Canon Powershot SD300 4MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

by Canon

Product Details

Product Manual [3.91mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00064O89Y
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,081 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 24, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

From its ultra-thin design to its high resolution, high performance features, the PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph is like no other digital camera. Compact and easy to use, its softly flowing metal body is richly appointed with coating. It's a camera as beautiful as the pictures it creates.

High-resolution elegance and an impressive zoom
The ultra-sleek, ultra-slim 4.0-megapixel PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph comes with a 3x optical zoom and 3.6x digital for an 11x combined zoom. This makes the camera as stylish as it is powerful and allows it to deliver the resolution to create stunning prints and on-screen images. The optical zoom makes brilliant close-ups effortlessly easy.

New large 2.0-inch LCD screen for easy image preview and playback
Though its body is superbly slim, the PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph has an oversized 2.0-inch LCD screen that makes it easy to frame and play back your scene.

Impressively small, surprisingly powerful
The PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph's UA lens features a glass-molded aspherical design with an ultra-high refractive index. The advantage? You get exquisitely sharp and colorful images from a 3x zoom lens that's smaller than previous 2x zooms.

Canon's latest imaging technology enhances picture quality
The PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph is the first in the PowerShot line to incorporate Canon's new DIGIC II Image Processor. Designed to improve processing speed and image quality, the DIGIC II processor provides markedly faster camera startup, autofocus, and playback, plus it assures that every image is more colorfully vibrant.

Selectable movie recording speeds
The PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph is the first digital camera to let you shoot in a Fast Frame Rate Movie at 60 frames per second with full motion video (320x240), so you can capture fast-moving subjects. The camera also gives you the option of 30 frames per second (640x480) for general shooting. For e-mail attachments, select the compact movie setting.

Expand the creative ideas
The PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph lets you take as much or as little control as you like. Nine preset modes allow you to handle even tough shooting conditions with confidence, and new scene modes including Digital Macro Mode widen your shooting capabilities. Or you can select manual and do everything yourself.

Auto
The camera chooses all the settings so you can concentrate on your subject.

Manual
The ultimate in creative control, you set aperture and shutter speed.

Stitch Assist
Build inspiring panoramas by neatly aligning sequential images.

Digital Macro
Shoot larger-than-life close-ups with one-button simplicity.

Portait
The camera sets a large aperture, focuses the subject, and artistically blurs the background to make your subject pop.

Night Snapshot
Capture people against a softly glowing night background without a tripod.

Kids & Pets
Shoot moving subjects without losing your chance to get those unforgettable moments.

Indoor
Improves natural color and reduces camera shake while shooting under artificial light.

Underwater
Achieve natural-looking color even when shooting underwater.

One-button downloading and printing plus ID Photo Print and Movie Print
The SD300's Print/Share Button makes direct printing easier than ever. Simply connect the SD300 to a Canon Direct Photo Printer or PictBridge supported printer, press the Print/Share Button, and print! Also use the Print/Share Button to transfer images directly to a computer (Windows).

Print your own ID photos in 28 different sizes or use the Movie Print function to output multiple stills from a recorded movie on a single sheet using any Canon Compact Photo Printer.

Product Description

Canon Powershot SD300 4MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

173 of 181 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good camera in a tough competition, October 19, 2004

By 

Eddy Poon - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canon Powershot SD300 4MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Electronics)

Handling: The interface is similar to that in other Canon digital compacts, which helps your learning curve. The case is in metal, except the USB and the battery cover. They are both made of plastic and feel very fragile. The metal tripod mount is located closely below the lens. The LCD screen is reasonably viewable under daylight conditions.

Canon celebrated that SD300 is the first compact that uses the DIGIC II processing, and with my experience so far, the camera does respond faster when compared with DIGIC based ones. It however appears to be on par with recent Sony and Olympics models. I did not measured the various response times scientifically however.

Picture quality: Contrary to other comments, I was not "blown away" by quality of the pictures. The lens produces not serious, but significant purple edges in bright sunlight, and shows problems with dark corners like other compacts. Color production is rich with high contrast, a big plus. Sadly I find the pictures appear noisy when taking under low light conditions. I suspect either I have a faulty unit, or there are some design issues?

Complaints:

* can't review picture histogram easily (two to three steps)

* noisy operations

* no battery level indicator

So far I find the SD300 a good and decent pocket camera. However in the same market (similar specs and price) there are many other choices, and the SD300 does not excel specifically in any area.

-- UPDATE --

I used this camera frequently between October 2004 and January 2005, taking more than a thousand pictures for my trips around. I report more experiences I have with this fun camera:

* The lithium battery is surprisingly resilient in cold conditions. I bought a spare battery for my ski trips, thinking that batteries die early in cold weather. It was negative teens and I had no trouble taking more than 50 pictures during the day with one battery. Very good indeed. The auto white balance worked fairly well - some blue casts. Make sure you increase the exposure compensation when taking pictures with snow backgrounds. (I use +2/3 to +1)

* The purple fringe symptom has been widely reported and I guess users have to live with it. Else the camera proved to be good at determining exposure and delivering pictures with good color contrast.

