Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD1000: Another Excellent Elph

I have noticed a pattern in the purchasing of electronics in my household. It can only be described by the cliche "when it rains, it pours." My fiance and I will go for periods of several months without making any electronics purchases, only to follow it with an electronics shopping spree. This spring marked another one of these shopping sprees, with my fiance and I purchasing a total of three cameras, two iPods, one computer peripheral, three video games, and all of the accessories to go with them. I think each of us deserves some of the blame for these shopping sprees. My fiance bought an iPod and the new gadget quickly put my old one to shame. Didn't I also need a new iPod with video playing capability for the flight to our honeymoon? Upon the purchase of my new Canon PowerShot Elph SD1100IS, my fiance reasoned, “Wouldn’t it make sense for me to buy a digital camera as a backup?” This brings us to the subject of this review... our new Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD1000.

Shopping for this camera was an easy task, as I had done all of the research when purchasing my own camera a few weeks before. My fiance wanted similar attributes in his new camera. He knew he wanted to stick with the Elph line, after seeing the pictures from my latest Elph and the preceding model. The compact style would be a good fit for him; someone who doesn’t like to carry much more than his wallet and cell phone. He considered a viewfinder a must. He wanted great pictures, but was not particular about features like image stabilization or high zooms. He chose the SD1000 because it filled all of his criteria at a low price.

Picture Quality
When considering any digital camera, picture quality is obviously of the utmost importance. The pictures we’ve taken with the SD1000 are excellent. It features Canon’s latest Digic Processor, Digic III. The colors are very accurate and the pictures are sharp. I had previously been impressed with the Digic II processor in my old SD600, but side-by-side comparision revealed the new processor blows it out of the water. The SD1000 was able to pick up subtle variations in light and color that were missing from the SD600’s images. I didn’t notice this flaw until I put the old camera’s pictures next to the new ones. The SD1000 picked up light reflecting off the curvature of a bottle of wine, giving it more variations in color and resulting in a more lifelike picture. The same image on my SD600 was good, but flat.

Overall the pictures from this camera have been well exposed. It handles the conditions we’ve used it in well. Low-light pictures result in very little noise. The auto focus is impressive, especially with the face detection capability. Red-eye is a rare occurrence.

This camera shoots at a healthy 7.1 effective megapixels. Megapixels are often mistakenly used as the lone measure of the quality of a camera. If this were true, every 7 megapixel camera would function similarly. Megapixels indicate the resolution of the camera, or basically how much detail it record, allowing the user to enlarge the image or zoom in and crop it. 7.1 megapixels was sufficient for our usage, if not a little more than we needed. I was able to zoom in close enough to a few macro pictures we had taken of flowers to see the detail of the pollen. (Know thy enemy... sneezes).

I’ll elaborate on the picture quality when I discuss the individual shooting options.

Physical Attributes
The SD1000 is an ultra compact model, rivaling a deck of playing card in size. It measures 3.38 inches wide by 2.11 inches in height by 0.76 inches deep. My fiance usually tucks the camera (with case) in his jacket pocket or clips it to his belt. The camera is very light as well, weighing only 4.41 ounces.

This Elph has a simpler, box-like design than some of its predecessors and current competitors in the line. There are no contours. My small fingers had no trouble holding the camera, while my fiance managed without too much trouble.

The layout of the SD1000 is similar to that of other Elph models. The face of the camera is the site of the lens and flash. While powered off, the entire face of the camera is flat with the lens retracting completely. The lens protrudes approximately an inch and a half from the face of the camera when it is powered.


The power and shutter buttons sit on the top of the camera, with the zoom being controlled by a switch that is situated around the shutter. The rest of the camera’s controls are located on the back of the camera. Toggling between camera, video, and viewing modes is performed by a switch on the top-right of the back of the camera. Various settings, menus, and modes are controlled by a circular-shaped button and a few surrounding buttons.

The back of the camera also houses a 2.5 inch LCD screen, which is large enough for our usage. The quality of the screen is excellent and it has an excellent viewing angle. The screen is crystal clear and provides a very accurate preview of your images. There are fifteen brightness settings available for the screen. The LCD can be disabled by an adjacent button to preserve the battery life. A small viewfinder is located above this screen.

The SD1000 is available in two color schemes: silver and black. We purchased the silver model. The black model is mostly silver, but is black surrounding the lens and along the width of the camera.

