As a new arrival in the Digital
Elph/IXUS series, it would have been reasonable to expect
the SD700 (IXUS 800 in Europe) to offer a higher resolution
than the model it replaces. Instead, the SD700 offers a 6-megapixel
resolution, a 4X zoom, and a feature that will likely garner
it a lot of attention: an optical stabilizer.
Optical stabilizers are systems that are becoming more common
with cameras that have long zooms, and which tend to be a
bit bulkier — such as the PowerShot S3 IS — but
which up to now were rarely used for compact cameras.
Aperture: f8, shutter speed: 1/320 sec., 80 ISO.
Aperture: f5.5, shutter
speed: 1/80 sec., 80 ISO.
With the SD700, the stabilizer
is even more valuable since the lens, at the maximum telephoto
setting, has an aperture of f5.5 — a noticeably smaller
aperture than the f2.8 available at the wide-angle end —
which could increase the likelihood of camera-shake.
The stabilizer allows the use of slower shutter speed, which
would otherwise require the use of a tripod, or some other
means of stabilizing the camera, to avoid camera-shake which
causes a blurred image.
Stabilizers, which often work
by stabilizing the lens at the focal point, commonly offer
the possibility of continuous stabilization, stabilizing both
the image on the LCD monitor and in turn the image at the
time of capture, or the less power hungry alternative of stabilization
for the shot itself, only at the time the image is captured.
To this, the SD700 IS adds a third mode: Panning. The panning
mode functions by stabilizing unintentional vertical —
up/down — movements but not horizontal ones, making
it much easier to capture photos of subjects moving past the
camera, such as would be the case with a race.
Aperture:
f2.8, shutter speed: 1/100 sec., 80 ISO,
stabilizer set to Panning mode.
The quality of the 4X zoom lens
of the SD700 IS is also worth noting at this point. Barrel
distortion is negligible at the wide-angle end, and pincushion
distortion is non-existent at the telephoto end. Moreover,
there is no visible chromatic aberration throughout the focal
length range of the lens, and images are sharp from corner
to corner and edge to edge.
The Auto white balance is
able to adapt to different light sources yielding colours
that are excellent, well saturated and vibrant.
Similarly, the default metering, the Evaluative pattern,
is very reliable and exposures usually show a good balance
between highlights and shadows, making it rare to have to
resort to one of the other two alternate metering systems.
Images from the SD700 IS captured
at low ISO settings, 80 and 100 ISO, are also notable for the
complete absence of noise, even in shadow areas.
Noise does make an appearance
at the 200 and 400 ISO levels, but it is relatively limited,
and images captured at these sensitivities are normally very
useable, as noise does not lower their quality significantly.
Beyond 400 ISO however, at 800 ISO, noise is easily detectable
and lowers the image quality noticeably.
The SD700 IS is also equipped with two other sensitivity
settings: Auto ISO, and High ISO, which allow
the camera to adjust sensitivity automatically either in the
low range (80-400 ISO), or the high range.
Aperture: f4, shutter speed: 1/250 sec.,
80 ISO.
While images captured using the
Auto ISO setting are never overtly noisy, implying that the
camera tends to stick to lower sensitivities, those captured
using the High ISO setting can turn out to be quite noisy,
and the setting should be used with caution.
Regrettably, when either Auto ISO, or High ISO are used,
the camera does not record the precise ISO value it
selects, making it difficult to ascertain the range in effect.
Aperture: f5, shutter speed: 1/160 s., 80 ISO.
The image quality of the
PowerShot SD700 IS is nothing short of excellent. Three levels
of JPEG compression are available to record images, and the
level that applies the least compression, and therefore guarantees
the highest image quality, is the Superfine setting. Set to
this compression level, the SD700 IS yields images that show
no loss of detail, and subtle colours can be detected in both
sky and foliage. Moreover, the Fine image quality, a compression
level that yields file sizes that are half of those in the
Superfine mode, offers an image quality that is often hard
to differentiate from the Superfine level.
Indeed, the quality of the images
that the SD700 IS yields at the Fine compression level, is
often comparable to what many other cameras yield at their
highest JPEG image quality setting.
Still, in one area the SD700
IS could stand some improvement: the built-in flash is a bit
underpowered, and to obtain a bright image with modestly distant
subjects, exposure compensation, or an increase in sensitivity
are often required.
The PowerShot SD700 IS is an excellent addition to the Digital
Elph/IXUS line. The addition of a stabilizer eliminates the
drawback of a limited aperture at the telephoto end, and makes
this model even more competent than previous cameras in this
series. In other words, the SD700 IS is definitely a step
up.
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