Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver) by Canon
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Digital camera reviews of Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver)
Digital camera Review: Great camera
Summary: 5 Stars
We have had no problems with this camera. Its small, good looking, well built, and takes great pics. My wife carries it in her purse for those "gotta have a camera moments". We've really enjoyed it.Digital camera Review: Great camera
Summary: 5 Stars
I am still learning about what it can do but so far I am not disappointedDigital camera Review: Great point and shoot
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this camera to replace an old canon A95. I really love it as an on the go point and shoot. It's small enough to carry in your pocket and light enough to even put in you shirt pocket. It takes really good pictures. Some of the features take a bit to getting used to, but it's pretty straight forward. I do wish it had a manual setting, Tv and Av setting, but it does have a lot of premade functions to make up for it. It DOES have zoom during movie mode, but it is not optical. Still, that was a nice surprise since I thought I read it didn't have zoom at all while shooting a movie. It's not a SLR, so obviously you can't expect SLR features and picture quality, but overall, it's a great camera. Great color in the pics as well!
UPDATE: BEWARE MEMORY CARD ERROR
Out of the blue got this error message. The SD card was corrupted beyond salvage. Lost all of our vacation pics. Came to find out this is a common error on these and other powershot cameras. Currently I am in the works of sending it in and having it evaluated by CANON, hopefully they will extend the warranty as this happend 1 month past warranty date. Will update on the service...
Digital camera Review: Great small camera at $279
Summary: 5 Stars
I am going to give this camera 5 star for small digital camera that sells for $279. I have own a few small digital camera all Canon and the last one was sd1000 and 790. I also own a couple Rebels with 4 expensive zoom lens > $500 each and one professional zoom lens >$1000.
I bought this camera after reading all those negative reviews and then some positive ones that explain why this camera is great for it's price and size and why those negative reviews are not fair. I'll first address the negative reviews for this camera before I get into what features and functions I like.
First of all let me give the negative reviewers their fair share first. If you are looking for a simple point and shoot camera without wanting to use the slightly more complicated mode of this camera then you should buy another camera that is either a lot cheaper or have a better auto mode. The one major flaw of the auto mode in this camera is it chooses too high an ISO value (I believe 250 is the lowest ISO in auto mode). With high ISO you have more noise in the picture. I do understand why Canon chooses a high ISO value for the auto mode. With a high ISO value you can make the shutter speed faster which will give you better picture either if you do not have study hands or taking picture of a moving object. Since it is an auto mode Canon cannot let the user changes the ISO value. But as other reviewers have pointed out you can almost do the same if you just select the "P" mode and mix the ISO values to what you like (80 is the lowest and has the least amount of noise)
I did a study at a parking lot with cloudy sky around 3pm. I choose the "P" mode and tested all the ISO values from 80,100 to 1600. I did two test one taking a picture of the front of a bank and another taking picture of the road with cars coming from my left which is going about 20 to 35 mph. The picture of a fix front of the bank shows the best one are the lowest ISO 80. The difference between ISO 80 and ISO 100 is seen when I use Photoshop to look at the picture by pixels. The ISO 80 definitely has less noise then ISO 100 but it also has a little bit more color distortion. May be the camera corrected some of the color distortion in ISO 100 and thus introduces a little bit more noise. For 4 inches by 6 inches prints all ISO values are great. For 18 inches by 24 inches you can see a small amount of noise starting at ISO 400.
My second set taking pictures of slow moving cars with some buildings in the background reviews why Canon chooses higher ISO for auto mode. The fix background result is the same as my first test. The moving car is another story. When you enlarge the picture to look at license plates you cannot see the numbers or letters with ISO 80 to 200. You can see the numbers and letters starting at ISO 400 and gets better and better up to ISO 1600. AT ISO400 the shutter speed is 1/500. For a lot of the point and shoot users they probably do not enlarge their pictures often so at ISO 250 they will not see any difference. But if at auto mode it can go down to ISO 100 then any picture with a moving object will give you a blur picture.
Also when you compare picture quality with other cameras you must use the same focal length. This camera has a 5x zoom and a range of 24 to 120 mm. So the wide angle is most likely wider than most other cameras and also the distant zoom. The two ends of the range will give you more distortion. As another reviewer said he compared the picture quality of this camera with many other small digital cameras using the same focal length and he find this camera's picture quality is at least as good as any of the other cameras.
Physically the 980 is slightly narrower than the 1000 but about ½ inch longer. It weight about the same. Due to the 3 inches LCD display taking most of the areas at the back of the camera it removed the view finder and move 2 other switches to another part of the camera.
The best part of this camera over most of others is the wide angle and the 5X zoom.
The touch screen is new to me for Canon. I have used one before for a video hand held player. I found it to be excellent. I am using it to display pictures and delete pictures. I have tried the touch focus and it is very good. The display screen is large and it uses both side as buttons you can select stuff.
The battery life is average. Please do not buy Canon brand battery, you can pick up an off brand battery for 6 to 20 dollars. The Canon battery is 1000mah. You can get one for about 6 dollars and they are just as good as the Canon one. If you want a better battery (1200 mah) You can get it for less than 20 dollars. There is a display that shows you how much battery power you have left in your camera.
The best buy for memory card is SDHC. Most people use the 8G version and I like the 16G version. Get a fast memory card (class 6 or better). If you spent 300 dollars for this camera do not buy a cheap off brand memory card. I bought one a few months ago (adata 16g) and it die when I arrived in Hong Kong airport. I have to buy another memory card at a premium for my trip. I am not sure about buffers in this camera but even with class 6 memory card it takes almost one second to shoot between frames. My rebel have 32 meg buffer so speed of the memory card is not as important when you shoot multiple frames.
Date and time has a traveling time zone and a home time zone.
There are many special modes other then "P" and I use the Night Snapshot the most. This basically is a slow shutter speed to make the background brighter so that your people will be bright using the flash and the background is also somewhat recognizable. This camera has one other features that is similar to night snapshot. It is slow synch which you can select from the flash and it is similar to night snapshot.
There is a check for shut eyes
I have check out the movie mode and it took movies in my bed room with limited amount of light very well. You can zoom in the middle of your shots. I always turn off digital zoom when I use my camera. When taking still picture I always use photoshop for any cropping.
There are many more very complicated features and functions and I do not think I'll use too many of them. Things like custom white balancing, editing pictures, printing pictures, and display on a HD monitor or TV etc.
Lastly please use the Canon software to load the pictures to your PC. It automatically create a folder for each day. When you have thousands of pictures a year the best way is to store them by date. Also you can select file directory for each day in this camera.
addition after a 20 day travelling in 4 countries and 5 days cruise ship
sunset mode is great and give you a great filter effect.
aquarium mode is also good for a picture at Vancouver airport.
Wide angle is great for at least 3 situations where other people cannot take a picture that covers the scene.
Indoor use with flash is no compitition against my dslr with professional flash.
Picture with bright sun at the back (using flash) has exposure too bright.
In general even with windows and bright light at the back picture do not look good.
tips for quick processing of over 1000 pictures in photoshop:-
Go through all the pictures and delete those you do not want quickly with bridge.
Select those that has too bright or too dark area and fix them using shadow/highlight
Then record an action using auto level, auto color, auto contract, auto tone and unsharp mask 150% 4 pic and 1 threshold
Run all the pictures using the action.
Digital camera Review: He loves it!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Actually I bought this camera for my son, for his birthday and he LOVES it.
He takes it everywhere, it's so handy and easy to take along...it fits in your pocket.
The pictures are great, (probably because most are of my Granddaughter) and the \
video is awesome. Would I buy one for me? Yes