Canon PowerShot SD780IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-inch LCD (Deep Red)

I have been using the Canon PowerShot SD line since SD300. Had experienced through so many of them already. I was never amazed by the photo quality of the SD lines but this camera has surpassed my expectations. I normally shoot with a Canon Rebel XT - 350D, with several lenses including a 28-75mm f/2.8 and a 10-22mm wide lens. Whenever I shoot photos indoors during dinner with my SLR, people are amazed that I do not need to use the flash. Well this SD780 is absolutely THAT. I was shooting photos in doors without flash on AUTO mode and it was capturing perfectly sharp images! I think the smartness of the camera's auto ISO selection along with the amazing canon line's Imagine Stablization - IS - really helped. The size of the camera is small, like a credit card. Anyone can easily drop it in their shirt pocket, and especially the girls out there with super tight jeans, I'm sure this can be dropped into your back pocket as well. It's extremely light!!! Modes - I remember when I first used night mode in the SD400, I really loved how the photos turned out. The idea behind night mode is that it'll use the flash to capture the foreground(subject) and also extend the shutter to allow the background capture. This method generated beautiful imagery with night shots! It's too bad there's no more shutter control on this camera because I was trying to shoot an outdoor photo at night, with no flash, but I wanted to make sure to capture the beautiful architectural lights in the background. I couldn't figure it out within the 15 secs I had so I gave up. I'm fairly familiar with the SD line's menus so I didn't bother reading the manual. Videos - 720p movies in .mov format. What more can i say? I think a 2min video came out to about 350-400mb large. So if you're planning to capture some videos, make sure you have a large capacity SDHC card. I usually don't shoot videos, especially since there's no video function on my SLR, but man was it fun to capture the moment with the dialogues and just facial expressions that cannot be captured with a photograph. I was debating between SD780 vs SD940 vs SD1400 since they're successors of each other. I knew the SD1400's shape was no longer like the small footprint of the SD780, but the latter two offered a 2.7" screen instead! A second consideration was the wide angle ability of SD940 and SD1400. Truthfully, this camera was for my gf, whom doesn't know much about photography. Whenever I ask her to take a pic with my SLR, it is always an epic fail. So I knew when she turns on the camera, if it defaults to wide angle, all her photos would look funky. So I knew a traditional 28mm equivalent would be best for an amateur shooter. Honestly wide angle is fun for architectural photography like indoor and buildings. Otherwise, wide angle really distorts the way people look in images. Wide angle is fun, but it wont be a photo I'd print out for frames. Anyways, I'm not a good writer, paragraph structure and grammars are bound to be wrong here. Just know this is A GOOD CAMERA and why it won so many editor's choice awards and why there's HUNDREDS of amazon reviews already raving about it. You can't get a better camera than this for one hundred and eighty dollars with a free 4gb SDHC class6 card!

It's easy to get lost in feature lists and technical comparisons. I've done that with lots of devices, and certainly I could do so here. But my new-camera needs were fairly simple, and the bottom line is that this little gizmo fulfilled them all. My husband used to be a professional photographer, and he is still most comfortable with a camera that gives him a lot of control; he wants and needs an SLR, and he cheerfully will adjust F-stops to get a photo to look just-so. Cool; he can have a high-end camera. But I'm a typical snapshot photographer who merely wants to record her vacation photos. I don't pretend to be a good photographer; I just want to create pictures that aren't embarrassing. I want something simple enough to use without memorizing a manual, too. I like that I _can_ do more with the camera than the basics... but I especially like that I don't have to remember how to twist a lot of knobs. My needs were short and sweet: I wanted a camera small enough to carry with me that could make up for my weaknesses. (My 5-year-old Canon was too big to fit comfortably into my laptop bag, so I had to be really motivated to bring it along on a trip.) The PowerShot clearly fit the bill on the first requirement; it does literally fit into a breast pocket, so I actually have the camera with me. It's fast to turn on, too, so I can be fairly spontaneous. It's solid, so a klutz like me can drop it without worrying too much (not that I admit that I've done this already...). And - okay, this sounds dumb, but it matters - it's RED. So I can find it lurking at the bottom of my purse, otherwise known as The Black Hole From Which Nothing Emerges. Primary among my weaknesses (the photo-taking ones, let's not get too personal...) is a bad case of hand-shake. All too often, my pictures were out of focus, because I tend to move as I whack on the button. The PowerShot's image stabilization delivered admirably. I took 88 pictures on a recent trip, and the only pictures that are out-of-focus are because someone was actively waving his arms while he was talking. One extra that I appreciated -- and I would never had shopped for -- is the camera's ability to identify faces and focus on those rather than, say, the potted plant next to my subject. I can tell that the camera is doing a better job for me; certainly my first batch of photos has a higher success rate than anything I've done previously. That feature certainly has changed the way that I look through the viewfinder. I haven't used the camera for video; I have a Flip Video for that use, which is even more dead-simple than this. (Perhaps this makes me sound like a Luddite. In reality, I'm a software geek. But I don't care to be a geek about EVERYthing. I like convenience, too.) Weaknesses? Well, I do agree that the on/off button could be a problem for people with big fingers (though it's fine for me). And the place where I plug in the USB cable to connect to my iMac seems like it might be fragile. It probably is just fine; it just *looks* like I could break off that connector during a brain-dead moment. But man, I love this little camera. It's simple enough for me to use, but not so stupid that it gets in my way. That's just what I wanted -- and it might be exactly what you wanted, too.

