Canon PowerShot D10 12.1 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-Inch LCD
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon PowerShot D10 12.1 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-Inch LCD
Customer Review: Great waterproof camera
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been playing with my new Powershot D10 for about a week and really like it. I have been using Canon SLRs for 25+ years, AE1 Program, A1, Elan 7e, and Digital Rebel. When I started looking for a waterproof camera to take snorkeling, my first choice was Canon, based on my many years of satisfaction with their products, and I was very lucky that this camera was released two weeks before leaving for vacation. (Amazon had been showing the camera as available for pre-order until earlier today. I purchased mine from a local camera store.)
I'm very impressed with the picture quality on this camera. The 12 megapixel sensor, coupled with a dozen shooting modes, produce an excellent image. I'm used to controlling aperture and shutter speed on the SLR, so simply selecting "portrait" or "night exposure" mode and letting the camera do all the work just seems too easy. Or, if selecting "portrait" is too difficult, you can select "auto" and just let the camera do it all. Movie quality is also quite good. The LCD screen on the back of the camera seems huge compared to the 1" screen on my old Digital Rebel. It's a great display.
The controls are conveniently arranged, and easy to use, and the associated icons displayed are both informative and intuitive. You can choose to display all the settings or turn them off and just see the image. One of the useful display options is a grid overlay on the screen to assist with shot composition and the "Rule of Thirds." The optical zoom works great. By the time you get to 12x with the digital zoom, the image is kind of grainy, but that's to be expected.
You can take macro photographs an inch or two from your subject. I've had trouble focusing my Digital Rebel in the dark, but Canon seems to have improved low-light focusing quite a bit. It has a manual focus feature that indicates the distance to the subject as you adjust the focus, just in case it can't get the focus right.
I like the Panorama feature, which displays the previous shot on the viewfinder while you're composing the next shot, allowing the photographer to closely match subsequent shots, resulting in panoramic photos with less distortion when they're stitched together. Panorama mode also locks in the exposure value of the first shot so that the exposure in subsequent shots all match the first shot.
The face recognition and blink detection both seem to work well. As the camera focuses, it will zoom in on one of the faces so the photographer can verify correct focus. After the shot is taken, if someone blinked it will identify the face of the person blinking so you can take another shot. These can be turned on or off according to user preference. Images seem very crisp, which I attribute to the image stabilization features, which can also be turned on or off.
I've had the camera in the sink, and it handles six inches of water with no problems. I'll see how it does with thirty two and a half more feet of water when it meets the Atlantic Ocean in a few weeks! The wrist strap attaches to any one of the four corners of the camera (convenient for carrying in either left or right hand) and seems to be pretty secure, so no worries about losing it if you get knocked over by a wave.
I use Photoshop Elements, so I haven't loaded the Canon software and can't comment on that. And since I edit photos on the computer, I doubt that I'll use some of the in-camera editing features, such as black and white, sepia, color swap, and the various color enhancements. I could see that would be useful to those who print directly from the camera, without editing on a computer.
The camera doesn't allow you to shoot in RAW. I generally don't shoot in RAW with my SLR, so that doesn't worry me. It has a number of white balance modes, custom white balance, and auto white balance. It seems to do a good job selecting the correct shooting conditions in auto mode. Colors appear correct.
A couple of drawbacks: The camera isn't threaded so you're not able to attach filters. There's also no lens cap, and I worry about the lens surface getting damaged. For a rugged "adventure" camera, I'm also surprised that there's no GPS chip so that photos can be tagged with the exact location. I look at old slides taken while I was hiking and think "that's neat, why can't I remember where I took that." It would be nice if the EXIF data included lattitude and longitude. (Watch Canon come out with the Powershot D10 "Gold" six months from now that incorporates these features. The curse of being an early adopter.)
The microphone picks up every movement your fingers make as you hold the camera, so it's difficult to capture movies without some camera noise. The speaker on the bottom of the camera is also difficult to hear when playing movies back on the camera, but movies sounds fine when I pop the memory chip into the computer and watch in Quicktime. Movies are produced in the .mov format, so you'll have to do some conversion if you want to do anything with it in Windows Movie Maker. You can also choose between higher quality 640 x 480, or lower quality 320 x 240. (I should post a video review, but look like a dork in movies, so I'll spare everybody that.)
Tried to take a few infrared photos, but the image has the Hot Spot typical of many Canon cameras and lenses. I held a Hoya R72 filter over the lens and took several shots. Bright sunlight is about a 4" exposure, and all shots have a bluish circle in the center.
The drawbacks are very minor compared to the great images this camera produces.
