Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

This is one of the best point-and-shoot 4 megapixel cameras currently being produced. As with all Canon PowerShot SD series cameras, the SD300 is very easy to use. Canon also makes a 3 megapixel version of this camera (PowerShot SD200) which is about $100 cheaper.

What makes this camera DESIRABLE:

(1) Takes Great Pictures. This is the most important part of a digital camera, no? The SD300 is quick to focus, is quick to take pictures (very low lag time), takes crisp pictures, and is very easy to use. The SD300 even focuses in the dark thanks to its focus-assist lamp (you can turn this feature on/off). The picture quality is excellent compared to other cameras similar in size. The ease of use is much better than other 4 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras. Many have complained about the flash, but that's almost a non-issue for most snapshots. Most people take snapshots of their friends & family when they are about 5-7 feet away from them. The flash is PLENTY strong for that. If you have a huge group and they're like 10-15 feet away, then the flash will be a problem. But seriously, when's the last time you tried to take a picture of a big group of people forcing you to stand 15 feet away to get everybody in the picture?

(2) 4 megapixels with 3x zoom. Having 3 megapixels is the new minimum when it comes to digital cameras. Canon was very generous giving us 4 megapixels in such a small camera. The general rule of thumb for megapixels is: the more the better. Not only will more megapixels allow you to print bigger & better pictures, having more megapixels gives you the flexibility to crop: you can take a small portion of the picture and blow it up to full screen and still get good detail. The SD300 also features 3x zoom. While this is generally not something to get all excited about, the only other SD series camera until now (the SD110) only featured 2x zoom.

(3) Size. The SD300 is noticeably smaller than the S410 or the S500, and even smaller than the SD110. The SD300 will fit nicely in your pocket or your purse. Plus the stainless steel finish is so handsome/pretty that you will want to take this with you everywhere. After all, if you don't carry your camera with you, then what's the use of owning a camera?

(4) Movie with Sound. With its built-in microphone and speaker, the SD300 can capture and replay movies with sound. The 640x480 resolution is awesome. You can replay on your 19" monitor at full screen and the video will look great. Under the 640x480 mode, you can capture video at 30 frames per second (fps) or 15 fps, and there is no limit per clip as your only limitation is the amount of space you have left on your memory card. Under the 320x480 mode, you have the Fast Frame Rate option giving you 60 fps, up to 60 seconds per clip, which is great for capturing action shots such as your golf swing. While the main function of the camera is to take still pictures, the high quality video feature is so much fun that you will be using this a lot.

(5) Battery & External Charger. The battery life is average. You can take about 140 pictures on a full charge with the LCD screen on and about 400 pictures with the LCD screen off. Since Canon includes an external charger with all their SD series cameras, I recommend getting a second battery. This way, one battery can be charging while you are using one battery, so that you will never run out of batteries.

Downside. The only downside is the access to manual mode. On the SD110, S410, and the S500, you can switch to the manual mode by turning a knob. On this camera, you need to press function and switch to manual mode using a soft menu. There are few features only available in the manual mode such as turning off AiAF, long shutter, panorama mode, etc. Unless you use those features a lot, this will not be an issue for you.

Recommended Accessories. A must-have accessories are the already mentioned extra battery and a bigger SD memory card. Get at least a 256MB card (a 512MB card would be nicer) since the included 16MB card will not be sufficient for most people.

If you can get by with 3 megapixles and want to save about $100, check out the 3 megapixel version of this camera: Canon PowerShot SD200.

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.

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.

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.

My priorities when shopping for a camera were:
Small size, large screen, movie mode with sound, at least 3X optical zoom, good image quality.

The SD 300 delivered on all counts. It is really small- I know that Casio makes a thinner camera, but I have found the SD300 to be a great size when you don't want to lug something big around.

The screen is large, (2") for its size and has good resolution.

I have recorded a couple of movie clips, and at low res I could conceivably record for almost an hour on the 512 meg SD card I got at Costco for $54. The included 16 meg card really doesn't hold enough shots to be useful.

The optical zoom is the standard 3X. Like most people I shut off the digital zoom because I like my pictures to look good, not like garbage. Don't digitally zoom, just optically zoom and crop the picture with photo editing software.

I have loved the pics I've taken with this camera. The colors and resolution looked great. I find I often shoot using the "children and pets" mode for the high speed shutter, and turn off the flash. Not that the flash is too much, except way up close when ANY camera would give blown out pics- I just prefer using natural light when I can, and the good low-light capabilities of the camera allow for it.

As others have mentioned, a battery charge indicator to give advance notice the battery is going to poop out would be nice. A camera this small can't have a large battery, so you have to be conservative. I turn off the imaging beam, and that seems to make a big difference in extending battery life. Another feature that I miss compared to my Olympus is a button that takes you directly to viewing mode. I find that I blast back and forth between shooting mode and play mode to make sure I got the shot I wanted, and that slide switch isn't going to last forever.

Overall I recommend this camera to anyone who wants a lot of features and quality in a small package.

This camera is simply amazing. I suggest you buy this over any other camera on the ultracompact market.
I really did my research to find this camera. I looked in about every place on the net that sells cameras, and I chose this one.

Pros
-ULTRACOMPACT
-Huge LCD
-Spectacular "set-up" photos, like portraits and closeups.
-Great spontaneous photos, like quickies
-Read/Write time (with the included sd) is AMAZING
-Startup time is under 1 second (excellent)
-Canon's photo manual is very helpful and nice
-Included software is pretty darn good. (I'm sure you could find better, but I use it because of it's simplicity.)
-Manual settings is very good for an ultracompact
-Battery life is good, and it charges in 90 minutes
-Switching from Photo to Review (and vice versa) is VERY fast
-Excellent video mode for a camera of this caliber

Cons
-No battery life meter (that I can tell)
-Sort of flimsy av-out flap

The Pro's heavily outweigh the cons, no doubt.

