Great little camera for everyday use
Written: Jun 28 '04
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Pros: Great pictures, features, easy and fun to use, small
Cons: No battery indicator, batteries run out quicker with LCD on
The Bottom Line: I highly recommend this camera for someone who wants a simple and easy to use camera that comes with advanced features and takes excellent quality photos.
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| pddolan's Full Review: Canon PowerShot S400 / IXUS 400 Digital Camera |
Make no mistake, this is a powerful camera. It has an excellent number of features. It is so small that you can easily fit it into your pockets and take it with you everywhere. You do have to keep in mind that it is a "point and shoot", so don't expect to get these photojournalistic quality photos of fast-moving events. The picture quality of its 4 MP sensor is superb. It does not have an uncompresssed picture mode, all pictures are in JPEG format. You can set the level of compression, however, depending on how you want it. With the lowest level of compression, it is basically the same as if the picture was not compressed as far as appearance. It has a great automatic mode that allows you to just point it and shoot. It will do the focusing, lighting, and shutter speed all for you. It also has a manual mode where you can do some more advanced features such as white-balancing, ISO speed (50,100,200,400,auto), color effects, flash settings, lighting adjustments, etc. It also has a movie mode that takes up to 3 minute clips in AVI format. The max resolution of those is 320x240, and they are pretty grainy once you look at them on the computer. If you are into video, you should have a video camera, so as far as I'm concerned it really doesn't matter how good or bad the movie settings are. Just be aware they are not that great. It has a stitch mode where you can take panoramic pictures and it will show you the edge of each picture you've taken so you can use the LCD to line up the next picture. Then you use the included software and it will stitch the pictures together into a large panorama. The software included with it works well and is useful. It supports generic Picture Transfer Protocol so you don't have to have the drivers with you hook it up to any Windows PC. You can even get it to work in Linux with gphoto2. It also hooks straight into select Canon printers if you need that capability. It has a great close-up mode for taking focused pictures of objects. These come out beautifully and look very professional. This camera is also very well constructed. It is not made out of cheap plastic like many of its competitors, but has a sleek and elegant silvery finish to it with chrome accents. One of the very few downsides to this camera is the battery issue. The lifetime of the battery is average, not great. You also will not be warned that the battery is low until it is about to go out. If you purchase this camera I *highly* recommend you get a backup battery because this thing could go out any time without much warning. It has no battery indicator at all. However, that being said, it does use a nice rechargeable battery so you don't have to go through AAs like they are water. The charger works relatively fast. One trick to saving battery life is to turn off the LCD and use the viewfinder if you know you'll be using the camera for a while. This extends battery life a great deal.
Overall, this is a great everyday use camera and takes wonderful pictures. It's not meant to be a camera for the professional photo enthusiast but it's way above and beyond the average camera and is worth the money. This is a quality camera.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 425
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
pddolan
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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