* As a compact camera it served my purpose well: taking pictures of interesting things I see everyday in my life. Small and quick. I find it difficult however to use SD300 with my gloves. This is no criticism as small cameras all have small buttons, but I still remember how painful my hands were when I needed to take off my gloves to shoot pictures in the mountains.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For what it is, it's perfect!, November 30, 2004

By 

T. Nielsen (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canon Powershot SD300 4MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Electronics)

First of all, for anyone looking for a camera this tiny, you'd better understand that there will be compromises. Battery life, image quality, etc. This camera does not take pictures nearly as nice as my Powershot G5. I never expected it to.

But for a super compact camera, it's absolutely amazing. Things that I really love:

1) This camera is FAST. It starts up, and is ready to shoot, in about 1 second. My G5 takes about 3. In between pictures, you hardly have to wait at all. The new Digic 2 operating system is very snappy.

2) The image quality, especially outside, is wonderful. There is some purple fringing that is common to a small lens, but you'll only see it where a bright edge meets a dark edge. And most of the time, it'll never appear.

3) The movie mode ROCKS. Imagine, shooting 640x480 at 30fps with NO TIME LIMIT! I bought a 1 gig 66x SD card, and can shoot until the card is full. At full res, 1 gig will hold 8.5 minutes, which is actually pretty amazing considering this is a tiny compact camera. You can also shoot 60fps, for slow motion FX, but that is limited to 360x240.

4) it's SMALL. Finally a camera that I can carry with me. It's about 30% thinner I think than the S400 S500 series cameras.

5) Simplicity. Few buttons, and a very well laid out menu system. I never even cracked open the manual, no need. It's so easy to use.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this camera, and would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a super-small camera that takes great pictures.

Don't expect it to get great battery life, especially if you're shooting with the LCD and Flash all the time.

This thing is SOOO cool.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Which of the SDxxx Series is right for you?, April 18, 2005

By 

diljs - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Canon Powershot SD300 4MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Electronics)

Let me begin by saying that Canon makes exceptional digital cameras; the best in the market right now. This is because they have always used high quality components since they began manufacturing digital cameras. This one is no exception.

Now that I've sold you on a Canon, which one should you choose?

First off, let's see if you really need an SDxxx camera, or would be better suited with a cheaper non ultraportable camera.

The SDxxx Series offers several key advantages over less portable models:

-Beautiful, sleek design and metallic body will wow anyone who sees it.

-Gorgeous 2 inch LCD screens

-The excellent Dig!c 2 processor (other Canons only have dig!c 1)

-Much better movie mode than previous Canons

-Small light, easy pocketability

On the other hand, there are some significant drawbacks due to the components Canon had to use to get the camera so small:

-Few manual controls.

-Pictures are not as sharp as those of similar non ultraportable cameras.

-The flash is very close to the lens (lots of redeye problems)

-More purple fringing issues than other Canons

-Proprietary batteries that are expensive to replace

-The LCD is very fragile. Read the SD200 and SD300 reviews to see lots of unhappy people whose LCDs broke. Canon's warranty does NOT cover this either. My suggestion? Buy using a credit card that offers a warranty in addition to the manufacturer's. If your lcd breaks, many CC companies will replace the camera no questions asked!

If you don't need the ultra portability and flashy looks of the SD cameras, a slightly larger camera with more features might be right for you. I would highly suggest Canon's A510 or A520 if you don't need an SD model.

If you still want an SD model, which one should you choose? The SD200 with 3.2mp, the SD300 with 4mp, the SD400 with 5mp, or the SD500 at a whopping 7.1mp?

Your first instinct may be that more megapixels is better. Today, however megapixel ratings are similar to Ghz ratings in the computer world: They used to mean a lot, but they don't mean as much anymore. More megapixels do NOT mean a better image. They mean a larger printable image. Unless you have to have huge prints, you simply do not more megapixels. In fact, the 3.2mp of the SD200 is enough for anyone who doesn't plan on printing pictures larger than a standard 8.5x11 sheet of paper.

That having been said, there are some differences between each SDxxx model. In order to get the larger 7.1mp sensor in the SD500, Canon had to make the camera larger. Thus, it is around a quarter inch thicker and 30% heavier than the other 3 models. The larger size did enable Canon to pack more features into it, however:

Features unique to the SD500:

-1/4 inch thicker

-30% heavier

-50% longer flash range

-14% more battery life

The SD400 and SD500 also share these benefits over the SD200/SD300:

-New "Night Display" feature which brightens the LCD in low light

-My Colors feature lets you highlight or swap colors right on the camera

-USB 2.0 High Speed support

The following are shared by all the SDxxx Cameras:

Pros:

-Beautiful, eye catching design

-Great image quality, though not as good as non ultraportable models

-New Dig!c 2 image processor

-Excellent Movie Mode

-3x optical zoom is adequate for most people

-Excellent, intuitive manual controls

-Huge 2.0 inch lcd that looks great under various lighting conditions

-Uses widely available and cheap SD cards

Cons (most of these are minor quirks):

-Some purple fringing problems

-Proprietary batteries are expensive to replace and inconvenient at times

-Lots of issues with fragile LCDs

-No RAW support

-Few manual controls

If you do choose this product, the first thing you should buy is a larger SD memory card. The camera comes with a 16mb card (32 in the SD500), which is pretty much useless.

You should also immediately purchase a case and some screen protectors to protect the LCD.