Canon PowerShot SD800 IS 7.1MP Digital Elph Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Image-Stabilized Optical Zoom (OLD MODEL)

I had two major requirements when I bought this camera - 1. A 28mm focal length on the wide angle side 2. It had fit easily into my pocket This camera fits both requirements well. The 28mm requirement is the result of many years of taking pictures of family, friends, scenery - having that extra angle of view compared with the 35mm or 38mm more generally offered opens up many possibilities. If you haven't experienced the difference, give it a try before you buy. Another feature of a camera I discovered, when lugging a 35mm reflex with a big zoom lens on it (the proverbial potato masher) was that it didn't matter how good the camera was if it was at home when I wanted to take the picture. Thus the pocket-size requirement. I have taken thousands of pictures over the years, moved from film to digital, and now see the cameras getting smaller and smaller - and doing more and more. Happily, it all comes together in this package. It takes wonderful pictures - Canon seems to have figured out the software as well as anyone - and it's easy to use. Not lots of settings and adjustments, but I've had cameras with them available and never used them. The anti-shake feature is a miracle. You can use any focal length in almost any light where the camera will work without flash, and not worry about the shakes. One general comment - in the Auto mode, the camera will increase the ISO setting as the light falls, trying not to turn to flash. But at ISO settings much above 100, the resulting pictures are noticeably grainy, and at 800 and 1600, they are pretty ugly. I shoot in Manual mode, just to keep the ISO constant, set at 100. And the flash is really quite good for a little guy like this. In the rare case where a higher ISO is a better solution, you can set it at other values, up to 1600, and fire away - and accept the consequences. Sometimes a grainy picture is better than no picture at all. I got a neat little case at Staples, made by Case Logic, which fits the camera snugly, and offers some foam protection. It has been dropped numerous times in the case, and it just happily bounces and comes back for more. The camera spends a lot of time in my pocket, and having it handy enables taking lots more pictures, in fun circumstances. When people don't expect you to have a camera, you can catch them out better than when you have to do "Hey, hold that until I go get my camera", or "Dang, I wish I had brought my camera". For comparison, Panasonic has just brought out this camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3S 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver) which also has a 28m wide angle. The 10x zoom goes well beyond the 4x on the Canon, but the Panasonic is enough larger to make it a bit less of a pocket-fitter. The longer telephoto is attractive, though, and it has the required anti-shake. For cameras of this pixel count, it's interesting to note that you can put almost 1500 pictures on a single 2GB SD card. On a trip? That's 100 pictures a day for two weeks - not bad. And the cards aren't expensive. So, for my requirements, this camera is near ideal, and I'm very happy with it. No real gripes at all.

After returning our Canon a610 to futureshop for repairs on the lcd (it went green) and finding out that it would not be back in time for the holidays (a long story, i'll say), we decided to pick up a new canon to take with us. Being very happy with the performance and quality of the 610, as a camera and the pictures it took, we decided to go with another Canon. Looking at a few models, the sd800 looked like a good option, with a 7mp resolution vs. our 610's 6mp, IS, which came in very handy during the holidays (we took 1600 pictures in about 16 days), and a familiar user interface we were well used to. Initial use of the camera was great. My wife was VERY happy with the form factor, being able to drop it right into a pocket, vs. the 610 being about double the size, considering all the dimenions. Then about 5 days into our trip, as we were heading towards the active lava fields in hawaii for a hike out to the lava, and our camera died! Battery dead! Ugh! It was fairly late in the day, so we decided to head back to our cottage, recharge, and head back to the lava flows the next day. What had happened, was I had charged the camera the night before, then decided to transfer the pictures over to my laptop, and forgot to turn the camera off overnight, draining some of the power. In any event, after that, we looked in the manual to see what the average lifespan/picture capacity was on a single charge. The manual said around 300 pictures w/ lcd, and 600 or so w/o. The battery pack being around 1100mah, I realized the difference. We normally use 4 AA 2300 mah energizer/dynacharge rechargables in our 610, which last -forever- and easily can take over a thousand pictures (i've never sat and tried to take that many), the sd800 has only 1/8th the battery capacity. Overall, I would highly recommend the camera, as a great quick point&shoot, small compact you can toss in your pocket, purse, backpack, etc. If you decide to buy it, I highly recommend that you get a second battery pack for it. They swap in and out very easy, and will save alot of grief when you're vacationing somewhere and run out of battery power. The recharge time on the batteries is great too, around an hour or 2 to completely recharge. dwight s. ps: Just a quick note I forgot to mention in my review. After taking numerous pictures, I printed 62 5x7s, 10 8x10s and 3 11x14's from pictures taken with this camera, using walmart's online photo service (they are across teh road from my office). It was the first time I had really printed large size digital pictures and I must say, i was -thoroughly- impressed with the quality of the shots printed at 11x14 and gave them to my wife for christmas. She was quite surprised and very happy to see the shots printed and framed. We've got the two canon's now, the sd800 and an a610, and i would say we've completely switched to digital photography from 35mm film. I would suspect our next camera will be a canon digital slr - a friend of mine has one which i've used a few times, and I really like it.

