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stars
"big res in small package, nice pocket camera, some annoyances" on by xrayzebra
Pros: big lcd, manual white balance available, good menus
Cons: no battery charge in camera, external power separate purchase
Summary: Great LCD, many great features accessible thru easy to understand menu system including manual white balance for accurate color (my first requirement beyond high res.) But, you have to charge the battery OUTSIDE the camera and the optional external power supply kit requires replacement of the battery with what could only be called a "battery puck." The external power supplyplugs into this "puck" thru a hoel in the battery door - you can't just plug in the power supply to a port on the camera. Kind of annoying and awkward. At nearly $500, you'd think they could have included an external power receptacle on the body. It is an amazingly compact camera, however, for the quality of optics and image, and onboard features. Just a pocket snap shot camera, but high res and good features overall. A lot of quality pixels for the bucks. Includes only a 32 meg SD card, but I also got a full gig of SD for well under $100.
Updated
After using the camera some more, I like it even better. The manual white balance funciton doesn't seem all that great, but I'm very pleased with the color rendition, even using the white balance presets. The other controls are the best I have used for simplicity and quick access. Once you take time to understand fully them, they are quick and fairly intuitive - ingeniously simple. First digital I've had where I can use manual settings quickly enough to not miss my shot, nearly as quick as automatic, but better control. Also check out the auto modes though. If you have the metering set to evaluative, when you to press shutter button slightly, it displays a box that shows what part of the picture it is basing the metering on. Let off and press again, and it will re-evaluate and often choose a different spot. This allows you to re-meter quickly. I should have given it a 9.
- 3 replies to this review
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Whenever I zoom in, even with the flash on, I get the red camera shake warning. I'm surprised that no one reported this as an annoyance with this camera. It bothered me so much, I thought it might be defective, so I took it back to Best Buy. Now I am awaiting shipment of the new one. I contacted Canon support about this, but I can't get a straight answer out of them. At first they told me it needed repair, then they told me it was expected behavior. The pictures seemed to come out alright, but seeing the camera shake is just disconcerting - especially when this doesn't happen on previous models of Canon cameras. Is anyone else experiencing this?
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Have had this for about a week, still learning all this little baby can do. The video was a lot better than I expected. Bestbuys had this out early, quick replacement for the Sd500. Will let you know, taking this to Lihue 9-18 for a full week of use...
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I'm interested in purchasing the SD550, but I'm curious regarding it's video capabilities. Although the camera can record up to 1G of video footage, are individual movie clips limited to 3 minutes? I know this is the case with other SD PowerShot models like the SD300, and I read this on the specs section of the Canon website for the SD500 where it states "Individual clips are limited to 3 minutes." Is this also the case with the SD550? If anyone knows the answer to this I'll be much obliged. Thanks.
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