Canon PowerShot SD40 Digital Camera Review

Picture Quality / Size Options (7.5)
This Digital Elph has a good amount of image size options, available in the Func./Set menu: 3072 x 2304, 3072 x 1728 (widescreen), 2592 x 1944, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, and 640 x 480 pixels. Notice there is a widescreen format available, but there is no 3:2 format for perfectly cropped 4 x 6-inch prints. That said, there is an option in the setup menu that allows users to superimpose 3:2 guidelines over the live preview. Users still have to crop the image in post-production though. This means printing good 4 x 6-inch prints directly from the camera will be impossible, unless users don’t care how the printer crops the image. The Canon PowerShot SD40’s JPEG images can be compressed in Normal, Fine, and SuperFine settings.

Picture Effects Mode (8.5)
This area is a strong point for Canon PowerShot digital cameras. Most compact models have black & white and sepia color modes along with the standard color. The Canon PowerShot SD40 and its siblings go above and beyond though with the My Colors mode. The following effects can be achieved from this list in the Func./Set menu: Vivid, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, and Custom Color. There is a live view when scrolling through the choices, so users can see the orange-tinted sepia mode and the different hues of the darker and lighter skin tone effects. The custom color option lets users tweak several parameters at once: contrast, sharpness, saturation, red, green, blue, and skin tone. All of these options have a +/- 2 scale with full stops. All of the My Colors modes are available in the movie mode too, which is quite unique on a digital camera. Color Accent and Color Swap effects are available as still image shooting and movie modes. With these modes, users can select colors within the frame using the Menu button. The on-screen prompt is a bit confusing though. It shows "Menu" in a gray box like a button, with a down arrow next to it. It looks like the Menu button has to be pushed simultaneously with the bottom of the navigational control; however, the combination of icons means that users need to hold down the Menu button for about a second. These modes are fun to play with and work best with bright obvious colors (i.e. bright red instead of pale green). The Color Accent and Swap modes are not available in the playback mode, but all of the My Colors modes can change photos and save them as separate files in the playback mode.