Canon PowerShot SD1000 7.1MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Silver) (OLD MODEL)

I love this camera. It's cheap, does great point and shoot, but still has lots of settings for me to tinker around with to get the shot just like I want. It's small enough that I keep it in my bag all the time, and it's an incredibly great camera to have with you for those random beautiful scenes that life occasionally throws at us. It takes incredible outdoor photos and decent indoor/poor lighting photos. As with all the Canon digitals I've used, the color is great and continues to impress me, even photos taken in totally dark rooms with the flash looked surprisingly nice. I usually skip the flash, simply because of the way flashes make people look- oily and bright- but this camera usually does just fine without it. I am very happy with the speed I can take photos- so many cameras in the sub-$200 range have a long lag. I'm not sure if it's the sensor or if the camera is waiting to write to flash, but this is a cheaper camera that is very fortunately free of that frustrating issue. Showing it to my mom, she got all excited and wanted a digicam of her own. My aunt bought her one for Christmas, a chunky point-and-shoot HP model that cost the same as what I paid for the SD1000. It's slow as all get out, lower pixelage, poor color, poor night shots, a crappy LCD, and no useful settings for improving the shot without navigating through menus for a week and a half. I'm constantly trying to figure out a scheme by which I can wreck the other camera and buy my mom an SD1000 as a replacement. It's a great upgrade from our ancient 2 MP (but still a very nice camera in other respects) S100. It's fun to see them side by side- the S100 seemed so small when we first got it! The S100 is a rock, and it took some cajoling to convince my wife we needed to upgrade, and if I'm lucky this little guy will last like the S100 did.

Let me start by saying that I am not a big picture taker. In fact, this is my first real camera outside of the ones I have had on my cell phones over the years so this review is coming from a very casual picture taker. That being said, I think this camera is absolutely fantastic. It takes great pictures and the camcorder feature is pretty decent too. It is very easy to use and when in auto mode the camera sets up everything perfectly everytime. I have had no issues with a picture not coming out like I expected. The LCD screen is very good and the pictures look real sharp in them plus when you are taking pictures you can either use the LCD or the viewfinder which I like a lot. I have seen some cameras in this price range that do not include a viewfinder. The camera is very compact and light weight and slides easiler in your front pants pocket. I really cannot find anyting that I do not like about this camera and at this price it is just an amazing value.

I got this camera as I was stepping down from a Canon DSLR. I had been pursuing photography as a fun hobby for many years, and quite enjoyed it. Only thing was, although my photographs were good (trust me they were :-D ), they were probably like MOST amateur/hobbyist photographer's pics in that they weren't good enough to ever make a museum or "get shown." So I was spending a lot of money on "better lenses" and "better bodies" to get larger file sizes that were essentially sitting on my hard drives, never printing many except to put on my walls - which are finite, and show on my webpage - which doesn't get many hits, especially for that sort of thing. My breaking point was seeing some professional galleries online one day. The guy was using very expensive gear, and taking some rather breathtaking shots in some rather breathtaking locations. I realized that 1) I don't have the disposable income to get that sort of equipment, and 2) even if I did, I don't have the time to travel to places like that, and 3) since I'm not traveling much, if I am going to take a picture of something I probably already HAVE a picture of it anyway at this point, and finally 4) even if I did buy the pricey equipment, I just don't have quite the talent of these guys to worry about whether my prints will get "shown;" they won't, I'd be spending money to fill up my hard drive with pictures that are only 95% as good as the struggling professionals anyway. Another big issue I had dealt with with regards to the DSLR was bulk. I wasn't even taking it with me. My Fiancé had gotten this exact same camera and it was always on her. Her pictures when posted to the web were not any worse than mine. So I jumped on board, because "the camera you take with you is infinitely better than the camera you leave behind." Now I take quick and easy photos that I can share with family & friends. I let the camera do the heavy lifting on the photos, and if one comes out under or overexposed, I just take another one. The quality of the pictures is decent. They are not too soft, but they could be sharper. Then again, it's a sub-$200 camera and I jumped down from a $1000+ setup that I wished was sharper too. I save a lot of time just importing as JPEG instead of RAW (this camera doesn't support RAW by the way), and not 'tweaking' much. The images themselves come out pretty good 85% of the time. The colors are accurate, the sharpness is adequate, and the exposure is good, if slightly over (more on that in a sec). And since it's so pocketable, you're going to have it with you, which makes the "decent" photos you're going to take with it infinitely better than the "awesome" photos you didn't take with the camera that was too big to come along. CAMERA FUNCTIONS: The camera has a multitude of settings to fiddle with. They have lots of presets, from full-auto to modes tuned for "kids & pets," Night shots, macro closeups (flowers, etc), fireworks, and more. And for me - a control junkie - they also have a "manual" mode which is more like "Exposure priority" than full-manual. You have control over Base ISO (more on that in a minute), white balance (which features an option to set the white balance too), and even exposure compensation. I tend to think that the camera slightly overexposes pics by default, so I set mine to compensate for that here. One of my most-liked features is the ISO-shift that is available in Manual mode. Since picture quality suffers as ISO goes up, I try to keep the ISO below 200 whenever possible. With ISO-shift enabled, if I frame a picture and the camera determines that with the ISO I have set the camera shutter speed will be too slow & possibly create blur, it warns me by blinking a blue LED on one of the back buttons near my thumb. Pressing this button toggles the camera to a higher ISO for that shot only. However, if you decide that the ISO it selects is too high for your tastes and you'd rather try a steady hand to prevent motion blur, another press toggles your preselected ISO back into action. The size of the camera is a real boon. Considering its lack of heft versus the quality of the pics it produces, I'd say it's a winner. YES, you can find a camera that takes better pictures. You could even find a camera that's smaller. But you can't find one that's better at both than this little guy, and for the price it produces very acceptable pictures that are crisp enough to share online easily, or even make family album prints (think 4x6, 5x7, even 8x10). Sometimes I miss the quality of my DSLR. But then I grab my little camera and take a picture and remember that in the time it took me to take that picture, I'd still be removing dust caps and setting the parameters on the big guy, and I smile. I love my little pocket camera and I think most people that venture this direction will agree. P.S: I also tried a slightly more expensive model, the SD870. The pictures weren't any crisper nor the colors more vibrant. For the very few features it offered over the SD1000 model, I'd say it's just too much money. Daily, you won't notice a difference and in fact I found the SD870 more a pain to work the controls than the SD1000. And in comparison between the models, I could rarely get the Image Stabilization - which the SD1000 lacks - to make any noticeable impact on my pictures. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience the SD1000 takes pics just as good for less cost and less hassle.