Hi All, I love taking pictures, and I'm pretty good at it. Before I bought this camera, I had the previous version -very wonderful. I loved everything about it. It made great photos. Then in December I decided it was time to try the new generation, which to me sounded like it would be even better than the one I had. I was so excited! Well... I've really tried to love my new camera. Really. But nope, the love connection is just not gonna happen. The quality of the pictures is not good at all. The quality of the video is ok, but there is a lot of noise. What I hate the most about it, is that I have no control in the automatic mode. I know, it's automatic, d'uh, but sometimes I don't want to mess around with the white balance and such, so I enjoy just taking my camera out and taking an "easy" picture in automatic mode. This won't happen with this one. I love taking macro pics, and it just won't work well in the automatic mode with this camera. I missed so so so many good shots just because the camera couldn't figure out that I wanted to take a macro picture. It's so frustrating when that happens! The manual mode sucks too. Even after setting the colors, it looks crappy. Anyway, I feel like I'm talking too much now and I should probably get to the point... My point is: if you like the previous version, keep it! Or, if you don't care about taking nice pictures and just want to take "so so" pictures, buy it!. But for people who enjoy nice and good quality shots, this is not the camera for you. Now I'm trying to sell it so I can get another camera...! It even makes me feel bad that someone is going to buy it! Hope this helps!

I've had my SD780IS 'digital elph' for about a month now and generally am pleased with it. It certainly won't be the last camera I buy, but should serve me well for now. The camera is smaller than my cell phone which is it's greatest feature. Unfortunately, the camera itself will get you more oooooh's and aaaahhh's than the photo's it takes. It's compact and lightweight but still has a nice big screen. It also has a standard viewfinder that is so small it's pretty much useless. The camera is also pretty stylish, albeit pretty girly. I got a better deal on the silver model. If you paid more to get the red one you are much cooler than me. Strong points - Lot's of shooting modes, quick and decent AUTO mode, allows user control of all variables if desired. Lot's of options regarding flash, self timer, etc. Image stabilization seems to work under the right circumstance, like portraits, but it's only nice to have because the small camera is hard to hold still, and it seems to increase recycle time. Continuous drive was a must for me. I think it's .8 fps without the flash, which makes it far easier to get good shots of kids, animals, and sports. Decent optical zoom. Takes really nice macro shots and allows for digital zoom macro. The video feature also takes macro. The video is some kind of HD, I don't know much about it but they do look nice full screen. The audio comes in loud and clear usually, but sometimes I think I'm hearing the camera in the video. The image viewing mode is nicely done, with more options than I'd ever need. Quickly looking through for a particular shot is no problem. Generally sturdy construction. Weak points - Probably the single most important feature has me a little disappointed. Image quality is good, but is not amazing or fantastic. Other reviews suggested that Canon's 10 MP cameras capture better images. I have found this one to be fine for average stuff, but I usually am taking 3 or 4 shots at a time hoping that one or two of them won't be washed out or overly grainy, even on AUTO. The small size also makes it hard to hold and get a steady shot. I have not tried all of the shooting modes but the ones I have tried are pretty decent. The kids and pets one is not nearly as good as it was on my old fuji camera, the macro and digital macro is good, the fireworks mode is pretty good if you hold it still, landscape and night portrait also seem decent. Don't get me wrong, it still takes good pictures that are acceptable for a small pocket point-and-shoot, but don't be fooled by the 12 MP rating and think the pictures are going to know your socks off. Not very many video options, and even if they are HD, don't expect too much because the focus is not very impressive. Once you begin recording, the focus locks and you must keep your subject in focus by moving the camera. Not archive quality for the family christmas, but good enough for some high quality you-tube fun. I've really been enjoying the video feature. Clunky controls. I've been using this thing almost daily for the past month and the controls still have me confused. I push the wrong button pretty much every time. The small icons on the buttons don't do much good. My only complaint about the frame is the rinky dink battery door. One good drop on the ground and that door is a goner, but the camera does have a wrist lanyard. All in all I am pleased. Mine was in the neighborhood of two-twenty, and I would lay out more than that for it.

