Canon PowerShot SD960 IS

Manual Controls

The SD960 is another camera from Canon that is strictly for the point-and-shoot crowd; users looking for more manual controls are likely to be disappointed with what's here. The camera relies heavily upon scene modes for giving users control over their images. What little is available in the way of manual controls is found primarily in the Function menu: ISO, white balance, and some color settings. There's also an exposure compensation buried a little deeper in the menus.

The clickable scroll wheel helps you navigate the menus and utilize the camera's few manual controls.

Focus

As with the vast majority of digital cameras, pressing the shutter button halfway will activate the automatic focus element. The focal range at maximum wide angle is approximately 0.8 in. (2cm) to infinity, while the focal range when using optical zoom is 12.6 in. (50cm) or more.

A focus assist lamp can be enabled to help the camera detect subjects in low lighting conditions. This lamp doubles as assistance for red-eye reduction. There are several different ways you can let autofocus take over. There's Face AiAF, which uses Canon's face detection technology to find faces in the frame and use those as the focal points, and Center, which will simply focus on whatever is in the center area. (You can adjust the size of your focal center from inside the menus.)

If you're using Center, you can take advantage of the AF Lock, which lets you press the shutter halfway to focus on your center point, then push left on the directional pad to lock in that focal length. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's Servo AF, which keeps adjusting focus, even while the shutter is pressed halfway. And in any of these scenarios, the user can take advantage of AF-Point, which lets you zoom in to magnify your subject for focus assistance.

ISO

ISO can be manually selected from one of seven settings: auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600. Pressing halfway on the shutter button during auto mode will display the ISO that has been automatically selected by the camera. Certain scene modes will automatically boost ISO. There is also a scene mode available that lets you shoot at ISO 3200, but this setting also automatically adjusts image size to the M3 option (1600 x 1200 pixels).

White Balance

You can perform a manual white balance, allow the camera to set white balance automatically, or choose one of the camera's five white balance presets: Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Fluorescent H. (Fluorescent H is designed for daylight fluorescent or daylight-type fluorescent lighting.)

Metering

Metering can be adjusted to either evaluative (whole screen), center weighted average (to meter the whole screen but prioritize exposure in the center of the frame), or spot metering (to disregard the edges and focus only on the center). From with the main menu, you can set an exposure compensation to one of 13 increments between -2 and +2.

There is also an AE Lock, which lets you press the shutter halfway, then lock in a specific exposure setting. This is helpful when you're letting the camera adjust exposure automatically, but want to have some control over the choices being made. There is an FE Lock, which accomplishes the same thing when you have the flash activated.

Another special feature, called iContrast, automatically compensates for faces/subjects that appear dark in certain shooting conditions. Like nearly every point-and-shoot camera these days, Canon has also thrown in its face detection technology. Detected faces will be prioritized for focus and exposure.

Shutter Speed

The Canon SD960 does not offer manual control over shutter speed, instead letting the automatic controls take over. The automatic shutter speed range is 1 - 1/1600 seconds. This range includes the long exposure settings, which give you the option to record at longer than the shutter speeds you would use in normal shooting conditions. Long exposure can be set to 1-15 seconds. Noise reduction is automatically enabled when you set shutter speed to 1.3 - 15 seconds.

Aperture

The SD960 does not allow direct control over aperture. The aperture range is f/2.8 - f/5.8.

Image Stabilization

The Canon SD960 has image stabilization, which allows the camera to make adjustments for natural hand shaking while shooting both still photos and video. You can set the stabilization to Continuous (always on), Shoot Only (only active in the moment of shooting), and Panning, which will disregard horizontal shifting, but adjust for horizontal shake.

Picture Quality & Size Options

Photographs may be captured in one of two qualities: fine and normal. There are also six different size options: L (4000 x 3000), M1 (3264 x 2448), M2 (2592 x 1944), M3 (1600 x 1200), S (640 x 480), and W (4000 x 2248).

Picture Effects

The Canon SD960 has a number of digital effects, most of which are novelty effects that are just as easily accomplished in post-production. Options include: Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, and Vivid Red. There is also a Custom Color option that allows the user to tweak contrast, sharpness, color saturation, red, green, blue, and skin tones independently from one of five different levels. These color options can also be added in post-production during Playback mode.

Hidden at the tail end of the Record Modes are a couple of color controls that go beyond the ordinary scene modes and digital effects. There is a Color Accent feature, that lets you pick a single color and change everything else to black and white. And there is a color swap feature that lets you exchange two color values being recorded.

An extra little perk included in the SD960 is stitch assist, which lets you take a series of up to 26 photos that can be easily stitched together in post-production. A lot of people might find this mode fun to use for stitching together a long image of a vast panoramic landscape.