Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital Camera Review

Viewfinder (3.5)
The Canon PowerShot SD700 IS retains a traditional optical viewfinder in addition to the more modern LCD screen on its small frame. However, the real-image viewfinder is quite small, and its location above the LCD is impractical. As users strain to see the tiny view available, their noses will grease up the screen, rendering an already problematic view almost unusable.

When the lens is at its widest focal length, it appears in the viewfinder’s bottom left corner. While this obstructs the wide view slightly, the viewfinder also sees less than the image records; crops won’t be nearly as tight as photographers think.. When the viewfinder is zoomed in, pictures are still inaccurate. Images will have more space on the left side and less on the top than what appears in the viewfinder. Besides this inaccuracy, the optical viewfinder is plain difficult to look through. The size is a hindrance, but its blurry glass on the outer edges – especially the right and left sides – particularly makes the SD700’s viewfinder a sight for sore eyes.

LCD Screen (6.5)
A 2.5 inch low-temperature polycrystalline silicon TFT color LCD provides a superior view. Its size is much better than that of the optical viewfinder, and the fact that users won’t have to squash their faces against the camera to see is a plus. Even better is the LCD live view’s 100 percent accuracy: what you see is what you get. .

The resolution on the screen isn’t the greatest; users will still be able to see red, green, and blue pixels. Many models with this size LCD monitor have 230,000 pixels, but Canon skimped on this one and provided only 173,000. The screen had great contrast and was still easy to view out in broad daylight. A +/- 7 brightness scale, with a live view for adjustment, is available in the setup menu to further enhance the view in more interesting lighting. The SD700 is visible at just about any angle, providing easier photography in almost all situations. Pushing the Disp. Button switches between the LCD screen’s several viewing modes: turning it off to save battery live or bringing up a live view with or without information. Unfortunately, this model lacks a live histogram, but the screen is generally impressive, the sub-par resolution its only real drawback.

Flash (6.75)
The flash on the Canon SD700 is typical for a compact digital camera. Its range isn’t very impressive: 1.6-11.5 ft in wide and 1.6-6.6 ft in telephoto (at the automatic ISO setting). The Canon HF-DC1 flash accessory, which retails for just under a hundred dollars, can extend the average range of the built-in unit. Still, as long as subjects are within range, the pictures will turn out great with the built-in flash. The flash itself fires fairly evenly, so foreheads won’t turn into hot spots and one side won’t be blown out. While the outer corners of the frame show some vignetting and the flash doesn’t quite make it to the outermost corners of the picture, it looks especially good in portraits. Pushing the right side of the multi-selector brings up the following flash modes: Auto, Auto with Red-eye Reduction, On, Off, On with Red-eye Reduction, and Slow Synchro. The flash doesn’t take long to fire and is ready to go less than a second after taking the first shot.

Poor placement is the biggest drawback of the SD700’s flash. Its location in the upper right corner of the front puts it right in the path of the left fingers. Sure, attentive photographers can avoid it. . However, most photographers will be thinking about the photographic moment at hand instead of their wandering fingers and the flash’s position. Quite a few pictures turned out completely or partially dark because of this.

Zoom Lens (7.0)
Several of the Canon Digital Elph series cameras have 4x optical zoom lenses, including the PowerShot SD700 IS This is just above the average 3x offering, but is becoming the norm with more interest in extended zoom ranges. The “IS” after the SD700’s name, however, indicates that its lens, unlike those on its predecessors, is digitally stabilized. Image stabilization functions in Continuous, Shoot Only, and Panning modes, and. can be turned off in the recording menu. The Continuous mode is available in any recording mode, but the Panning option – which is optimized for horizontally moving subjects – and the Shoot Only option are for still image modes only. Image stabilization works very well, especially in the movie mode, where it does a fine job of eliminating hand shake.

The Canon lens measures from 5.8-23.2 mm, which is equivalent to a 35-140 mm lens in the traditional 35 mm format. It moves within its range quite well, without making too much noise or taking too long. A tiny, hand-crampingly tight switch around the shutter release button controls zoom, and allows users to stop at 8 focal lengths within its range. The closest the lens can focus is 0.79 inches in the macro mode, where its focus extends to 2 ft in the widest focal length. In the macro telephoto mode, the SD700 can focus from 1.3-2 ft. Normally, the Canon 4x optical zoom lens focuses from 1.5 ft to infinity. For users who just can’t get enough zoom, the camera has 4x digital zoom that can be turned on and off in the recording menu. However, this degrades the image quality into a mere pile of pixels hardly reminiscent of the subject. The extending lens performs well and keeps pictures looking sharp and free from distortion.