Canon Powershot SD1100 IS

Connectivity
Software
The Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS has version 33.0 of the Canon Solution Disk. This includes ZoomBrowser EX 6.1, PhotoStitch 3.1, Camera TWAIN Driver 6.9, and EOS Utility 1.1a for Windows operating systems. The following programs are available for Macs: ImageBrowser 6.1, PhotoStitch 3.2, and EOS Utility 1.1. Apple’s QuickTime is also available for viewing movies.

Canon’s ZoomBrowser EX program allows you to view images by scrolling through tiny thumbnails, navigating through size-adjustable images, or by viewing a strip of thumbnails along the bottom of a larger previewed image.

When pictures are viewed individually, they can be shown with or without the file information. They can be rated on a 1 to 3-star system so they can be sorted through later. You can magnify or shrink the images, and print them, too. There are also several editing features: red-eye correction, auto adjustment, color/brightness adjustment, sharpness, trim, and insert text. These editing effects aren’t any better than the ones found in the Playback menu of the camera itself. The ZoomBrowser EX software is easy to use, but certainly not elaborate.

Jacks, ports, plugs
The Canon SD1100 has two jacks on the upper edge of the right side. It is covered by a small plastic door that is connected with a rubber strip to the rest of the camera body. The round AV-out jack is on the left and the USB port is on the right. The AV-out delivers mono audio along with video and images to televisions; it can be set to NTSC or PAL standard for playback in any country.

Direct Print Options
The SD1100 IS is PictBridge compatible and comes with several features to make it very easy to print directly from the camera. There are lots of editing features in the Playback mode such as trimming and red-eye correction that make it easy to fix simple problems in the camera before printing. There is also a print tab in the Playback menu with these options: print, select images and quantity, select range, select by date, and select by category. This makes it easy and very fast to create print orders. You can choose to print 0 to 99 prints of each image, and movie prints can be made with select PIXMA and Selphy compact photo printers. With these printers, an ID Photo Print mode is also available. Just to make things even easier, the Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS has an LED-adorned print/share button that instantly sends the print order once the camera is hooked up to the printer with the included USB cable.

Battery
This PowerShot comes with the same rechargeable lithium-ion battery found in the SD1000. The battery got 210 shots per charge in the SD1000, but Canon claims it is more efficient with the SD1100 and gets 240 shots per charge. The 3.7-volt, NB-4L battery fits into the bottom of the camera under a thin plastic door that feels like it will be the first thing to break.  In the middle of the door is a rubber flap that opens up to allow you to thread the optional power adapter into the battery compartment. The camera comes with a wall-mount battery charger that is convenient and compact.

Memory
The SD1100 does not come with internal memory but comes with a 16MB MMC card instead. The camera also accepts MMC Plus, HC MMC Plus, SD, and SDHC media. The memory card fits into a slot next to the battery under the flimsy plastic door on the bottom.

Other features
Stitch Assist – When the Manual mode is chosen, a Stitch Assist option appears at the bottom of the Recording menu. It lets you choose whether you want to align images from left to right or right to left. Once that is selected, the camera shows a preview within a framed box on the LCD screen. You take a picture, and then the camera shows a slice of the previously taken image so you can line up the live view that appears next to it. You can do this for as many shots as you want. The images aren’t stitched together in the camera; that is done in the included software later.