I had a canon A75 for 3 years and all of a sudden one day, the monitor became violet and it stopped taking pictures. The screen has black and violet lines and there was no coming back. If you google this problem, you will see that it happened to many people. Even I was perfectly satisfied with my camera I had to say good bye to it just because sth was wrong with it. I never dropped my camera, I took perfect care of it, so it is sth that canon has to do. I bought my A75 for 230 dollars when they were first in the market. Now, I bought this Elph camera. Looks good, so small. Sometimes I think it will fall from my hands, I feel like I need to tie it around my hand. It takes pretty high quality pictures but the pictures are not great. Even it is high quality picture, it is a poor picture, cannot reflect the real image. This is my opinion, some people might think different. But, if you are looking for sth that you just wonna carry in your purse and take pcitures, buy this one. Otherwise this is not a professional product. 3x zoom is good, too. by the way, canon, are you kidding us? What is 32 mb memory for?:)))) We have to buy the 2 gb card. I mean if you produce sth like this and selling it for 160 bucks and you already put the sd card in. why not make it, 1 gb or 2 gb? anyways.I really feel like, this camera will also go bad in couple of years but still it was a good deal and I bought it.

This camera is replacing my SD110 Digital Elph from close to 4 years ago. The basic operating controls are simpler than the older camera, as there are fewer of them. The Print share button is now programmible in the shooting mode, and should be set to Exposure Compensation. This gives the photographer very good manual control of the camera without having to delve into the Main or Set Menu, if not in the classical sense. The body is quite small, about 1/4 inch thinner than the SD110, but still quite solid in feel. The rubber cap allowing access to the USB and AV connections has been replaced by a hinged, close fitting matching plastic door. The build quality is equal to or better than the older camera, but Canon should have kept the turned metallic surrounding lens treatment of the SD110, and perhaps reversed the black treatment of the black model. Battery and memory access is equally good in both cameras. Battery life is very good in the SD1000, but warning of the need to be charged is short. In fact, it's non existant. You get warned, you might get one more shot (or not). Buy an extra battery, keep it charged, and keep it with you. Overall, the camera is worth the effort. If you've been using almost any small digital more than about 2 years old, with an optical viewfinder (or even a larger camera, like my D70 or my daughter's Digital Rebel), you will love the LCD screen on the SD1000. The optical viewfinder on the new Elph, by my reconing, shows about 2/3 to 3/4 of what the camera actually picks up, at all zoom settings. I think that optical viewfinders belong on any camera that represents itself as a serious camera, and the accuracy should be closer to 90% at distances of over 3 feet. All in all, if you also own a DSLR, this is a very nice little "daily driver". It's a small, solid and (if you carry a charged extra battery) very reliable companion. If this will be your only digital camera, start at the top and look at the Canon G7, and work your way down in price through the A700 series to the A500 series. Here you will find pretty full (almost classic?) manual control, optical viewfinders, easy program modes, and still pretty portable cameras. .....Tom

