Canon PowerShot SD30

Reviewed October 2005

Image Quality

Based on its specs alone, the PowerShot SD30 is a fairly standard camera: it has a 2.4X optical zoom — a touch shorter than many of its competitors — a compact size, a 5-megapixel resolution, a 1.8 inch LCD monitor, and SD memory compatibility. What differentiates it from the rest of the cameras occupying that particular segment of the marketplace, is that it has a stylish exterior that can be had in a variety of colours, and a Camera Station — a docking cradle — that makes it simple to connect the camera to a computer, a printer, a television, or simply to recharge its battery.

The SD30 is best viewed as an everyday companion, able to capture the photo opportunities as they present themselves, and even a camera that is useable during an outing on a bright and sunny day. This said, the the SD30 is not one of Canon's fastest cameras.

A touch slow to react when first powered on, it is also a bit slow to focus, especially when set to AiAF, which demands more time for the camera to find one or more focus points.

The SD30's lens shows little distortion throughout its focal range, producing images with little barrel distortion at the widest angle, and no pincushion distortion at the telephoto end. Likewise there is only a slight chromatic aberration at the wide angle end of the zoom.

Exposures, by default left up to Canon's Evaluative metering that performs readings throughout the frame and averages them, generally turn out well.

The positive aspect of this is that — at least with images captured under the sunlight of bright Fall days — the camera rarely yields an image with overexposed areas, even when the sun is low in the sky.

As with most compact cameras, the highest image quality is obtained when the CCD sensitivity is kept between 50 and 200 ISO, with the best results in the 50 to 100 ISO range. At the 400 ISO level noise increases and areas in images that contain uniform colours tend to show noise first.

Used indoors with the flash, the 50 ISO setting tends to limit the ability of the flash to reach beyond a couple of meters, and a better range is available with the sensitivity set to 100 ISO, or, alternatively the sensitivity can be set to Auto ISO.

Although the SD30 does not record the precise ISO value it uses when set to Auto — the Exif data only indicates Auto — it seems to not use entire ISO range, and to limit the gain to around 200 ISO, thereby avoiding the noise that becomes obvious at 400 ISO.

Set to the highest image quality, Superfine, and with highly detailed subjects such as the one shown at right, the camera's compression tends to top out at around 1:4. But with subjects that are less detailed, the SD30 tends to apply a compression that hovers in the 1:6 to 1:8 range. Comparatively, this is a fairly strong compression for the best image quality, but the impact on image detail is usually minimal, and it is only occasionally that some details appear to be a bit softened.

The PowerShot SD30 is compact, very well finished, and well-suited to everyday use. Moreover, it also includes the Camera Station, an easy way to connect the camera to either a computer, a printer or a television, and a remote control to make it easy to review images.

All this, in addition to an image quality that is above average for a point and shoot camera, and some functions such as a long exposure mode and a vertical shutter release function, may well provide it with a slight advantage over its competitors.