Roundup: Compact Digital Cameras : Canon PowerShot SD880 IS
3. Canon PowerShot SD880 IS
I-Contrast
I-Contrast is a new feature that's becoming increasingly widespread on digital compact cameras at the moment.
Known as D-Lighting in Nikon's literature and Intelligent Contrast by Panasonic, the general idea is the same.
Dark areas are automatically retouched to bring out the detail without losing elements from lighter areas. As you can see in this photo, there's a lot more detail in the foliage of the plants and the coats on the stand, with this feature activated, but you can still see the buildings outside of the window clearly.
The Canon PowerShot SD880 IS has the difficult task of following the SD870 IS, one of the manufacturer's all-time best-sellers. To face up the job, this new version has a new, bigger sensor with more Megapixels, and uses the new DIGIC 4 processor for image treatment. Along the way, Canon has also tweaked the interface and styling--but is this really a worthy successor?
Handling
On the outside, the SD880 IS features the same mix of metal and plastic that's used on the SD870 IS, thus provides a good grip. However, rather than changing the materials involved, Canon has targeted the overall dimensions, skimming 2-mm off the 8SD880 IS in all directions.
In turn, this means that some of the button positions have been moved, and they now take up a little more room without getting the way. Indeed, all of the controls are easy to use, and our only real criticism is the plasticky feel of the zoom.
On the back, a scroll wheel (as used on Canon's SD890 IS and SD990 IS) makes navigating through the menus easy. While it's a nice addition, it would have been ideal if Canon had managed to improve the LCD screen, too: the 230,000 pixel three-inch display is perfectly fine and provides fluid images, but could certainly be improved, as other manufacturers have shown.
Additionally, the new DIGIC 4 processor mentioned in the introduction makes its presence felt most clearly in terms of how responsive the camera now is. It takes less than a second to power up and just 0.6 seconds for the autofocus to work. Unfortunately, burst mode is rather slow at just 1.5 frames per second, but that's still twice as fast as it was on the SD870 IS.
Image Quality
The SD880 IS has an extra two million pixels over its predecessor, which seems like a reasonable adjustment on Canon's part given the waves of 12 MP digital compacts that we've seen recently. Overall, the extra pixels are worthwhile, and the camera takes great photos at the lowest film speeds (80 and 100 ISO). Noise is usually under control, although things are a little worse above 800 ISO, although shots here are hardly unusable.
The new 4x zoom lens, however, is a little disappointing--compared to those on the Panasonic FX37 or even the SD870 IS, none of our test photos were particularly sharp, and there was a definite blurriness along the left edge of the frame. White balancing is done well and remains even, but some colors tend to be too saturated; we found that reds in particular were badly affected.
As for video, the main change is a switch of file format, which is now .mov using a H.264 encoding. This is handled natively in Mac OS X, but is less well-known to Windows users and might prompt some confusion in popular software like Movie Maker. More troubling is the lack of High Definition video, which is becoming ever more standard and whose absence is difficult to justify.
A perfectly acceptable optical stabliization allowed this crisp shot of Barbie at 800 ISO in 1/8 second. The macro mode works fine right up to 2-cm away and has a well-chosen amount of flash.
Somewhat inevitably, this new camera from Canon will find itself competing with Panasonic's FX37. Although both manufacturers' earlier models were well-matched rivals, Canon's position has slipped a little. Panasonic offers a more powerful zoom (5x 25-125 mm) and HD video.
Although Canon may protest that its camera is easier to use with a nice large screen and handy interface, the iA 'Intelligent Automatic' mode that is being rolled out across Panasonic's range really does improve image quality.
| Canon PowerShot SD880 IS | |
|---|---|
| Pluses | Minuses |
|
|
| We've been waiting for it for a long time, but the Canon PowerShot SD880 IS is a good camera that suffers primarily from a lack of ambition. No HD video, a 230 000 Pixel screen and 1.5 fps burst mode could all be improved, as could the quality of the images, which has worsened since the SD870 IS in some cases. At least it has inherited its predecessor's intuitive, speedy interface. |  |
should have classified the cameras to at least price and/or final rating. i got discouraged to read.
should have classified the cameras to at least price and/or final rating. i got discouraged to read.
When you say classified, what do you mean? Do you mean the pages should go in order of price, or in order of rating? Such as the cheap ones at the beginning and the expensive ones at the end OR the best cameras at the top and the worst cameras at the bottom?
i meant group them by chosen price ranges/brackets or any feature you think is relevant since comparison between cameras is just difficult with the present format wherein it is only possible to compare models of a certain brand.
It would have been nice if all the cameras were given scores (yes I know this is very subjective, but so are all the comments and pro/con sections). Idealy they would be given su scores as well (i.e. a still picture score, a video score, a asthetics score, a usablity score, maybe some others) and then the cameras could be sorted by those scores with links, maybey a short blurb at each camera in the sorted list. Another thing that would be very usefull to myself and I assume other readers is a features table that allows us to compare all the cameras.