Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver)
by Canon
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: CanonModel: SD980IS Silver
Color: Silver
Product features:
- 3.0-inch wide touch-panel PureColor System LCD; updated Active Display for quickly switching between images with a shake of the camera
- Capture 720p HD movies; HDMI output connector for easy playback on your HDTV
- 5x optical zoom with ultra-wide 24mm lens, plus Canon's Optical Image Stabilizer; 12 megapixels for amazing resolution and editing
- Improved Smart AUTO intelligently selects from 22 predefined shooting situations
- Capture images to SD/SDHC memory cards (not included)
- Joby GP1-A1EN Gorillapod Flexible Tripod (Grey and Black)
- Canon NB-6L Li-Ion Battery Pack for Canon SD770IS, SD1200IS, & D10 Digital Cameras [Retail Packaging]
- Serif PhotoPlus X3
- Aperture 3
- Manfrotto 7302YB M-Y Tripod with Ball - Replaces 725B
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver)
Customer Review: The Best In Its Class!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Ok so after reading so many negative reviews about this product, I decided to get my hand on one to find out. Lucky for me a close friend of mine bought it and I got a chance to run through it for a while. After playing with it for hours, I figured out that most of the negative reviews on this product are simply ridiculous and make no sense at all. So here is what I manage to work out with this spectacular camera.
Starting with the EXTERIOR:
The body of the SD980 is sleek, stylish, narrow and thin just like that of the SD960. It feels quite firm and durable for its size. Nothing less than SD800 or SD880 since some people mistaken this body as plastic but it is NOT plastic. The front cover and back is metallic and only the rims around camera has a rubbery feel to it. The buttons got cut short to only 2 buttons for playback and menu along with a dial like all recent SD series. So pretty much after a few minutes I got use to this camera like I was on any of the SD800 or SD880 and SD960. For those with larger hand, holding this camera with 1 hand is definitely will be somewhat of a challenge. There is a slight wavy grid near the playback button that suppose to serve as a grip but it only works for those with smaller hands. My hands are not too big or too small so I could actually use this camera with one hand without any problem.
The MENU & FEATURES:
Canon has replaced their menu with something new. Quite simple, pretty clear where everything suppose to be. All the shooting mode are together, ISO is easy set. Also has custom white balance nearby for those who know how to use it. Everything is push to the left side of the screen and all you have to do is scroll up and down and enter the sub menu to adjust the setting. I really like this layout since it somewhat give the camera a more stylish look on the menu instead of filling up your whole screen with menu and words. Also, Ive seen some of the previous reviews complaining about taking 2-4 steps to delete a picture. FOR GOODNESS SAKE PEOPLE READ THE ON SCREEN TIPS!!! It only take 1 easy step to delete the photo! On your playback screen, if you want to delete a photo all you have to do is press on the screen, drag your finger downward and to the left (backward L shape) and it will delete the image!!! Why would you go into the menu and go down to delete and then enter the sub-menu to delete? Ok so they DO have that option too but using the screen its not that hard! Canon made this camera so versatile that a monkey can work it. So you can scroll through the images in 3 different ways, how can ANYONE complain about that? In playback mode you can simply use the DIAL to press back and forth and navigate through the pictures the traditional way. Then you have the touch screen to slide the photo left right, tap to zoom in and double tap to zoom out. Also you got the motion sensing function, shake the camera up or down to change the image. 1 hand user can do this easily! Same for the Delete functions, there are 2 to 3 ways to can delete an image. So take your time and play with it a bit more to find out all of the functions.
The TOUCHSCREEN:
Canon decided to throw in a bonus touchscreen for this particular model and I must say its something new for the SD series. At first, you might have some awkward feeling since its not as sensitive as iPhone, however this is one of the more recent style of touchscreen where it require a bit more pressure so that you wont ACCIDENTALLY change any setting. Most of the phones now are this type of touchscreen not the iphone touchscreen. The recent Nokia N97 and other new phones like samsung touchscreen ones also used this kind of LCD that require a bit more pressure. After using it for a while I was already use to the touchscreen and flipping photos back and forth quite comfortably. The only problem Ive seen with the touch screen so far is the touch focus, sometime when your focus point is so small the camera dont know what you are trying to focus on but after 2 or 3 tries it does focus. Im getting the hang of it though. Again, as I was mentioning before, the touchscreen is a bonus to the dial pad, it allows you to do what a dial pad can also do but FASTER. So you can delete image, scroll through images, set flash, focus point, anything else with ease by using the touchscreen. I love this camera for this particular feature too.