I'm very impressed with this camera. It feels very sturdy, takes great photos, and seems very easy to use. Although I'll probably continue to use my Digital Rebel as my primary camera, I certainly look forward to many years of fun with this camera.
Customer Review: Awesome piece of Engineering
Summary: 5 Stars
I was about to leave for a vacation to the Virgin islands and wanted a camera that I could carry around without worrying about salt, water or salt water. If possible, I wanted something that I could take into the water with me.
Came across this gem while searching for a waterproof enclosure for my existing canon super zoom. Since the price was comparable to an enclosure and after reading reviews, I decided that getting this camera was probably a better option.
When I finally bought it, I had my fingers crossed (cause of the reviews which indicated water getting into it). I decided this camera would be great, even if it lasted only a day of snorkeling, otherwise I still had my old camera (which I would lose if water got into the enclosure).
I was surprised at the actual results. The camera does an awesome job both inside and outside water. The underwater shots are simply superb. It becomes noisy at >= ISO 400, but this shouldn't affect your underwater shots (which I noticed were almost all at ISO 80 - the lowest for this camera).
I took about 200 test shots (all outside water) before the trip, to get used to the camera and thereby put it through a full drain and charge cycle. The camera has a rated spec of about 220 shots per full charge. Well my results from 3 continuous days of use (with a full recharge in-between) were 640, 700+ and 750+ shots! Most of them were underwater (without a flash) and a few used the flash. All of them were at 12 MP. I used a Transcend 8 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6 for this trip. The camera lasted the trip - all the water, surf and beaches.
If you decide to get this camera.. here are a few tips:
1. Put it through a charge discharge cycle before taking it for a real shoot. The way I discharged it was by taking test shots.
2. Switch off the camera while not using it (every second saves the battery power - that's probably how I squeezed out 700 shots). It only takes a second to power up and be ready for shooting.
3. Unless absolutely required don't preview the photos - take another snap if you have a doubt. This will definitely save battery power. Your battery will run out long before an 8 GB memory card runs out of space.
4. The manual asks you to soak it for 30 mins in fresh water after each underwater session. Do this! What it doesn't tell you is to detach the wristband and to soak it separately. The wristband takes a little longer to dry - and if still attached, can splash water when you you open your camera's SD/battery slot. Soak it for a full 30 mins. Wipe it dry and then allow it to dry in air. The good thing is that you can continue snapping new pictures while it is drying. Just don't open it until say after an hour of drying in air.
5. Secure the wristband while in water. Keep in-water camera transfers (to another person) to a minimum, it can easily slip off and sink. You can dive and retrieve it - but it may sink beyond 10m before that or probably end up on a fire coral :-).
6. You can take snaps of the beach while in water - but make sure you switch from the underwater mode to any other mode before doing that (eg.beach mode). If you just surfaced, allow the camera a few seconds for it to 'realize' that it's not underwater (guess there is some white balance and exposure adjustment that automatically happens) and you'll end up with a great snap.
7. When you just surface, there will be drops of water on the lens. Get rid of those (by dipping it again in water and not using your fingers!) before snapping - or you'll end up having blurry spots on those snaps. You'll always have droplets, that shouldn't matter - it's only the big drops which cause these blurry spots (you'll know if its bad enough while composing the snap on the display).
8. Finally make sure the camera is in underwater mode while shooting underwater :-)
Read the manual, clean and dry the camera before opening it. It worked for me and it should work for you. Happy shooting! You will love the underwater snaps!!!
**** UPDATE - Got this error:- "Lens error restart camera" and fixed it *****
Got this error about a month after using it for the first time. I think I know how I got the error - I drained all the juice out of the battery while taking snaps and it probably died before it could close the lens. The solution - turn the camera on and quickly give the lens housing a firm snap with your finger - that should fix it :-). It's better not to take snaps once you get a Low Battery indication. Replace the battery and continue shooting else you may end up with the Lens stuck in between.
This is still a great camera and I would still buy it given it's the best among the options currently available.
Customer Review: Best durable camera on the market
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a Fisheries Biologist/snowboarder/hiker/naturalist that works in Florida and Grand Canyon. My life takes me from temperatures of 0 degrees F to 115 degrees, from blowing sand and scalding sun to oppressive humidity. I need to take pictures in canyons, mountains, forests, snowfields, beaches, lakes, swamps, rivers, the ocean, aquariums, swimming pools, and everywhere in between. I needed the best waterproof, tough, portable camera on the market. A buddy of mine had the Olympus Stylus-tough 6000 AND 8000 models, and I tried them both while canyoneering. They were waterproof and shockproof, but that was about the only plus. The pictures were crap, everything was fuzzy unless you held it perfectly still, they cannot handle contrast very well (sunny versus shaded in the same shot...as in canyons and practically EVERYWHERE I EVER AM), the menu system and camera operation speed were ATROCIOUS, the only used micro-SD cards...BLAH. I was actually suprised by HOW disappointed I was in the Olympus models. They were my first exposure to waterproof cameras, and let me tell you, I was not excited.
