Canon PowerShot SD750

Manual Control Options
Canon Digital Elph cameras don’t tend to have many manual controls. The Canon PowerShot SD750 has a few that it packs into its Recording and Func./Set menus. The options are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Focus
Auto Focus (6.0)
The Canon SD750’s through-the-lens auto focus system focuses from one foot in front of the lens. It comes with Canon’s Digic III image processor that has face detection technology built into it. This prevents the unsightly photo of a crystal clear background with a blurry face in the foreground. The face detection system can recognize up to nine faces at a time regardless of the size of the faces. There are a few caveats: faces have to be looking directly at the camera and unblocked by glasses, hair, and the like. It generally works quite well, though, and is nice for snapping candid pictures of the kids.

When the face detection isn’t on, the default AiAF is. The auto focus system works well and quickly, except in low light when it takes an extra half-second to shoot out an orange auto focus assist beam before actually focusing at all. While the Face Detection auto focus mode superimposes boxes over detected faces, the AiAF system places a box or boxes over whatever it is focusing upon.

Users can activate the Macro mode from the left side of the multi-selector. With this, the camera can focus as close as 1.2 inches. There is also a Landscape mode that keeps everything in focus all the time.

Manual Focus – These models cannot manually focus.

ISO (9.0)

The Canon PowerShot SD750 has a wide ISO range that includes manual ISO settings of 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600. There are also two automatic settings: the Standard auto for everyday photography and High ISO auto for lower light situations. The High ISO auto setting is great for stopping subjects in their tracks and reducing blur, but the overall image quality suffers greatly: noise increases and dynamic range decreases.

The SD750 includes a brand new feature on PowerShot digital cameras called Auto ISO Shift. This senses when images are vulnerable to blur and displays a blinking hand icon on the LCD screen. While that icon blinks, the print button’s blue LED blinks too: this signals that the ISO could be boosted to reduce blur if desired. The ISO only boosts if users push the blinking button. This is an interesting feature that ensures great shots even in less-than-perfect lighting.

The ISO settings are located at the top of the multi-selector, while the Auto ISO Shift feature can be activated in the Recording menu. The ISO settings are available by pushing the top of the multi-selector. In the Movie mode, if it is pushed then the video automatically gains up a bit for better visibility in low light. Overall, the Canon SD750’s ISO selection is great with the manual range and cool features like Auto ISO shift and High ISO auto.

White Balance (8.75)

The SD750 also has a healthy selection of white balance settings. They are found in the Func./Set menu with a large preview. Choices include Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, and Custom. There isn’t a Flash white balance setting but the camera’s Auto setting seems to handle that lighting just fine.

The custom white balance can be set by framing something white in the tiny box that appears in the center of the screen and pushing the menu button, like on other PowerShots. There are on-screen directions to do this. If you want to make this easier, you can set the print button to measure the white balance when pushed. The tiny box doesn’t appear in this situation, but this is very handy for situations where the lighting is constantly changing.

Exposure (7.0)

Individual exposure settings such as shutter speed and aperture cannot be manually adjusted, but there is a basic exposure compensation option with +/- 2 settings in steps of a third. The exposure compensation can be changed in every mode, from the Manual mode to the Scene modes. There is a live view of this in the Func./Set menu as users scroll through with the multi-selector. A live histogram isn’t available on the Canon SD750, but a histogram can be seen in the Playback mode.

Metering (7.0)

The Metering mode is in the Func./Set menu, but it can only be adjusted when in the Manual mode. Evaluative, Center-Weighted Average, and Spot Metering modes are on hand with a live preview that makes it easier to choose which one is most relevant for the current situation. The Spot mode is fixed to the center of the image, and the Default Evaluative mode measures from wherever the camera deems the focus to be. This means the metering syncs with the Face Detection auto focus mode when that is activated to properly expose the faces.

Shutter Speed (0.0)

Shutter speeds cannot be manually chosen on this digital camera, but ranges from 15-1/1500th of a second. The shutter speed appears in the file information that can be shown or hidden with a touch of the display button in both the Recording and Playback modes. Many digital cameras have "slow shutter" options that let you manually select long exposures for taking pictures of stars in the sky or a cityscape at night. Canon has such an option on its A-series cameras, but doesn’t include that on the SD-series models.

Aperture (0.0)
Canon’s 3x optical zoom lens has a standard, but still good and wide f/2.8 max aperture. When the lens is zoomed out, the max shrinks down to f/4.9, which isn’t great, but is still better than some competitors’ lenses. The smallest the aperture gets is f/8, which is typical for a compact digital camera with a small lens.