposure a bit pretty well this way. With the camera in Manual mode set the ISO to 400 and the flash set to on. What will happen is your subject will be brightly lit - you may have to practice a bit to find the sweet spot in distance from your subject to avoid washing them out - but your background will be a bit more defined as well. Yes the higher ISO setting will give you a more grainy image, so consider playing with increasing the exposure setting as well with a lower ISO setting. It is not a fix, but it helps you get something a little better.
The great thing about digital cameras is the immediate feedback you get over older film cameras; with the price of high capacity memory cards as low as they are there is no reason to only take a handful of shots of your subject. This is a camera that lets you really play around and take some great images. I love using the sepia setting when filming landscapes like old barns in a field, even Niagara Falls (do a goggle search on: "flickr kobolila niagra falls" to see some pics I have taken at the falls)
One more note for the newbies - if you try shutting off your flash sometimes you might find it can actually give you a better picture. When you are outside taking pics of a skyline, building or canyon flash is not only useless, but can actually work against you. if the flash reflects of a object closer than what you intend to capture that item will be well lit and what you are trying to get will be too dark to recognize. To the best of my knowledge no point and shoot camera has a flash that will reach 300 yards.
When I thought that I might have to replace this camera with something else I had considered the Olympus cameras that are designed to be really tough, but the reviews on their video quality bothered me and I wanted to stick with a camera that used SD cards. I am glad I did not give up on my Canon 950. No camera has ever lasted me more than two years; they just could not take the abuse I put them through, but this one is already past that and eager to take more.
Digital camera Review: A happy customer
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the third Cannon I've bought over the years, and I'm very pleased with it, as always.Digital camera Review: A little disappointed :(
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought the camera for my wife as a Christmas gift. I guess I just expected something better for the price. The picture quality outdoors is decent, NOT GREAT. Picture quality indoors with low lighting is not that great - typical for digital cameras. I also did the manual selection and raised the iso but the pictures turned out too grainy. I used to own the first Canon G series (3 megapixel) bought it more than 5 years ago and the quality is almost the same. The only thing I like about this camera is that it's compact and it comes with a great software for organizing the pictures (GREAT SOFTWARE!!!). If you're looking for something that takes great picture and not too concern about the size, I would suggest looking into the Canon G series or Nikkon D40.Digital camera Review: A very good point and shoot
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very good point and shoot camera -- I was looking at something small to throw in my backpack for casual trips where I do not want to take my dSLR -- this very readily fills the bill.
Not as feature-rich as the G9, it does however feature the same processor and big 12.1 MP shots. You will need a large capacity SD card for this camera.
Battery life is good. Buy a spare if you plan on taking a lot of photos, since it will run out about 200 shots or so with all the features enabled.
The only downside -- to get at most of the great features in the camera, you have to go menu-hopping rather than having standalone feature buttons like on some of the other canon series cameras. But this camera really isn't designed for that purpose --
It is a great snapshot camera, and the scene modes work well at their preset settings. Enjoy!
Digital camera Review: AWESOME
Summary: 5 Stars
I owned the model right before this (10 mpx) and loved it - but it got damaged in a canoe accident. And Canon sent me the 12mpx as a replacement under my warranty. I LOVE this camera. It's light, fits in my pocket, and has never let me down in a photo situation. I have taken well over 10,000 pictures and actually had to get a seperate hard drive to keep them all on. If youa re looking for an easy to use camera that can run with the big boys - this is it.
I love the color swap and color accent options, they can give some pretty interesting photos. Takes great night shots and macro mode is awesome.
I have no complaints on this camera - if I had to pick one, it would be the access door for the UBS cord - it's flimsy.
Other than that - 5 STARS all the way across the board.
(avid photographer, has higher end models, but really prefers the ease and size of this one)