I got the SD1000 from amazon last June, and have never been more thrilled by a digital camera. I've owned digitals since 1997, with a Canon, then an HP (I know, I know), and Casio, and now I've come back to the beginning. I am a relatively poor actor living in LA, and so I was extremely picky about what I wanted in replacing my HP after it was stolen. I really wanted initially to buy a sony cybershot, but it was a bit expensive, and I really have a problem with Sony's proprietary memory format. The Canon SD1000 met all of my expectations and more. It's small, and easily fits in a pocket. It's fast, has a good optical zoom, SD memory card use (I use a 2GB card) and rechargeable LiIon battery. It takes remarkable video for such a small device. I'm part of a youtube documentary called Musecast, and have used the camera to film whole episodes on the go. (search for "musecast youtube gathering" on youtube to see an example) It also has an amazing macro capability! Sure it's been a few years since I've owned a new DC, but I've never had that before, and it's amazing!! Plus, with almost no knowledge of how to do it properly, I've managed to take some awesome shots in very-low-light conditions. I uploaded a sample of me in front of the LA skyline to show. It also has time-lapse video, which I've had a lot of fun with, and several fun filters like individual color enhancement. It also features a nice accelerometer which knows which way the camera is oriented and turns the image on the display so it's always right side up! I have absolutely no complaints about this camera. I'm really trying right now to think of something, because I never trust reviews myself that are all positive like this... I was initially concerned about the design, which I thought was pretty ugly and retro, but it's quite nice in practice, once you get it in your hands. Oh! ok. if I had to complain about something, I'd say that the red-eye reduction is surprisingly poor. Almost every picture I take with the flash (with the settings on automatic) requires me to fix the red-eye in iPhoto. However, the camera itself has a red-eye removal tool!! I see that the price is way lower than it was a year ago. I can't see any reason not to buy this camera for the $160 it's being offered for now. I'm probably going to stick with Canon for a long time.

I had purchased a Canon Rebel XT DSLR as my "main" camera, but wanted something really small and simple that my wife could stick in her purse. The SD1000 was just the right size and that was the main reason I bought it. To my great surprise I quickly fell in love with this little camera and my wife doesn't get that much chance to use it. It's not a substitute for my DSLR, but it takes great pictures for its size and sure is handy to pack along. I bought the matching Canon camera case and hang it on my belt whenever I think I might want to have a camera along -- it is small and unobtrusive and the magnetic catch on the cover makes it easy to pull out the camera and snap a one-handed shot at a moments notice (makes me feel like an old-West gunslinger!) Another nice surprise is the video capability, which I wasn't even thinking about when I bought this. I setup the programmable button to enable video recording and I find that I use that a lot. It takes surprisingly good videos, and it's so simple and inconspicuous that I don't have to make a big production of it. (You can capture a lot of video on a 2GB card!) Actually, even when I get out my DSLR and assorted lenses for "serious" photograpy, I almost always take the little guy along too. It allows me to mix still pictures and videos, and when I've got a long lens on the DSLR, I can pop out the 1000 for a quick reasonably-wide-angle shot without worrying about changing lenses. There are probably "better" general-purpose cameras, but I've had this little gem for over a year now and am still delighted with its tiny size and big capability. A postscript -- I'm currently in Vail and have been packing this camera along to take pictures while snowshoeing and skiing. Not only is it really convenient, but the rest of my party has been amazed at the quality of the photos. The detail, contrast, and color is great and rarely is there any reason for subsequent photoshop enhancement -- even in snow scenes. The pictures I've been getting actually hold their own with the very expensive (and very heavy) professional style Canon DSLR used by one of the other folks on this trip, but I have mine with me all the time, whereas his mostly sits back at the lodge. I wouldn't claim this little point-and-shoot takes pictures at a par with a good DLSR with large-aperture lenses, but it sure won't embarass you either!

Not only is this camera a great bargain, it's a darn fine bit of kit. You know the specs; now add in pretty speedy shot-to-shot and darn fast setting change/OS response time and yes indeedy, even some key manual controls for when you actually do need/want to get into that. I've used several Canon cameras and enjoyed the ease of use and good service when I needed it (just once.) Know that Canon compact camera shots do have a certain slight softness to them, but the reality is you just cannot have it all. I much prefer the portability. Carrying around an elephant trunk is not for me. On the SD1000, the controls are large and simple to use, the screen is ridiculously large and clear, and it plays lovely, zooming slideshows and the whole thing barely makes a visible bulge in your pocket. (Thing is *tiny,* truly.) I love natural and low-light shots and this cam does not disappoint in either of those departments. (The flash works fine too; I just don't much care for the flash pic look.) If you are the type who likes to chuck the manual in the corner of your closet and brag about how you never, ever read instructions, you probably won't get the most this camera has to offer. It has a *lot* of settings and options, in addition to the goof-proof, just-dial-it-up modes. So read up. It's worth your time. Oh sure, you can certainly take fine pix/videos without ever doing that. But you can really go to town and maybe get that truly magic shot of life that brings joy forever if you do. There's really no downside to this camera if what you want is a simple, inexpensive, quality camera that shoots video with sound and uses cheaper-by-the-minute SD memory cards. (And if you want pin-sharp, professional, RAW-capable equipment, why would you be reading this?!) Nuff said ... buy it and try it before it is gone.