Overall, I would seriously recommend this camera to anyone who wants:
1. A small, lightweight camera they can take everywhere
2. Nice, big prints from an ultracompact
3. Enough funtions to get the job done.

Buy this.

If you are looking for a 4 megapixel camera that can do it all and also be super portable, the Canon SD300 is it. My comments go double if you are considering the SD300 because of its very compact size. When looking at its competitors, be sure to take into account the overall travel package including the battery charger, much like you would when deciding on portability of a laptop computer. For example, the Pentax Optio 4si and 5si cameras are about the same size and a touch lighter in weight, but they only come with bulky charging cradles that also need a bulky A/C cord. The SD300's charger, by contrast, is very compact; no bigger than the camera itself, and its plug swings out so you don't need any cord. The overall travel package of camera and charger is like carrying two tins of Altoids mints. In fact, they will probably fit inside the tins. Very portable. The camera's performance is great. I considered, besides the Pentaxes, the Lumix FX7, the Sony T1 and Casio Z55, but I bought the Canon and am very satisfied with it, even though other cameras come in 5 mpxls whereas this one is 4 mpxls. Do I wish it had 5? Of course. But I find 4 mpxls is more than adequate for my needs and rarely if ever do I wish I had more. You can easily go to 8x10 prints with 4 megapixels.

This is my fourth camera from the Canon Powershot line, I use the high end SLR Canons professionally but carry a small camera with me for that once-in-a-life time shot that might appear; typically I use one of the Canon Powershot line as the software is familiar to me and they're rugged. I used the S40 for a year, the S50 for a month or so, and then the Powershot Pro1, all excellent cameras for their intentions.

However, the SD300 will run rings around all of them, pointedly it has the instant on and instant auto-focus and immediate shooting that pros demand, but get only with the high-end SLR cameras, features that are sorely missing from the Powershot line. The digital lag problem, typical in low end cameras, culminated in the Powershot Pro1 wherein the camera is un-useable for motion shots or in poor light (it's still-life capabilities are excellent though). Now Canon has stuck their high end DIGIC processor and software in this cellphone-tiny Elph, since it has the same processor as the 20D, it feels closer to it in performance than it does to the rest of the Powershot line; indeed this is the first Powershot to have such a processor: It shoots sport-photo fast, ie 5 frames at full resolution every two seconds with enough of a buffer to get a dozen or so shots before it slows down, each shot appears immediately on its large screen, another first. It has an onscreen 9 point focusing (with green squares) that is user modifiable for the person-in-the-corner shot. The flash is so good it should be an attachment: shoots six different ways depending upon light conditions. My large hands had no trouble at all with the buttons, biggest problem I anticipate is forgetting its in my pocket and sending it through the laundry, its that thin!

Now for the feature that none of the high end Canons have, including the multi-thousand dollar digital SLR line, and the other Powershots can only approximate: a 60 fps movie mode, Holy Cow! Shooting good quality slow motion movies with this credit-card-with-a-lens, what a hoot, it also shoots normal speed 30 fps for a 640x480 movies of surprising liquid-like evenness, there is no jerking even with rapidly moving objects. So not only is it a stand by still camera, if you are a film maker who needs a light weight movie camera around for that once-in-a-lifetime scene stick this one in your wallet. Home run for Canon.

I had this camera for a few weeks now. Absolutely love it. The sleekest thing about this camera is the size. I can put it in my pocket and bring it anywhere I want. It's a great point-and-shoot camera. Quality of pictures are as good as my S30. The high resolution movie is also amazing. If you are planning to get this camera, I would recommend 2 accessories:
1. Canon Digital Elph Accessories kit for SD300 and SD200. This kit includes a spare battery, a sturdy case (just fits the camera, has a belt clip and handstrap, plus a steel neck strap).
2. Sandisk 1GB SD card. Even though this is not the Ultra II highspeed card, I can still use it to shoot videos with the camera.

This is my fourth digital camera in the last twelve months. I am constantly buying new ones in the $300-500 price range and selling them on eBay once they've revealed their flaws to me. Without a doubt, this is the best one I've had and I think it'll stick around for a while. What's good about it:
1. size and style are great; there is nothing that can be improved upon here;
2. the LCD is a nice size without sacrificing the viewfinder;
3. the controls are very easy to access and understand. Though I prefer the point-and-shoot method, I find myself dabbling with the controls a lot and I take better pictures because of it;
4. the time it takes between opening the camera and taking a photo is almost instantaneous. There's no warmup period. Likewise, taking several pictures rapidly is a breeze, no lag time at all;
5. in general, the camera is simple to use. Someone with no experience could pick this up and use immediately; and
6. I wish more cameras would use plain ole AA batteries, but since that's probably never going to happen, Canon's li-on battery is adequate. It lasts a decent amount of time and charges very quickly. The charger is improved in this line from the S410, which was somewhat bigger and more awkward.

And what I don't like:
1. pictures indoors or after dusk just don't turn out that well, regardless of using the nighttime/indoor settings on the camera. I think that the flash is adequate but after all my digital camera trading, have found this to be a universal weakness. It's annoying;
2. no meter for the battery. You get about five pictures once the indicator tells you the battery is on the way out. It's something a lot of people have complained about and doesn't seem like a tough thing for Canon to fix; and
3. the software that comes with the camera is junk. I hate it. I recommend downloading Picasa, which is fabulous, and free.

As for the LCD cracking, that really sucks and I hope it doesn't happen to me. The obvious answer is to pick up a case and cart it around in that. I haven't had any experience with redeye-no more than expected, anyway-or purple fringing. For the price and portability factors, the SD300 can't be beat.