I got this camera after much research. The main features that attracted me: + 28mm wide-angle zoom. Most compacts start at 35mm, which can make it hard to take pictures of groups of people without moving way back. The 28mm is wide enough to capture a wide shot, even in a small room. + Optical image stabilization. I prefer to take shots with natural light whenever possible. Without image stabilization and with flash disabled, any shutter speed below 1/25s or so gets you a blurry image, unless you use a tripod. With this camera, I'm getting good shots down to 1/10, even 1/8 second (if the subject doesn't move too much). That means I can disable the flash almost anytime, to capture, say, the ambience of a rainy day on the back porch. And as a bonus, the image stabilizer works full-time when using the... + high-quality, low-compression, 30fps, 640x480 video recorder. Video on compact digital cameras is usually a novelty. But I found myself using the video recorder on my old Canon Powershot S50 more often than my bulky 8mm camcorder because I had the Canon with me, and the camcorder was back in the car. The video was poor quality, but it was better than nothing. Now, with the SD800IS, I can have my cake and eat it too. The video is as good as my digital 8mm Sony (640x480, 30 frames per second, low compression, few noticeable digital artifacts). Usually video on a compact camera is shaky, looking more like a cell-phone video than anything semi-professional, but here the optical image stabilization helps tremendously. I can pan as smoothly with the SD800IS as I can with a more bulky camcorder. And since large capacity SD cards can be had on the cheap, recording capacity is no handicap. I purchased a 4GB card for $50, which gives me 30+ minutes of video recording. 16GB can be had, and bigger ones are coming. That's 2 hours of high-quality video on a camera that will fit in your pocket - which means you'll actually have it with you when something video-worthy happens. The only downside: you can't zoom while you're recording video. You have to set your zoom beforehand. When you start recording, the camera sets focus and white-balance based on the first frame, then uses that for the duration of the shot.

This camera exceeds my wildest expectations. It is small enough to fit in your pocket, but delivers incredibly clear, beautiful pictures. I needed a camera with the best stability control I could find, since I have a bad habit of moving when I snap a picture. Every review said this was the best, and they were right. I took pictures from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, with traffic flying by on the road beneath me, bicycles whizzing by behind me and crowds of people all around me, and every one came out postcard perfect. Yes the dials are small. Hello?!? The camera is the size of a credit card and as thick as an Ipod. It has a huge LCD display. Of course the dials are small. But I bought the camera to take great pictures, and that's what it does. And for all those people obsessed with the flush mounted on/off button, get over it. It is simple to use, and is out of the way of vital functions. After half an hour of getting familiar with the camera and settings, those so-called issues will be gone. Also, unlike my previous Canon, the settings and menus are much easier to navigate. That display is incredibly bright and accurate. I was on the bridge in full noon sunlight wearing sunglasses, and the display was still easy to see and use. The books and literature that come with the camera look daunting at the beginning. But once you actually start using the camera, they become much less intimidating. The CD software installs easily and is easy to use. The one caveat is the memory card. The one that comes with the camera has so little memory, it is practically useless. Spend a little money and buy yourself one or two high capacity cards. You'll want them for all the pictures you'll take. I spent weeks comparing cameras and options. It was time well spent. This one was worth the time.

