Canon PowerShot SD970 IS Digital Camera Review

Canon PowerShot SD970 IS

Digital Camera Review

4.1 The Canon PowerShot SD970 IS is a capable 12.1-megapixel point and shoot with a 5x zoom. We found image quality was consistently very good, and movies shot at 720p were impressive.
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Sample Photos  
x Videos Page 7 of 16 Playback x

Sample Photos


In the following sample images, clicking on the larger image will download the full resolution original. Each photo is accompanied by three actual-size crops.

Landscape Sample 
x Focal length: 7mm
Aperture: f/9
Shutter: 1/200
ISO: 100

Taken in program mode with evaluative metering, automatic white balance and without color enhancement, though that blue sky looks a bit bluer here than we remember it.
x x x Sharpness is good through most of the image, though as shown in the right crop chromatic aberration is evident in the corners.The white hull on the left is slightly overexposed, but not badly

 

Wildlife Sample
x Focal length: 33mm
Aperture: f/5.7
Shutter: 1/100
ISO:
200

The 33mm telephoto is equivalent to a 185mm lens on a 35mm camera, allowing us to get close to these ducks without putting on waders. The exposure looks good, the colors are accurate.
x x x The detail level here is very good, with nice reproduction of the subtle color variations in the plummage.

 

Closeup Sample
x Focal length: 7mm
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter: 1/100
ISO:
400

Shot handheld in macro mode, outdoors in the sunlight,with i-Contrast dynamic range enhancement turned on.
x x x The extreme highlights around the letter A are blown out but overall the macro mode produced an impressive image, with excellent levels of detail in a frame-filling shot of a very small object.

 

Signage Sample
x Focal length: 33mm
Aperture: f/5.7
Shutter: 1/320
ISO:
400

Shot at full telephoto from across the street, we raised the ISO to 400 to kick up the shutter speed and avoid blur. Our first shots of this sign looked a little flat, so we set My Colors to Vivid and got a richer-looking result.
x x x The extreme backlighting took its toll on the top corners of the building facade, but the color enhancement worked well, producing deeper but still natural-looking tones. The fine lines in the sign look very clean. 

 

Long Exposure Sample
x Focal length: 7mm
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter: 2.5 seconds
ISO:
400

The only manual shutter speed control provided is in the long exposure mode used here, in a darkened room with only indirect sunlight through heavily curtained windows. The camera was mounted on a tripod, the white balance set to automatic. 
x x x There is some image noise to be seen here but overall we're very pleased with this difficult shot, Details are crisp and the colors are perfect. The only major problem: that apparently bowed mantle is perfectly straight in real life, a victim here of lens distortion. 

Still Life Examples


The photos below were taken with each comparison camera at all available ISO settings, using automatic white balance. Clicking on the thumbnails will download the full-size version, though this may take a while if your Internet connection is slow.

  Still Life Comparisons
  x x x x
  Canon SD970 IS Casio EX-FC100 FujifilmF200EXR Sony DSC-T900
ISO 100 x x x x
ISO 200 x x x x
ISO 400 x x x x
ISO 800 x x x x
ISO 1600 x x x x
ISO 3200

x x
ISO 6400

x
ISO
12800


x

NOTE: The images above are not used in our testing or scoring, but are included here to show real-world examples of the differences between cameras at the various ISO settings.

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