Roundup: Compact Digital Cameras : Canon PowerShot SD990 IS
4. Canon PowerShot SD990 IS
QuickShot: Fast Autofocus
Canon has included a new autofocus mode on the SD990 IS: QuickShot. It involves lining up your shot via the optical viewfinder, with only a few key statistics produced on the LCD screen to guide you.
Autofocus is continual, meaning you don't have to make the usual half-press of the shutter release button to launch it. However, it takes a bit of getting used to as, without being able to see the photo, you're never sure whether the focus is quite right at the moment you take the shot.
Although it is apparently not intended as a direct replacement of the PowerShot SD890 IS, Canon's new PowerShot SD990 IS has a lot of new features. Out goes the older model's 10 Megapixel sensor, replaced by one boasting 14.7 Megapixels. Also new is a DIGIC 4 processor, a special contrast handling system dubbed i-contrast, and a Quickshot mode to offer speedier autofocus. However, are all of these upgrades enough to keep Canon's flagship digital compact at the top of its game?
Handling
- PowerShot SD990 IS...
The SD990 IS boasts a solid, well-designed frame, and the round forms on the right hand side of the case make it easy to get a good grip on it. Canon has also paid attention to the layout of the controls on the back, and the scroll wheel is particularly useful: depending on where you are in the interface, it serves to either scroll through the menus, or modify a particular setting. A separate switch allows you to move between the four main modes (automatic, manual, scene and video).
The software is as easy to use as the hardware, and getting your head around the menus only takes a matter of minutes. Unlike with some other recent compacts, you can't customize the interface in any way, so you'll have to stick to Canon's logic--which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Hardware
The optical zoom gains an extra millimeter in wide angle mode (it's now 36-mm, rather than 37-mm), but loses a lot more in telephoto mode (a 133-mm lens replaces the SD890 IS' 185-mm). For wide angle shots, the lens provides a decent aperture, even it does a little less well for telephoto mode (f/5.8). It's also a little noisier than we're used to on Canon compacts.
The LCD screen is of good quality, but the inclusion of a viewfinder limits its size to 2.5-inches, which is a shame, as the optical viewfinder is not very useful, and hardly a feature that would be popular amongst a compact's target audience. In bright light, the screen performs well, with fluid movement updated accurately, and is perfectly useable in the shade too, albeit with a little distortion.
This is a very nippy little camera, taking just 1.4 seconds to switch on and then less than a second to autofocus. In between one shot and the next, you'll never have to wait more than two seconds. The only point at which the SD990 IS does slow down is in accessing photos saved on a memory card. Its burst mode, at 1.6 frames per second, could be a little faster as well.
Image Quality
With a 14.7 Megapixel sensor and a new DIGIC 4 chip, the SD990 IS is clearly destined to perform well even at very fast speeds. Working from the lowest ISO numbers up, noise is entirely absent from 80 to 200 ISO, where shots are nice and detailed, with the lens producing slightly sharper results than, for instance, the Panasonic FX150 or the Nikon S710. Chromatic aberration is definitely under control, and is hardly visible even on A4 prints, although some detail is lost around the edge of the frame. What little purple fringing there is is unlikely to be very offsetting and hardly ruins photos.
Right up to 800 ISO, noise is handled quite well, but then colored pixels start to appear where they shouldn't, and blurriness begins to wash out some of the details. Honestly, 1600 ISO really is this compact's upper limit, with blurring leaving colors very flat in dark areas. At these speeds, the Panasonic FX150 has the advantage.
A 5-cm macro mode gives great results, and the flash is useful for portrait shots taken at a distance of around two meters. Disappointingly, the video mode is stuck at VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels), despite the general push to High Definition elsewhere in the consumer electronics market, and you still can't zoom while recording a video clip. However, the optical stabilization is powerful, and usually provides sharp results at 1/3 s, but you'll need to go to 1/5 s to be sure of convincing results.
| Canon PowerShot SD990 IS | |
|---|---|
| Pluses | Minuses |
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| Canon's new PowerShot SD990 IS boasts a record-breaking 14.7 Megapixel sensor, great image quality right up to 800 ISO, and it's fast to boot. The optical image stabilization works well, but it's a shame that the wide angle option is still so weak, and why the zoom is actually slightly less powerful than the earlier SD890 IS. HD Video is another feature that's noticeably absent. |  |
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.