PROS: When shot is composed with proper lighting, the image quality is fantastic and sharp. I've set the camera to Manual and used the Vivid setting and found this to be the most optimal setting for image quality. Colors are well saturated.... no take in mind, this is all with proper lighting and if the subject/subjects are close enough for this camera's mediocre built-in flash. CONS: After over 100 shots testing the image quality at each ISO setting in low light conditions, I've found that anything over ISO 400 with the SD800 is VERY noisy. In fact, you can probably get away with the noise at ISO 800 if you don't print anything larger than a 4x6. But the noise is just unbearable and using post processing software will remove the noise at the expense of detail. The Image Stabilization is fine during most light conditions, but it does a really subpar job in an indoor environment. OVERALL: I'm impressed by this camera. It's above average amongst most ot the point-and-shoot cameras I've used in the past. As I said, this camera's performance is like night and day in regards to lighting conditions. Many people tend to expect DSLR results from a point and shoot, but that's what this Canon SD800 IS is, a POINT-AND-SHOOT. I have yet to see a P&S shooter have the equivalent result of an SLR or DSLR. Of other P&S I've tried that are not as expensive as the Canon SD800, I would try Panasonic's line of Lumix cameras. Same great image quality minus the high price tag.

I recently purchased the SD800 IS as my wife's carry-around camera to take pictures of our child, etc. She had been using the "older" Canon SD550, which was a nice camera in its own right, but the pictures my wife was producing with it over the years were just not that great. So I thought it was time for another try, and that image stabilization might be an important feature for her. Like many others I am sure, for me it came down to the SD800 IS, SD850 IS and the new SD870 IS. I knocked the SD850 out of the running due to the lack of the wide angle lens. So it was down to the 800 vs. 870. No easy answer here, but the new features on the 870 were not quite compelling for me, and I liked the feel of the SD800 better as far as a place for your thumb while shooting (the SD870 has a bigger LCD screen, so less real estate for your thumb when shooting), and I liked having the viewfinder for those times when it can come in handy (like bright sunlight which can wash out the LCD screen). Plus, the price on the SD800 at this point is very compelling (right here from Amazon), and almost felt like a steal for the camera I was getting. The early results from the SD800 IS are excellent. I love the wide angle lens, and it really is a nice option to have. You can always zoom in, or move closer to your subject if necessary, but if you need a wide angle lens, then only a wide angle lens will do. The pictures look great, and certainly better than the SD550. IS works well, face detection works well. All in all, a fabulous camera, especially for its current price. Good work Canon.

Just imagine upgrading from a Sony Mavica FD91 to a Casio Exilim Z70. That was great though I always felt that that Casio isn't the one I wanted and didn't like the quality as much as possible. Paid $200 for it too. At that time (2006), I wanted the Canon S600 or S630 but they went way over $200. This year though, I found this great deal on a Canon...and guess what, it was an even better model (and not by little either). An Sd800IS for $200 is phenomenal. Ok, now to talk about the features: Aesthetics: Looks great. Thicker than my Casio Exilim but I guess the Exilim line is made extremely skinny and is a feature. Everything seems sturdy (aside for the bottom cover). Video: Videos are very important to me and I love the quality of the videos. Not too grainy and definitely an extreme step up from my Casio. Pictures: I knew that my videos on the Casio Exilim were ok but not good...but these just blew me out of the water! The pics look crisp and clear. GUI: VERY confusing at first, meaning that there is a learning curve. Even now, I get confused sometimes. Though I guess the confusion comes from all the features that they included in this camera. My old Casio Exilim was VERY easy to use and I loved that but like I said, the features forces things to be like that. Features: The color swap feature is pretty ok. Sometimes it doesn't work with darker colors BUT it does what it can. One feature that I was really looking forward to was the the Color Accent. It works well enough with what you have. If you can find a good setting and you want to accentuate the colors, put this feature on and the picture really does become more than a picture...it looks more like a work of art. Battery Life: Extremely good. I've only charged it once since I got it at the end of December and it is now February. Sure, I'm not going around taking pics or shooting movies all the time but it has had quite a bit of use and it lasted a long time. Shutter Speed: I wish that this cam could takes pics faster. Guess I'm spoiled a bit since my old Casio Exilim had a feature in which you could literally take pics one after the other extremely fast. With this camera, it always takes around 1 sec to 1.5 secs to shoot again. Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with this camera and I'll definitely be keeping this for at least 2 years (and most probably 3 years).