Durability
This camera has a more plastic-y feel to it than the SD600 did. It feels durable enough to not break easily. I’m not willing to toss it around to test it and I certainly don’t recommend dropping it yourself. As with any digital camera, the screen is delicate and a case should be used to store it. My fiance purchased the Canon Accessory Kit 4 which included a black leather case. This case makes the camera a little bit bulkier, but offers excellent protection. The Canon PSC 1000 Leather Case, which I purchased for my SD1100IS, is a more formfitting option but offers slightly less protection. This case is available in several different colors.

Use and Operation
There is no learning curve on this camera if you have ever owned a Canon PowerShot Elph. The buttons and menus are exactly like those of its predecessors. The buttons are well placed and the controls are intuitive. My fiance has had infrequent interactions with my Elphs. He was able to pick up the basic functions (taking pictures with the camera set to auto, reviewing the images, and capturing videos) quite easily and I believe most users will have a similar experience. The manual does a good job of explaining the camera’s other features and my fiance is well on his way to becoming an expert in those as well.

The camera’s buttons are sufficiently large for my fingers, but my fiance has had a little trouble with them. The circular button that toggles certain settings and allows for navigation of the menus is a bit difficult for him to use with his big, clumsy fingers. He has to use the tip of his finger to ensure he’s hitting only a certain portion of the button. He has also struggled a bit with the power button.

Lens and Zoom
The Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD1000 offers a good quality lens and 3x optical zoom. The zoom isn’t great, but it’s sufficient. It’s no greater or less than what’s offered in most compact point-and-shoot cameras currently on the market.

This camera also offers 4x digital zoom which I implore everyone not to take advantage of. Digital zooms digitally stretch and crop images, rather than actually zooming in closer. It is helpful in very few situations. If you have to zoom in on an image further than your zoom allows, wait until uploading the image to your computer than crop it. This will allow you to save a backup copy, whereas when you do it in your camera, it lowers the picture quality and throws out the extra image information. There is a feature in the main menu that allows you to turn the digital zoom off completely so you don’t mistakenly use it.

Flash
The flash is powerful on this little camera, but not so powerful that it sucks the life and emotion out of every picture. It is well placed, providing a low incidence of red-eye. There is little bit of lag when taking photos with the flash that isn’t normally an obstacle.

Available flash modes include Auto, Auto with Red-eye Reduction, Auto with Slow Synchro, Flash On, Flash On with Red-eye Reduction, Flash On with Slow Synchro, and Flash Off. The Auto mode does a decent job of determining when the flash should be used. Whenever it didn’t, the flash off mode was quick and easy to access. The Red-eye Reduction modes helped reduce red-eye significantly indoors.

Features and Settings
Shooting Modes
Auto: Auto is the camera’s default shooting mode and the one used most often by most users. This mode adjusts the camera’s settings (aperture, shutter speed, light sensitivity, white balance, etc.) for you based on the conditions. This camera’s auto does a great job in most conditions. In low light, it almost always favors the flash which I found to be problematic. It can easily be compensated for by switching modes or turning off the flash, but some users may not know how to do this. When I did turn off the flash, some of the photos were blurry (especially if I had to zoom in). A tripod would have fixed it, but sometimes a tripod is too cumbersome to carry everywhere. Overall, however, it did perform well indoors.

The macro setting can also be used in this mode and I was very impressed with it (toggled on by the side of the circular button with the flower symbol on it). I used it for a number of pictures I took of flowers in the garden. They turned out wonderfully. They were sharp and in the lighter colored flowers, you could actually see the varying textures in the leaf. It worked well enough that upon reviewing the images, I could see bugs crawling around on the petals that I hadn’t noticed while shooting.

Camera M: This mode affords the user some control over the camera’s settings. This can be used to set the white balance and color options. It doesn’t give you as much control as a digital single lens reflex camera would (D-SLR), so it isn’t terribly useful from an amateur photography perspective, but it’s helpful for playing around with the photos. I’ve used it most often for nature pictures, especially sunsets. Adjusting the settings allows me to take images of the same scene that look completely different and emphasize different hues.

Portrait: The names of each mode are indicative of their purpose and this one is no exception. Portrait mode is best for portraits; images of people who are still. This flash automatically sets the red-eye reduction mode for the flash setting and sets a higher aperture to reduce the depth of field. It seems to do a good job if you are moderately distanced from the subject of the portrait (I’d estimate about 5-10 feet). Any further seems to produce images that are blurry. For the most part, when this mode failed, I was able to get the image I wanted in night portrait mode.