IMAGE QUALITY:
The main portion of this review, image quality. So some of previous reviews mentioned about fuzzy photos. I dont know what you did wrong but I have my SD880, my sister's SD800 and this D980 side by side shooting the same thing. When I open them up the images is about the same!!! Sharpness is pretty much the same I would say in some cases the SD980 is sharper! and the color is more vibrant than the other 2. Noise isnt so bad at 400 as few has mentioned. You must understand this is a 12mp, so more flaws will be seen at larger size, but to downsize to the same resolution, the images from the SD980 is probably better than the SD800 at most of the time. I have some amazing shots came out during my test play with this thing. The only "Fuzziness" I can see is from the hand shake at slow shutter or no flash mode. But even then i rarely get those, I do have very steady hand from shooting DSLR so I can hand hold this camera at 1 sec. I just love how I can use touch focus on anything anytime and it works well for me. This thing has so much manual functions that Im starting to like it more than SD880 or SD800. So there were a few comments about not having MANUAL. So I checked the SD880 and SD800 manual functions, and this camera can do pretty much everything the same in P mode! It can set Flash, ISO, Long Shutter, EXP Compensation, Slow Sync, Shooting mode, metering, WB, Macro with touch focus is NICE, you can even set how long the long shutter can be, how many shots to take when its on timer mode! Try doing that with the SD800! With such flexible settings I can get some really good images from playing around with these features. If you've only shot AUTO and wrote a review on this camera, I think you should give the camera another look, seriously. The Video is out of the question, crisp and wicked nice! Someone said you cant zoom during video and you hear the motor of the zoom. That is WRONG! YOU CAN ZOOM, for 5x optical, you only hear the motor zooming when you kick in the Digital zoom! I always avoid digital zoom anyways. So The HD video is a plus on this thing. 24mm wide allow me to get some really nice shot, I love the wide angle shot and very useful for me in some cases. Playing with ISO 400-800 I noticed the SD800 and SD880 also have really bad noise as well. To be fair, I also tried resize all of them to the same size of 8mp and sd980 is showing some very impressing image quality at that size. They are point and shoot, obviously they aren't going to deliver amazing photos like 5DmarkII at 3200 ISO. So I think we should cut it some slack and move on with it. It's doing fine and I think this one deliver what canon promised.
FINAL THOUGHT:
So Ive only used this camera from my friend in approximately 2-3 hours and I manage to work out everything he was complaining about (multiple steps to delete, lack of manual, reviewing images, so forth..). Now that he learned more about his new camera he no longer complain about it. He started to use the touchscreen more often as well. I like it so much I just ordered one for myself prior to writing this review. I just think people need to give their gadgets a bit more time as they explore the thing. Just because its a point and shoot doesnt mean you can think you've figure it all out in that first 10 minutes of using it. This camera pack a lot of punch. A lot of features are there but Ive not mentioned them like how you can sort out images, favorite them, tag them, sort it out into categories and folders, and locking images so on. It's an amazing camera. As a person who shoot with a DSLR I must admit this thing is doing great. After I read so many negative reviews here I went on other professional photographers websites who own this particular camera to research more about it and there even was someone who said the image quality is so good he ignore everything else bad about the camera. So again, give it another look before you write the review. The camera was made so that you can have lots of options to work one function. I really dig the touchcreen + buttons combination, excellent thinking from Canon. Overall I give this camera a 5 because it's excellent in image quality and ease of use, battery life isnt too bad either. I also gave it a 5 since I think people who gave it a 1 is not being fair to the camera. This camera can easily take the top standing in its class.
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Description of Canon PowerShot SD980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Ultra Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD (Silver)
Touch your finger to the large 3.0" Pure Color System LCD and select an AF point, choose a shooting mode, adjust exposure compensation, and more. Playback functions are also performed with the flick of a fingertip: switch between images, scroll, magnify a portion of a photo, and control movie playback. This new natural interface makes camera operations fun and easy.Digital Cameras
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