I consider myself an amateur photographer, and would probably be willing to spend more hours looking for the 'right' equipment than doing my homework. Now, that was the case when I purchased this little toy. I had a Nikon D40 dSLR (one of the big cameras), and I was looking for something smaller that I could carry around everywhere. Particularly, I needed something to take on my trip to Japan. I spent days reading reviews and testing products at stores, and finally decided on this camera. I narrowed down my choices to Canon cameras, because although I love Nikon cameras and dSLRs, I think that when it comes down to point-and-shoot cameras (small, easy to use cameras) Canon cameras are simply the best. I've never been disappointed by one of these. Among 10 different Canon models it was difficult to choose, but what finally made me decide on this one was the size and ability to record HD video. I watched on YouTube some of the sample videos (which you can find just by typing the camera model) and the HD was amazing, even in such a small camera! The resolution is great, and the picture quality simply great. 12MP of image resolution means more to love and more flexibility to crop when editing (it also means you should get an SD card with a couple of GB's) I got the camera with an 8GB card and I can take thousands of pictures at maximum resolution, or record over 45 minutes of video in one clip if I want to do so. This camera's pictures rival my Nikon dSLR pictures, and the flexibility the camera gives you in manual mode is great. I mostly use it in automatic modes, and it works perfect. If you are looking for a 'photographer' camera, then I'd still go for a Nikon D40 or something similar, since you can shoot in RAW format which is very valuable for heavy editing. But if you just want to capture easily all the beautiful things around you, and videos of your family/friends or you enjoying your days, this camera is perfect for all of it. One more note, the camera feels great in my hands and it's very easy to use. I was quite familiar with the Canon menus, so it might have been easier for me to use it, but I'm sure you can learn fast how to master this camera. Ask any questions you may have. :)

I was traveling and in a hurry, and made the mistake of buying a Pentax Optio M20 on sale when I found I'd left my trusty old Canon SD110 at home. I call it a mistake not because there was anything terribly wrong with the Optio, but because I found it harder to get good pictures with it than with the venerable SD110, despite a friendlier user interface, much higher resolution and image stabilization. Since I use my Canon EOS 30D for my non-candid photo needs, the Pentax has been adequate for the past couple years. But as I flipped through more and more candid photos that were blurry (or focused on the plant behind the subject's face), I decided to do a little research, and ended up pre-ordering the SD780IS. I love the feel of this camera. It's sleek and solid, and fits easily into my pants pocket. The small flash offers surprisingly good coverage, considering its size, and the LCD is nicely sized and clear. The daylight shots are crisp and colorful, and the multiple face recognition makes it easy to take quick shots of several subjects at varying distances from the camera. Start up is quick, as is the image read/display rate in playback mode, and battery performance is more than adequate for casual shooting. The techie features are abundant as well. I love the blink detection and face timer, even though neither option saves much time or effort. I'm also impressed with how smoothly Canon has integrated digital zoom, so that when taking pictures at lower than maximum resolution, the effective non-interpolated zoom increases from the optical 3x; this is clearly indicated in the process, so that it's not easy to accidentally zoom beyond 1-to-1 pixel capture. There are, of course, small inconveniences that come with the miniaturization of this much technical sophistication. It took me a while to get used to the zoom lever due to its size and shape, and the navigation buttons on the back are slightly smaller than my thumb would prefer. Moving beyond ergonomics, the small aperture that this camera shares with others in the "pocket" genre means that low-light imaging is not always ideal (usually manifested as blur due to movement combined with a slow shutter speed; when the shutter speed is kept high, it is instead manifested as noise in the imagery due to the increased sensitivity at high ISO settings). The optical image stabilization does help, and it makes this a better candidate for low light than most of the small cameras that have come before it; it is certainly better than the two other small cameras I've owned (mentioned above) in this respect. Being able to shoot high resolution video with this camera is refreshing, and I've enjoyed that feature. I had optimistically hoped that it would be good enough that I wouldn't need a separate camcorder for video, but that was wishful thinking. It's wonderful for short, candid videos but suffers from the small aperture and--ironically--form factor for longer shots. This is manifested as movement blur and camera shake. The movement blur is much less pronounced in good lighting, but the stabilizing lens can only move so much, and the human hand is notoriously unsteady when unbraced. The size of the camera makes it that much harder to hold still, as momentum tends to slow the movement of some of the larger cameras/camcorders. In summary, I'm more than pleased with this camera and would have no second thoughts about recommending it to anyone looking for a small point-and-shoot. The defects it suffers are shared in common with all cameras of this size to some extent; as technology improves, more of these will be mitigated, but for the time being the convenience and fun being offered in this tiny package would be hard to beat at twice the price.