But I needed something, so I bought a Canon D10. I was taking a bit of a gamble, having never owned a Canon product. But, the name means something, so I figured I would try it. I loved it. I later lost it in the Colorado River (I didn't have a float strap, like an idiot), and in a fit of stupidity I tried the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 (I had owned and loved two Lumix DMC non-waterproof cameras previously). Other than the fact that it isn't actually waterproof, it was a great camera. Unfortunately, my life takes these cameras at their word, and if I can't trust that a camera will actually BE waterproof, I might as well stick with my Lumix DMC FZ28, which I LOVE. After returning the not waterproof "waterproof" camera to Amazon (thank you for making that so easy, Amazon), I ordered another Canon D10. Here is where I made my biggest mistake yet. I thought I should try and branch out and buy something from somewhere other than Amazon for once, and I found a better deal from a company called "Digital Elect". I won't bore you with details, but they suck. They don't tell you that you're ordering a wholesale version of the camera with dismal battery life, and they call later to ask you if you want the REAL battery for another 50 bucks or so. They push the whole gimmick by offering a free mini-tripod and some other chintzy garbage, THEN they charge you for shipping and TWO WEEKS LATER it still hasn't arrived. I hate them and I will never shop there again. You CANNOT beat Amazon's service, speed, and prices, and selection of products. Whenever my new camera arrives (I hate you, Digital Elect), I will be elated to see it. So, the executive summary:
Cons:
-bulging lens (doesn't fit in your pocket as nicely as other waterproof camera models)
-mediocre video recording (not HD)
-will get some condensation inside if you spend many hours a day underwater without drying it out between snorkeling sessions
-No external speaker (can only review sound from videos from computer, although I'm sure this helps the waterproofing).
Pros
+Excellent, Canon-quality images
+Completely waterproof except in extreme conditions rarely encountered by a normal person (I'm a fish biologist), when it may get some condensation inside
+hand strap attaches to any of the four corners
+highly durable (mine was dropped, scratched, jostled, even thrown fifty feet down into a foot of water and became embedded in the sand - and still worked great - although I don't recommend this treatment)
+Fast operation (time spent between turning on to taking pictures is much less than most cameras - the Lumix models are also good about this)
+Easy menu operation with many features that I was still discovering before I lost my first D10
+Can edit/crop/slow motion replay of video on the camera to save memory space and for hilarious replays.
I guess that about sums it up. If Canon would make the camera a little thinner while still maintaining optical zoom and give it HD video, there would be absolutely no comparison.
Customer Review: BEST CANON CAMERA EVER- Even better being waterproof
Summary: 5 Stars
So I have never written a review before & my fiance was laughing after the first day of the camera's use when I loudly stated "I am going to write my 1st product review". Being someone who relies on reviews before any large item purchase, I think it was my duty to write a great review on a FANTASTIC product!
Knowing that I would be going on a trip to Mexico, I knew water activities would be included so naturally I thought it was important to purchase a camera for those times. I had 5 days until trip take-off, so it was hard taking the time to find the "right one". With about 2 hours of searching I stumbled upon a few that I thought would suit me well. I paid for the 2 day shipping and got it right on time, ran out to the store to get the SD card while the battery charged. The first few pics were amazing so I knew this camera wouldn't fail me. Scared for the let down (per several other reviews), I did not test it in water first, in fact my fiance threw it in the swimming pool about an hour after arriving to our resort!!!! Screaming I went in after the camera... everything was just fine with it! The seals are solid, in fact at times hard to open the compartments, but would take that considering it's protectint it from water. I did also by the yellow CHUMS wrist float, which also held up incredibly well, in the ocean & pool the camera did not sink to the bottom thanks to that floatation device. The thing I wish I would have known is that for water proof cameras there is a solution to help keep the water from fogging up the lens & screen. It allows the water to bead up and roll off the screens. A friend told us in that pinch that spitting, YES, SPITTING on the lens and screen, rub the salive around then re-submerge in whatever water you are in would help. Sure enough, it did! Of course you have to do it a few times during your trip if you are in water a lot but it worked!!!
