Canon PowerShot SD800 IS

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Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
Edited by: Lori Grunin

Reviewed on 10/3/06    Release date: 10/1/06    Last spring, Canon impressed us with its stylish high-end shooter, the 6-megapixel PowerShot SD700 IS. It had a great lens and produced great images, all in an attractive, pocketable, metal body. With the follow-up Canon PowerShot SD800 IS, the company improves upon its previous design by squeezing in a wider lens and a higher resolution sensor.

The 7-megapixel camera's tiny body is shiny, curvy, and very attractive. But it may be just a bit too stylish for its own good. For instance, the power button is a tiny, illuminated half-oval built flush into the top panel; without actually pressing it, you might easily mistake it for an indicator light or a design flaw.

The Canon PowerShot SD800's mode dial curves slightly outward, flowing into the design of the camera, making a comfortable resting spot for your thumb. But it feels slightly slippery when switching camera modes.

Beyond those quirks, though, the SD800 IS is a standard, straightforwardly designed Canon shooter, with a four-way navigation switch, additional buttons, and the shutter-release/zoom-rocker mechanism we've grown used to. The small, all-metal body weighs slightly more than six ounces, and at an inch thick, is just the right size for most pockets. Though small, the camera still has enough room on its body to hold both a 2.5-inch LCD and an optical viewfinder, a rare and welcome feature on an ultracompact.

The SD800's most prominent feature is its image-stabilized, f/2.8-to-f/5.8, 28mm-to-105mm-equivalent lens. The 3.8X zoom range offers the flexibility of wide-angle focal lengths, while still providing a bit more zoom power than the average 3X point-and-shoot lens. Though the SD700 IS had a 4X zoom lens, the SD800's 28mm-equivalent wide shot more than makes up for the slightly smaller telephoto factor.

In addition to the flexible lens, the SD800 IS has some handy snapshot features. The camera's sensor can be boosted to as high as ISO 1,600 for low-light or high-movement shots, though you'll want to keep it at ISO 800 or lower because of image noise. You can shoot 30fps VGA video, or bump it up to 60fps QVGA (320x240) to capture action footage for half-speed playback. If you're looking for manual controls, however, look elsewhere; like the SD700, the SD800's aperture and shutter settings can't be changed except for a long shutter mode, its focus modes are all automatic, and the camera's manual mode allows only exposure compensation, color correction, metering, and white-balance adjustments.

The SD800 also uses the recent Digic III image processor, which Canon claims improves image quality, performance, and battery life. We didn't notice any significant improvements over the SD700's already good performance, but the SD800 seemed slightly more responsive than its predecessor. It performed excellently in our lab tests. Just 1.1 seconds after the power button was pressed, it was able to take its first shot and subsequently could snap off a shot every 1.3 seconds. Even with the onboard flash enabled, we experienced a lag of only 2 seconds between shots. Shutter lag was a negligible 0.4 second. The only disappointment was the camera's burst mode, which managed only one shot per second.

Shooting speed
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Casio Exilim EX-Z1000

3.5 

1.8 

0.3 

Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T30

1.6 

1.8 

0.4 

Canon PowerShot SD800 IS

1.3 

1.1 

0.4 

Canon PowerShot SD700 IS

1.6 

1.5 

0.5 

Note: In seconds

Typical continuous-shooting speed
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Canon PowerShot SD700 IS

2.0 

Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T30

1.4 

Canon PowerShot SD800 IS

1.0 

Casio Exilim EX-Z1000

0.4 

Note: Frames per second

Photos were attractive, with fine detail rendering and solid color reproduction. Aside from some slight purple fringing along the borders of bright subjects, we noticed few distortions or aberrations in our photos. Image noise was acceptable to as high as ISO 800, manifesting as a fine grain that dulled colors but otherwise didn't mar photo quality too much. ISO 1,600 was a different story; a sparkly, static-filled mess that made the photo look as if it were received via a television antenna.

The Canon PowerShot SD800 IS is a great point-and-shoot camera. It's small, it sports a stabilized, wide-angle lens, and it can pump out beautiful shots at a pretty rapid pace. If you want higher resolution and don't mind losing the optical image stabilization--though we don't recommend the tradeoff--the Canon PowerShot SD900 and the Casio Exilim EX-Z1000 offer 10 megapixels in ultracompact bodies.

Basic Specs

Product Specifications:
Product Description: Canon PowerShot SD800 IS Digital ELPH - Digital camera
Product Type: Digital camera
Dimensions (WxDxH): 3.5 in x 1 in x 2.3 in
Flash Memory: 16 MB
Supported Flash Memory: MultiMediaCard , SD Memory Card
Sensor Resolution: 7.1 megapixels
Shooting Modes: Frame movie mode
Focus Adjustment: Automatic
Min Focus Range: 17.7 in
Focal Length: 4.6 mm - 17.3 mm
Image Stabilizer: Optical
Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Microphone: Microphone - Built-in
Viewfinder: Optical - Color - Real-image zoom
Display: LCD display - TFT active matrix - 2.5 in - Color
Supported Battery: 1 x Li-ion rechargeable battery - 1120 mAh ( Included )
Product Basic Spec:
Video input type: Digital camera
Digital Zoom: 4 x
Sensor resolution: 7.1 megapixels
Optical sensor size: 1/2.5 in
Optical sensor type: CCD
Light sensitivity: ISO 80 , ISO 100 , ISO 200 , ISO 400 , ISO 800 , ISO 1600 , ISO auto
Gross sensor resolution: 7,400,000 pixels
Still image format: JPEG
Lens Aperture: F/2.8-5.8
Optical Zoom: 3.8 x
Camera Flash: Built-in flash
Exposure metering: Spot , Evaluative , Center-weighted
Exposure compensation: ±2 EV range, in 1/3 EV steps
Flash memory: 16 MB - SD Memory Card
Display type: 2.5 in LCD display
Battery type: - Lithium ion
Weight: 5.3 oz