PROS: Easy to use, Simple controls/menu, Nice features/settings, Bright LCD, Excellent image quality, Lightweight/Portable, compact volume CONS: Poor Low-Light Performance, some noise in low light, tiny viewfinder, mini-HDMI to HDMI cable not included, SD/SDHC storage card not included Amazon has the best price at under 250 bucks. Most sites are charging full retail since this camera is so popular. High Definition video is very good at 720p. This will not replace a full size camera or the 5D Mark II for video quality. But, it is a lot better than most including the original Flip video camera. An HDMI cable IS NOT INCLUDED with the camera. You will need it to watch HD video directly from the camera on an HDTV. I bought a 3 ft miniHDMI-to-HDMI cable online from Monoprice for 8 bucks including USPS first class shipping. They have quality cables for the lowest price on the Monoprice site. UPDATE: I am very happy with the mini-HDMI to HDMI cables. They were so inexpensive that I bought 2 of these at 3ft long: one for the iMac, the other is for my travel bag. I bought a 6ft mini-HDMI to HDMI cable for the HDTV in the first floor family room. I should have gotten a longer cable since you have to control the video start/stop/next buttons on the camera. You have to get up often to start the next movie clip. I also bought a small 1x3/4inch miniHDMI to HDMI adapter to carry everywhere I take the camera which is everywhere! UPDATE: The small cover that protects the miniHDMI and USB ports feels a little flimsy. The hinge stretches. I have to force it slightly beyond my comfort to insert cables. I can see this covering breaking off with a lot of use. An SD storage card IS NOT INCLUDED. They are available at low cost, under 15 bucks, on the net. Check the Dealnews site for the latest sales. I used a 4GB SD high capacity (SDHC) card which will hold about 30mins of video. Some complain 2.5inch is too small for the LCD. There is no place to put a larger 3inch LCD on this camera without making it a touch screen like the iPhone or increasing the camera size. Plus, 2.5 inch is common on a lot of cameras. I have no problems with it. TINY VIEW FINDER: It was hard peering through the small hole. I mainly use the LCD screen about 95% of the time. So, NOT A PROBLEM. Got this camera to try out the 720p HD, face/blink detection and other features. They all worked great. I was surprised by the small size since I only saw this camera online and never tried it out at a store. It is slightly smaller than my average size business card and about as thin as a new deck of playing cards. I'm female, but, I never bought an ELPH-size Canon camera because they seemed too small. I was concerned I would not be able to comfortably operate the buttons or it would slip out of my hands. I don't have that fear with the SD780. The brushed metal finish provides some friction. The buttons are placed well. Also, the wrist strap is always available as protection against dropping the camera. SMART AUTO feature is great! I use it often to take closeup (macro) shots or when I don't have time to adjust the settings. I hold the camera about 4 inches from an object and the camera self adjusts the settings. It amazing to watch it work. I partially press the shutter button to see where the camera is focused and move it to focus on my area of interest. The camera selects of the pre-programmed 18 modes to find the one that creates the best image. As many stated, the images are superb thanks to the 12.1 mega pixel resolution, Digic 4, and the image stabilizer (IS) function. You should not live without IS unless you are into the artsy blurry pictures. It takes great pictures of kids who don't sit still. Great if you don't have steady hands. Images are crisp, clear and can be easily seen in the beautiful 2.5inch LCD. I noticed the noise in some of the photos. Did not have too much problems with it. The 3X optical is fine. Best for the photographer to move in or out to zoom/out on the subject matter and not worry about the camera lens zoom when just taking photos. Zooming during filming would be better. Hopefully, Canon adds this feature to future powershot ELPH models. Overall, a great camera that is thin enough to hide in a small purse or pocket yet still deliver superb photos for it's size! (I have owned 7 Canon cameras including 5 digital cameras. I have used this camera for about 1 week.)

Couple bummers for me: couldn't connect to download pictures to computer w/ USB -- I even downloaded the software and it still didn't work. I got a card reader, so I'm able to now, but that was a tad annoying to work around. Also the viewfinder picture is a bit yellow and grainy -- but the photo ends up coming out fine. The "shutter lag" is also a little frustrating, esp. when asking strangers to take you and your friends' pictures! I guess you can press button 1/2-way down and that preps it to take the pic quickly after that, but that's obviously too much to explain to anyone who you're asking to take a picture. Anyway, I've always loved Canon, so I'm sticking with it.

The camera is in terrible shape I put in a sd card and It couldn’t detect the sd card I was very happy with the delivery but upset with the condition of the product I paid 106 dollars for a camera I can’t even take pictures with !?

Pour le prix je suie satisfait,, merci ,,