Canon PowerShot SD780 IS

Viewfinder (1.00)

In an unusual move, the Canon SD780 does have an optical viewfinder. It’s absolutely tiny, to the point of being barely usable; you need to turn off the LCD when using it or you’ll be blinded; and as it doesn’t show the view through the lens, the image won’t gel completely with what you see through it. But hey, it’s a viewfinder, and it’s a nice little addition.

You will need to mash your face up against the viewfinder remarkably hard to make out anything through the glass, and those users who are bespectacled will have an even harder time making anything out through the tiny opening.

Display (4.15)

The LCD is 2.5-inches measured diagonally, with 230,000-dot resolution. It’s small and a bit low res, but not too bad.

Hitting the Display button alters the amount of information on the screen to: just the image; shooting information; or off (for viewfinder shooting).

Flash (4.00)

The flash packs a decent punch, with little light dropoff at the edges, and a decent refresh rate. However, it’s placed extremely poorly, in the upper right corner of the camera. Holding this camera so that you don’t block the strobe requires a dainty touch and elven fingers.

The flash modes available are: on, off, auto and slow synchro. Slow synchro pairs the flash with a longer shutter speed, which gives a more even exposure over both the fore and background.

Lens (3.50)

The lens is 3x zoom, with a focal length of 5.9-17.9mm, which is equivalent to 33-100mm in 35mm photography. It’s not a great zoom, but has a decent wide-angle on it. It’s a fairly multi-purpose lens, but will require you to get pretty close to your subjects.

The lens isn’t particularly fast either. On a 3x zoom lens, you’d hope the maximum aperture would be faster than the f/3.2 spec here. Oddly, while zooming, there’s no indication of how far in the zoom range you are. Most cameras have a small line, or else tell you the current zoom level, but the SD780 IS appears not to.

Zoom Ratio Examples
5.9 mm	10.6 mm	17.9 mm

Battery (6.00)

The battery is your standard rechargeable Lithium ion unit, which is rated for 210 shots per charge by Canon. This a little bit on the low side, but not astonishing, and about what we experienced using the camera.

Memory (3.00)

The SD780 takes the near-universal SD and SDHC cards. Low in cost, high in capacity, you can track these down almost anywhere.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs (5.50)

There are two ports on this little camera, one for USB and one for HDMI. Both are industry standard, so you’ll be able to replace any cables easily should you need to. The camera only ships with USB and USB-based AV cables, though.