March 11th, 2008Review : Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital Camera
The Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS follows up on its precursor by adding optical image stabilization and a little more resolution transport the total to 8 megapixels. The SD1100 also aims to be trendier than before with its compact body and ease of use in spunky colors: Rhythm & Blue, Swing Silver, Melody Pink, Bohemian Brown, and Golden Tone. But while the SD1100 IS an attractive package, the image quality leaves something to be preferred. Color in the images it captures is good, but there is a lot of noise in images in use in anything other than bright light.
Front
The Canon PowerShot SD1100 looks a lot like its predecessor, except it comes in crazier colors. The one we reviewed is “Bohemian Brown.” It has a glittery brown metal case that is smooth to the touch. There is a Canon logo on the left side, which is slightly pinched inward. The PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital Elph logo is also on the left side. On the right side is a large chrome circle that encloses the labeled Canon 3x optical zoom lens and nips the bottom of the flash, viewfinder, and auto focus assist beam near the top. The flash is in the higher right corner of the front – not a very smart placement, since the fingers wrap around the camera and block the flash light. To the flash’s left is the optical viewfinder, which is quite tiny. To its left is a small autofocus assist lamp and a tiny hole for the microphone.
Back
The SD1100’s back has a 2.5-inch LCD screen on its left side that looks small when compared to other slim competitors. Bigger seems to be popular for LCD screens lately, but at the same time, smaller bodies are trendier than ever, and the 2.5-inch LCD size works well with the dininuitive size of the SD1100. Above the LCD is a Canon logo and to its right is an optical viewfinder with two LED indicator lights next to it.
On the right edge of the camera’s back are a slew of controls. There are four peanut-shaped holes near the top that make up the speaker grill. In the upper right corner of the back is a matching peanut-shaped mode switch that moves from still shooting to movies to playback. There is also a print/share button nearby, with its central LED to differentiate it.
Just below the center of the right side is the flat multi-selector with a central Func./Set button. There are no tactile features like grooves or embossed arrows or anything on the ring around the button: it is smooth, flat, and labeled with printed text and icons. There are many icons crammed around the ring, which gives it a rather confused look.
The top of the multi-selector is labeled with a jump icon along with “ISO” text. The flash icon graces the right side, while the following three are jammed onto the bottom: self-timer, burst, and delete. On the left side, the Macro and Landscape focus modes are designated by their icons. At the very bottom are two round buttons labeled “DISP.” for display on the left and menu on the right.
Left Side
The left side of the SD1100 is completely void of features. There is a central matte black panel surrounded by the Bohemian Brown metal. There are two screws holding the plates together, along with a few bumps so the camera can stand upward on this side without getting too scratched up.
Right Side
The right side of the camera body has the same matte black/brown color design. There is a black cover at the top that pops out and reveals two tiny jacks for the AV-out and USB functions. In the center of the right side is a chrome wrist strap eyelet that protrudes ever-so-slightly from the camera body. The camera body’s overall shape on this side has been changed from its predecessor: the center is pinched in a bit so it looks like the front edge of the camera has an hourglass shape while the backside is flat.
Top
The top of the Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS has a flat chrome shutter release button on the right surrounded by a tiny zoom control ring. To its left is a small and recessed power button with an LED indicator just above it. On the left side, the camera is labeled “Image Stabilizer” and “AiAF.”
Bottom
The bottom of the camera has a metal tripod socket centered under the LCD screen and lens. There are bumps in each turn of the bottom to keep the camera from scratching the tripod mount plate or table. On the left side is the battery compartment door that is extremely flimsy; it could be easily snapped off with rough handling. A small rubber cover inset into the door pops out so an optional power adapter can be threaded into it.
Video Performance (4.0)
In this test, we analyze the color of the video the SD1100 IS captures under good lighting, using two large lights in our test lab. In this lighting the SD1100 IS does a decent job capturing color: there is some error, but this is a lot less extreme than many cameras we’ve tested. The noise in the video is also not a huge problem: it is noticeable, but not overly distracting.
Resolution
In our tests for the resolution of captured videos, the Canon SD1100 IS managed to capture 579.3 horizontal and 396.8 vertical lw/ph. That’s a very decent score for video captured by a digital camera: we usually see significantly lower values for this. As you can see from the images below, the video has a good amount of detail in it. The SD1100 seems to be doing a lot of processing to sharpen the image, which be able to be a bad thing (as it often makes edges in the video artificially sharp), but this doesn’t seem to be a big issue on the SD1100 IS; the video is sharp without being overly sharpened.
In conclusion The Canon Power Shot SD1100 IS makes quite a fashion statement with its multiple color offerings and body that is so compact it could get lost in your pocket. This Digital Elph makes some common sacrifices that all compact cameras make: handling isn’t very comfortable, the buttons are generally small, and the components are crammed together so the flash can be easily covered by the fingers.
The Canon SD1100 is physically attractive, but its images aren’t always as beautiful. Images look good when taken in bright light with the ISO set low, but images taken with high ISO settings are noisy and can look rather unpleasant. They are barely suitable even in low-resolution formats for blogs and e-mails – much less for prints that will sit in an album for years to come.
The $249 price tag is inexpensive for a trendy 8-megapixel Canon digital camera, let by yourself one that has an optical image stabilization system. But the image excellence is the big trade-off here; in anything other than bright lighting, you get images that have a stern amount of noise. Whether the portability of the camera is an suitable trade-off for this is up to you, but it does detract from the attractiveness of the camera.