The camera was submerged the majority of the 8 days there, in swimming pools, hot tubs and the ocean, amazingly there were no issues, it held up great throughout the whole thing. One downfall was the battery (granted a day and a half of constant video taking and photographing is not bad) but I was devastated that it died while we were out whale watching, and it was about 15 minutes after we found the whales!
We laughed all the time about people screaming that their cameras or cells phone were getting wet in the various activities, since that was the last thing we had to worry about. I had two cameras with me and after the second day I quit switching back and forth between dry and wet activities cause the CANON far superceeded my expectations, even when taking noraml dry land photos. I forgot this this was a 12megapix camera so of course the photos were clear, bright and outstanding!
It is no SLR but who would want to spend that kind of money for a camera that can't get wet on the spot, we still have our nice camera for professional looking photos, but it's not something we want to risk breaking, losing or damaging while on vacation, not to mention it's sheer size! This canon is portable, compact and goes anywhere and everywhere with you esp on those fun family trips! In hind sight I would have paid $500-600 on this thing for the quality and durability. We did drop it about 10 feet, on accident, but it never skipped a beat. This little thing is a gem!
At first I was in agreement with others who said that it does lag between picture taking, but for those times when you want it to go faster you can change it to take more, even continuously by just pressing and holding the shutter button! Highly satisfactory!
If you are still concerned, I wouldn't be. Even if something happens to the camera (drops and doesn't work or water damage) there is a factory warrenty and from prior experience with Canon they honor their warrenties, and fast.
Hope this helps others of you!! Great purchase.
Customer Review: Very pleased with Canon D10
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently purchased the Canon D10 for a trip to Maui with primary interest in underwater photos while snorkeling. The camera did not disappoint. I initially thought of buying an underwater housing for a Canon that I already own, but second guessed this when I spotted the D10. I have been a fan of Canon digital cameras for years. I chose Canon due to my own personal preference as well as ease of use due to common/similar camera functions.
I had no problems with the camera, and I was able to take some amazing photos and video, both underwater and on land. The underwater setting was key to getting colorful photos of turtles, fish and coral. Others have commented and I will agree, the trick to getting great underwater photos is to dive down and get level or below the subject. On one occasion, I forgot to set the camera to underwater mode. The photos still turned out, but without as vibrant color tones. The auto and sunset modes also worked very well.
The battery lasted all day long each day (sometimes taking in excess of 150 photos and some video), but I will probably buy a spare in the near future just to be sure.
I must say that I was a bit nervous taking the camera into the ocean the first time. I took the camera snorkeling approximately 10 times during the trip, to maximum depths of about 20ft and did not have any problems. I was very careful to inspect the seals, soak the camera in fresh water and completely dry it out before opening. On one occasion I inadvertently dropped the camera in the sand. I soaked, cleaned and dried the camera upon return to the hotel. Prior to closing the camera, I noticed a few grains of sand on one of the seals. Had I missed the sand grains, the camera might have leaked. My advice is to carefully inspect the seals for sand, dirt, or other debris before closing, and follow the instructions in the manual very closely.
I did not abuse the camera, but it did take a bit of punishment. Several times I found myself tumbled around the rocks by breaking waves. The camera faired better than I did, with no scratches on the lens or screen and just a small ding on the case.
There were whales in the vicinity of Molokini Crater, and their calls (incidental to the scenes I was shooting) can be heard clearly on underwater video! I was very pleasantly surprised with the underwater audio quality.
I carried a small lens cloth in my bag, and rinsed the lens and wiped it off after use in salt water and before taking photos on land. Make sure you do not have water drops on the lens if it is getting used both in and out of the water. While snorkeling, I wiped off the lens a few times with my finger just prior to taking above water pictures of turtles popping their heads up to get a breath of air and this worked fine.
I purchased the accessory kit with different attachments to secure the camera. I tried this while snorkeling, but personally found it unnecessary. The wrist strap included with the camera was adequate for my needs. I also purchased a floating wrist strap, and found it unnecessary this trip as well. The attachments might come in handy for canoes, kayaks and boats or other activities when the camera could be kept handy but hands free. The camera will sink - so be sure it is secure by whatever means you use.
Based on some of the other comments, I was a bit concerned about the size of the camera before actually seeing it. The camera is still small and portable - not quite like a cell phone sized point and shoot but still much smaller than some many other point and shoot cameras with higher optical zoom. It easily fit in the pockets of my shorts. After this trip, I am confident that I can carry this as a primary point and shoot camera without the concern of water damage in bad weather, and I look forward to trying it underwater again!