Hello All, I'm typing this review because I'd like to give my input and experience (limited) with this camera. I'm not a professional photographer or anything of that sort. I'm a digital artist, and I needed a camera to take reference photos and textures for use in 3D programs such as Maya. This is actually my very first digital camera. I did a ton of research, and came to this conclusion after many, many hours of reviewing. Thanks everyone for your great reviews. On to my review. The first thing I noticed about this camera was how pretty it was - It was packaged beautifully, arrived promptly and with all the desired and mentioned extra's included. There are various metallic accents around the lens, and on the top and bottom of the camera. Buttons are also chrome like, the photo's of the camera don't do it justice. But besides physical appearance, I've had nothing but positive experiences with my camera thus far. I was concerned about some of the negative reviews, the lens problems, and boggled by the choices of SD Elphs (SD 850, SD 1000, SD 700, SD 750, SD THAT, SD This, it was kind of overwhelming, especially to someone who had no idea what they were getting into.) I Eventually decided that any lens problems were in the minority, and that any (IF) issues down the road occured, I'd just deal with them, there's a whole support website devoted to fixing the problem, so I really didn't think it would be a problem. *Knocks on wood* Here are the various reasons I decided upon this camera out of all the other versions. 1. Reviews. The majority of reviews were very positive, and in terms of the ratio of good vs. bad, it came out like so: 475 good reviews (5 and 4 star) Versus 26 bad reviews (2 and 1 star) not counting the three star reviews. Reason #2. Photo Examples. Out of all the photos I saw taken by this camera, on the amazon website and others, the photo quality seemed to be great. This has proven true thus far from a personal viewpoint, all my photos of my cat and family turn out well lighted and sharp, and I find the flash works well, however sometimes turning it off auto is needed. (Because sometimes the camera thinks it "needs" the flash, when in fact the photo would look better without it.) Reason #3. Features and Extras. This Camera has a bagoogle of stuff to play with. All kinds of scene modes, Color swap and Color accent features, which can also be applied to video) as well as light distorting filters that I haven't really experimented with yet. The fact this camera has a wide angle lens is also a big plus. The color swap mode is more addictive than tetris or pong on a boring day. I've seen myself green, hulk style (SO much fun, really...Imagine a short video with you ripping your shirt off.) Friends white cars turned pink, hair turned green, etc. I'm sure soon enough I'll have people saying "OKAY, You've seen my skin blue, put the fricking camera down." Reason #4. Practicality and Navigation: This Camera, and all its bagoogles of features, are integrated into the camera beautifully. I don't find them detracting from my photo-shooting experiences, because they're tucked out of the way, and don't clutter things up. However, when you need them, you need but flip a switch to summon a plethora of options available, such as ISO and Scene Modes. Reason #5. It's pretty, Yeah, it's got a green light that emanates from the top of the camera, it really looks nice. Reason #6. Macro. I bought this camera originally as a means of obtaining textures and reference photos. A lot of the textures I need are macros (Skin, dirt, etc) and I found this camera to have a very professional macro that seems to focus very well, even when almost touching the camera to the surface of whatever it is you're shooting. That's all! That's why I chose this camera. I believe this camera would be a great choice for anyone who's not a megapixelfile, or too picky about having a ton of manual choices. For the shutterbug who doesn't want to get too involved and caught up in all the complexities that a camera can present, I think this little Bugger will serve you well for simply taking good photos. Thanks for reading! : ) PS: I bought an 8 GB SDHC Card along with this camera - search for transcend 8 GB in amazon. For 35 bucks or so 8 GB is great, and the card is compatible with this camera and very reliable. : ) PS #2: I'll be sure to come back and edit this review as I spend more time with my camera.