Foliage: Foliage mode is for taking pictures of (big surprise) foliage. This mode seems to select the vivid colors option and places an emphasis on the contrast of the hues in your photos. I believe it will really shine during walks in the park in the fall, but for now, it has resulted in some brilliantly colored pictures of my rose garden.

Snow: This setting adjusts the white balance to make snow appear as the whitest white in the picture. Since this was a spring purchase, I did not get to use it for its intended purpose. I did, however, find it incredibly useful for pictures in a bridal shop.

Beach: The beach mode is intended for compensating for the overexposure that can occur in bright sunlight at the beach that tends to wash out colors. It’s a little early in the season to go to the beach, but I found it useful for outdoor pictures at midday when the sun isn’t ideal for shooting. My fiance and I went to the Chinese Scholar’s Garden at noon and this mode allowed us to get some great pictures of the grounds. I did a few test shots both indoors and outdoors to get an idea of how effective this mode is. The outdoor shots were well exposed while the indoor ones were severely underexposed, as expected.

Sunset: Sunset mode’s performance is similar to that of foliage mode. It uses the camera’s vivid color option and adjusts settings to produce a more vibrant image. The settings also produce a romantic glow to the images. Sunset pictures at the park really looked like paintings in this mode and provided more contrast than I was getting by adjusting the white balance settings in Camera M mode.

Fireworks: This mode employs long shutter speeds to take dramatic photos of fireworks. The longer shutter speeds capture the trail as the fireworks descend whereas auto or night snapshot modes may lessen the effect of the light. I found this mode to be next to impossible to use without a tripod. The motions of my hand were picked up even if I steadied my arm on a flat surface. I have not been able to use it for actual fireworks yet, but I have been using it for pictures at cakes at birthday parties. The result is often an image that places emphasis on the lit candles and the reflection of them on the face of the person blowing them out.

Aquarium: This mode seems to reduce the glare recorded from taking a picture through glass as would occur in an aquarium. Like my SD1100IS, I have only had the chance to test this one at a fish tank so far and the results were some vivid images that look like they were taken underwater.

Underwater: Important Note: this camera is not waterproof. Do not submerge it then call Canon complaining the camera isn’t working. This mode is to be used with an underwater housing (which can be purchased separately for around $200). I haven’t picked one up yet, but I’ll update this review if I do.

Indoor: I’m sure you can guess what indoor mode is. This is one of the modes my fiance and I use frequently. It would be useful for most users who take pictures at family gatherings and parties. The images in this mode have been sharp with a low frequency of red-eye (I’d estimate 1 out of every 30 or so pictures had some red-eye). Often I was able to eliminate these few bad shots by reshooting them in portrait mode. As low light is often a problem indoors, this is one of those modes that favors using the flash.

Kids & Pets: What do kids and pets have in common? Is it the fact that they’re both cuddly and cute? Depends on who you ask, but they certainly share the fact that they rarely sit still. It should be a surprise that a mode designed to take pictures of them uses fast shutter speeds to “freeze the action.” I don’t have any children, but my fiance and I use this mode frequently to get pictures of our Corgi Talyn playing with my parents’ German Shepherd Josie.

Night Snapshot: Obviously, this mode is for snapshots taken at night. It seems to set the ISO higher and uses the flash. I didn’t find the night snapshots using this mode to be much better than those using indoor mode. I did find it helpful to use in place of other modes when the pictures weren’t turning out quite right.

Color Accent and Color Swap: I consider both of these modes to be “fun” modes, included mainly for entertainment value. Color Accent allows you to choose a color (chosen by taking a “sample” of that color by pointing the camera at it and pressing a button) that will be the only one to appear in the picture. Everything else appears monochromatic. For example, a garden that has vibrantly colored flowers and only one red rose can be made to be blank and white, with only the red rose colored. Color Swap also involves taking a color sample, then a second, and replacing the second one with the first one. For example, you could change the red rose to a blue rose. I can’t think of any practical use for these modes (unless you’re repainting and want to test how a color would look). This kind of editing is better performed on the computer anyway, allowing you to save a copy in full color in case you need it in the future.

Digital Macro: This mode is another close-up mode, which I don’t use very often. The macro photos turn out significantly better using auto with the macro setting enabled.

