Canon PowerShot SD870 IS (Black)

Summary: I been looking for a camera for a month now, I bought the Sony T100, Panasonic TZ3 and Canon TX1 and returned them all, you can read why on their ...

Read more

Summary: I been looking for a camera for a month now, I bought the Sony T100, Panasonic TZ3 and Canon TX1 and returned them all, you can read why on their own reviews in Cnet.com.

I recently bought this camera and I guess I had to make some sacrifices, but got some good stuff in return. This camera is nice and small and to be honest the 3" screen is amazing. I guess I had to realize what I needed more, and when from there. I mostly use my cameras during snowboarding trips. So I need something small, and with a wide lens to get nice scenery pictures, plus it helps for the self portraits.

The camera is faster than the tx1, and it produces better result as far as picture quality goes, much less noise and sharper pictures. the video is pretty good except you can only use the digital zoom, and not the optical. this is due to amount of noise the optical zoom makes and the microphone would pick it up. The noise in the pictures is keep well under range, much much better than the tx1 and the t100, but not as good as the TZ3, but then again people complain that panazonic is pushing the limit with the noise reduction, and creating to many artifacts.

Low light performance is pretty good, the flash is somewhat powerful, better than the TX1. Colors are kept nice and strong during lower light situations and amount of detail is well kept as well.

The battery is nice and strong, it should be more than enough for 2 days or so, close to 300 pictures. The camera is light 153gr, somewhat small.


The BEST option this camera offer is the 28mm lens, it is simply the best. You can get better shots and get a lot more detail than a 35mm, I believe about 33% more detail in each picture.

Yes I lost the HD video but I more about pictures than video, although it would been nice to have the HD video as swell.

People complain about the view finder, to be honest this is why I bought this one instead of the SD800 IS, if you want a viewfinder get that one, it's the same camera. I personally love the 3" screen. Yes they could of left some of the plastics out of the camera, but it's not that bad, I bought the silver one in my opinion it looks better that the black one.

I guess between the 4 cameras I bought the only two I would consider are this one and the Panasonic TZ3, the only thing holding me on the TZ3 is the size of the camera and the lack of color accuracy in the pictures and the fact that you cannot even use the digital zoom in the video(but the again you get a 28mm-290mm lens, instead of 28mm-105mm lens).

here are some pictures for you to look at

http://www.flickr.com/gp/10297837@N05/096Rpe

I will try to upload the video later on.

Show less

Summary: Why do you guys keep saying sd cameras don't have exposure controls? WIth this camera (as with any other canon elph or sd) if you shoot in manual mode ...

Read more

Summary: Why do you guys keep saying sd cameras don't have exposure controls? WIth this camera (as with any other canon elph or sd) if you shoot in manual mode you can compensate exposure, with the -/+ slider under the ironically named "Exposure Compensation" menu item .... Figures....
What you can not do is adjust shutter speed or aperture ...
Image quality is great for snaps, i.s. works great, etc... unfortunately, display quality control leaves a lot to be desired as it is my third with dead pixels. Also, not a fan of the excessive amount of plastic used around the frame.

Show less

Summary: This camera replaces my Canon SD20 (I've owned two of those). Cnet gave the Sony DSC-100 a slightly higher rating, so I bought one of those for $100 less. ...

Read more

Summary: This camera replaces my Canon SD20 (I've owned two of those). Cnet gave the Sony DSC-100 a slightly higher rating, so I bought one of those for $100 less. Without going into details redundant to other reviews, in my opinion this camera simply outperforms the Sony in what I consider an ultra-compact's most important role -- low-light, no-flash indoor shots. Much less grainy noise, and easier to set the ISO. I still get lost trying to navigate through the features, but in the end I end up with pretty good shots. As others have said, it is pretty plastic-y, but it's what's on the inside that counts.

Show less

Summary: I'm going to start by explaining why I purchased this camera in the first place. I've never written a review before but I felt I ought to do ...

Read more

Summary: I'm going to start by explaining why I purchased this camera in the first place. I've never written a review before but I felt I ought to do this so that people like me might be spared the predicament I am now in. I am quite far from an expert, but I do typically tend to take nice pictures & I take a lot of them. I like pictures that really have a lot of "kick" to them. Crisp, bright, vivid and really pleasing to the eye. (unless specifically going for softer focuses) My favorite & most frequent things to photograph are animals, people & quite often various Theme Parks here in Florida.

