Canon PowerShot SD970 IS
Digital Camera Review
Jun 19, 2009
- By Steve Morgenstern
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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Movie Mode (10.75)
The SD970 IS offers three movie resolutions, including 1280 x 720 (720p), the lower-res of two common HDTV formats. The more web-friendly options are 640 x 480 and 320 x 240, with all three shooting at 30 frames per second. Maximum recording time in 720p mode is 29 minutes 59 seconds, and one hour for the lower-res alternatives. Videos ares stored in H.264 format, in MOV files.
Many of the controls and effects available while shooting stills also apply to shooting video. These include white balance and exposure compensation settings, image stabilization, and adjusting the color mode settings. However, optical zoom is disabled while shooting.
| Movie Controls |
The movie shooting screen is clear and uncluttered |
Video Color (10.10)
The color accuracy in video shot with the Canon SD970 IS is very good, with minor color shift and slight undersaturation when shooting in 720p mode. It ranks at the top of our comparision group in this area. The chart below represents color error, so a shorter bar is better.
| Video Color Comparison |
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Video Sharpness (5.32)
Here aagain, shooting at 720p, the Canon scores very well, as shown in the chart below. The bars represent resolution measurements, so a taller bar indicates better performance.
| Video Resolution Comparison |
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