Stitch Assist: This mode guides you through the process of taking and “stitching together” images to create a panoramic picture. I was able to test this mode out, but haven’t really had the opportunity to create a good panoramic photo with it.

Other Settings:
The Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD1000 offers shutter speeds ranging from 15 to 1/1500 second. The maximum aperture is f/2.8 (Wide) to f/4.9 (Telephoto).

This camera offers several options for color in Camera M mode; vivid, neutral, sepia, black and white, positive film, lighter skin tone, darker skin tone, vivid blue, vivid green, vivid red, and custom colors. For the most part, I avoid using black and white or sepia when playing around with the manual mode. Both of these can be done easily with basic editing software, which also allows me to save a color copy. The white balance options available in this mode are Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, and custom. I felt the Auto does a great job of determining the white balance and used the other modes only for playing around with the images.

The SD1000 has several ISO options: Auto, High ISO Auto, ISO 80, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, and ISO 1600. The Auto mode did an excellent job of determining which light sensitivity would work best in each situation and most settings had no noise. ISO 1600 added a little bit of graininess to the images, but nothing extraordinary.

The camera has a self timer, which can be set to 2 seconds, 10 seconds, or a custom setting. Audible alerts sound when the mode is activated and when the picture will be taken, giving you time to jump into the picture. The same control that activates the self timer, also toggles the continuous shooting mode which shoots at 1.7 frames per second. I wish this were a little faster, as it’s difficult to get a great quality succession of action shots with it. It’s sufficient for most photos, though.

Video
The SD1000 has a video mode with audio that can be shot at four different resolutions. The video wasn’t camcorder quality, but was helpful in a few situations. The speaker doesn’t play the audio at a very high volume, so playback is best performed on the computer.

Battery Life
This camera takes a rechargeable lithium ion battery. These batteries last much longer than AA batteries. On a full charge, I’ve been able to shoot more than 270 images, including some time reviewing the images and playing around with the camera settings. The disadvantage of these batteries is that you must charge them beforehand. If you have an event in a few hours, you can’t run out to a pharmacy and pick up a replacement. To avoid this problem, I always recommend keeping a charged replacement in your camera back. My fiance purchased the aforementioned Canon Accessory Kit 4 which contained an extra battery. The battery model number is NB-4L, which was one of our reasons for leaning toward this camera. This was the same battery my Canon SD 600 used (I had three extras for it) and my new Canon SD1100IS uses. We now have five extras between the two of us to be used in whatever camera is low on battery life at the time.

Memory Card
The SD1000 accepts several memory card options; SD, SDHC, and MMC. The SD type memory is the most widely used, accepted by many current and older model Canon, Kodak, Casio, Nikon, Dell, HP, and Panasonic cameras. SDHC is a newer format that has the capability to be made in higher capacities than SD. We are currently using a San Disk Extreme III 2 GB Memory Card with the camera. This card holds 643 images at the highest quality (7.1 megapixels and superfine compression).

What’s In The Box
Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD1000
Rechargeable Lithium Ion NB-4L Battery
Battery Charger
USB Cable
A/V Cable
Wrist Strap
CD-ROM
32 MB SD Memory Card

Connecting It
The included USB cable makes connecting the camera to the computer simple; little end goes in the camera, big end in the computer. If you don’t already have editing software installed, you can simply pop the CD-ROM into the computer for easy to use software. I prefer to use a memory card reader for easy transfers without using the camera’s battery.

Price and Availability
My fiance paid only $149.00 for the SD1000 on Dell.com. This model has been out for some time now and while it was widely available at most electronics stores and websites, it may not be sold for much longer. Pick it up while stores are still selling through their inventory of it.

Other Models Considered
We considered several other camera models with Digic III. The closest contender was my camera, the SD1100IS. This model offers the benefit of image stabilization, 0.9 extra megapixels, and more color choices, but ultimately we felt it wasn’t worth the extra $65 in price. The SD1000 had an advantage of a 0.4 frame per second faster burst mode. My SD600 had a 2.3 frames per second continuous shot mode and downgrading with my “upgraded” camera was a difficult decision. It made us feel a little better to know that we would make a little bit of the difference up with my fiance’s new camera.

We briefly considered the SD950IS as well. This camera offer 12.4 megapixels, image stabilization, and 0.7x higher zoom, but we didn't feel that any of these were necessary for us nor worth the $100 extra cost.