I had been deeply reluctant to switch from a film camera to a digital for a long time. Finally, two years ago I decided it was time & after much research here & other places, I decided on the Canon A620. I absolutely loved the camera. It was everything I could want & I didn't feel the slightest bit fearful anymore of trusting my precious memories to a digital camera. The pictures were crisp, so sharp & the colors were gorgeous & bright. I remember that I was impressed that almost any time I tried applying any settings like "instant fix" in various applications just to see what would happen, there was often no real change because they were great to begin with. After about a year & a half picture quality did seem to degrade. I was finding the need to apply sharpening fixes in software to make the pictures a little better & many of them still weren't too spectacular even then. It was possible the camera was "dirty" or something along those lines that a simple external lens wiping could not fix. After a good while of complaining about it, I did the dumb thing of trying to open it to see if I could clean the inside of the lens. Yes... clearly not a bright move. Although I was never able to fully open it because of a single screw that wouldn't budge, it did break. Not completely, but it was no longer really usable for my main camera. So, this led me to have to find another camera. That brought me here & again other sites looking for a good model to replace my A620 with. I was deciding between a few & ended up choosing the Canon SD870 IS. It did after all receive such rave reviews for picture quality (which is in my opinion above all else) not only here but other places, both by editors & people alike. I am now profoundly disappointed & I will admit very stressed out over the complete lack of quality & quite confused about where all the hype is coming from. Hence the reason I referenced The Emporer's New Clothes in my summary. I can't imagine why this camera would be so outperformed by a camera 2 years older by the same manufacturer. I have messed with the settings to try and make it better & as usual I have everything set for the best quality, but my older camera on just the most basic auto modes took beautiful pictures that really stood out. This one absolutely does not. Home printing on photo paper pictures taken with both cameras the differences & the unimpressive quality of the SD870 are also all too apparent, just as they were on the screen. I've also viewed pictures on two different computers using two very different moniters & resolutions to be sure. The pictures don't look all that sharp when you zoom in on the LCD itself in play mode & with an 8MP camera you should certainly be able to zoom in as little as I was while still maintaining full photo quality, IF it was there to begin with that is. This is a fairly pricey camera, for a point & shoot, possibly even if it came even close to living up to the hype it's been receiving, but given the reality of it it makes the price that much more upsetting.

Also, the LCD screen as others have reported is terribly, rather hideously grainy in picture taking modes. It is fine for playback, however. This isn't nearly as important to me as image quality, but it certainly is worth mentioning. So now, I am stuck with this camera, very unsure of what to do. Stores have rather ugly restocking policies which I would resent paying even if I could afford it for the reason that the camera not being even close to par is not my fault whatsoever. Other big problem is... if this is the "best" (SLRs aside) where does one go from there. The other camera I contemplated was the brand new SX100. Canon seems to think the quality shouldn't be any better on that one & it's so new there isn't much known about it, but one thing's for sure. I have some big decisions to make, a likely good fight on my hands at the store & at the end of the day, no camera I feel I can trust my memories to anymore.

This camera also isn't particularly fast either, as it boats. I think my A620 may have beaten it there as well. Granted, I am using only a regular SD card at this point & not a II. Still... it could be faster. Continuous shoot mode is so sluggish that it seems to me you'd be far better off just pressing the button at will, the normal way. I was counting at least a full 6 seconds in between shots. That isn't exactly what I'd like to refer to as continuous.

So, my bottom line is that I've been realizing in the past 2 days I've had the camera that I think I so badly WANT this camera to be wonderful, but it is simply anything but. It's not absolutely terrible. I've seen worse. Generally with friends that bought very cheap older cameras just for posting small, non sentimental photos in blogs, etc. I'm much more of a photo junkie than some of them. I'll even often keep bad photos filed because they are still memories & worth something, even if not the most glamorous ones. This Canon SD870 camera feels just average to me. It may even be that at this moment for a point & shoot it's above average, just based on the status quo, but if that's the case, it's a rather depressing statement about the direction in which technology has gone. After all on this very site, editors have many times rated cameras in the 7-8 range (pretty much their best for P&S's) while they themselves state the image quality is mediocre, just ok or just "goood." It's a camera! Gagdets & extra buttons are nice & handy & I appreciate them on a camera that's already terrific, but if the pictures aren't great, I don't see where the rest matters.

Show less

Summary: I discovered a problem with this camera after 2 days of owning it. For the first 2 days, I thought I bought a prefect camera. I really enjoy the stylish ...

Read more

Summary: I discovered a problem with this camera after 2 days of owning it. For the first 2 days, I thought I bought a prefect camera. I really enjoy the stylish look of this camera. It is small and easy to use. It has a big 3" screen and color quality is excellent. It always give me a bright picture. Until I discovered that all the pictures with buildings and interior walls, windows and doors got distorted. All the straight vertical walls had slight arch to it. A rectangular window will become a barrel shape window. This might because the camera has a wide angle lense. When I zoomed in the image, the vertical condition will improve. But it is still bothersome to me that the outcome of the image is not represent the real thing.

The other problem that I have this camera and my old Canon s400 is when the pictures are taken with flashlight, sometime I can spot 1 or 2 small bubbles of light in the picture. However, I major concern is the barrel distortion.

Show less

Summary: I used to always use a sony camera, but now I switched to canon and I'm never going back. the build quality is excellent, the features are great and ...

Read more

Summary: I used to always use a sony camera, but now I switched to canon and I'm never going back. the build quality is excellent, the features are great and easy yo usa, and the pictures are absolutely amazing.

Show less

Summary: I bought several cameras (Canon SD870, 890 and SX100) trying to replace my old canon 2.1 MP camera and returned them all. I visit every camera review site gathering ...

Read more

Summary: I bought several cameras (Canon SD870, 890 and SX100) trying to replace my old canon 2.1 MP camera and returned them all. I visit every camera review site gathering info before I buy. Each time, the photos don't match up with the camera reviewers. I have yet to find one that rivals the quality of my old canon with increased detail. Seems detail (megapixels) = more grain. I find that the new canon powershots using the DIGIC 3 processor all suffer from the same problems. Flash photos are all over exposed, macro photos lack consistant detail, any low light photos are grainy. I am still waiting for a powerful compact camera that has a decent zoom (6x) and takes fantastic pictures regardless of the lighting conditions. Hey CANON, stop focusing on facial recognition and other gimicks, and really make a camera that takes great pictures.

Show less