Canon PowerShot SD30 Digital ELPH Camera

Introduction

Like its most recent predecessors, the Canon PowerShot SD30 Digital ELPH stands tall, replacing the SD20's fixed lens with a 2.4x zoom. Smaller if not thinner than many subcompacts, it uses a dock for USB transfers, to charge its Li-ion battery and for A/V output. Available in black, red, gold, or violet body colors, the 5.0-megapixel SD30 relies on a 1.8-inch LCD instead of an optical viewfinder for composing shots. Recording modes include the extremely unusual (and frankly, rather cool) "My Color" modes that allow you to selectively replace any color in your photo with a different one, or to make the image black and white with the exception of a single color. Overall, the PowerShot SD30 is one of the more appealing subcompact digicams we've seen. Read on for all the details!

Camera Overview
The new Canon PowerShot SD30 features the great looks and sharp design that are a signature of Canon's ELPH cameras. The "Perpetual Curve Design" of the SD30 has few flat surfaces or right-angled corners on the camera body -- consequently giving it a very smooth, comfortable feel in your hands. Very compact and quick on the draw (thanks to a smoothly operating retractable lens design), the Canon SD30 is a convenient point-and-shoot digital camera with a handful of extra exposure features for added flexibility, including a few features that you might not use every day, but that add some "wow" factor. With the lens retracted, the Canon SD30's front panel is smooth and pocket friendly, and its all-metal body is rugged and durable (although it will show scratches, so buy a soft case if this concerns you). Equipped with a 5.0-megapixel CCD, the Canon SD30 captures high quality images, suitable for making sharp prints as large as 8x10 inches with some cropping. Smaller image sizes are also available for email transmission or Web applications, and a movie mode captures video clips with sound.

The Canon SD30 features a 2.4x, 6.3-14.9mm zoom lens, equivalent to a 38-90mm zoom on a 35mm camera. Aperture is automatically controlled, but the maximum setting ranges from f/3.2 at full wide angle to f/5.4 at full telephoto. A maximum 4x digital zoom option increases the SD30's zoom capability to 10x, but keep in mind that digital zoom decreases the overall image quality, because it simply crops out and enlarges the center pixels of the CCD's image. Image details are thus likely to be softer when using digital zoom. Focus ranges from 1.0 feet (30 centimeters) to infinity in normal AF mode, and from 3.9 inches to 1.6 feet (10 to 50 centimeters) in Macro mode. The Canon SD30 employs a sophisticated, nine-point AiAF (Artificial Intelligence Autofocus) system to determine focus, which uses a broad active area in the center of the image to calculate the focal distance (a feature I've been impressed with on many ELPH models and have been happy to see continued). Through the Record menu, you can turn AiAF off, which defaults the autofocus area to the center of the frame. Also built-in to the PowerShot SD30 is an AF assist light -- a very bright orange LED -- which aids the focus mechanism in low light when it's enabled via a menu option. For composing images, the SD30 uses its 1.8-inch color LCD monitor. The LCD reports a fair amount of camera information, but excludes exposure information such as aperture and shutter speed.

Because the ELPH line is designed for ease of use, exposure control is automatic, increasing the line's appeal to point-and-shoot users. The Canon PowerShot SD30 follows this trend, including a series of unique Scene modes, but does provide a few exposure adjustments in its Manual mode. Main camera modes are controlled by a mode switch at the top of the camera's rear panel. Choices include Playback, Movie and Record. Still Recording mode includes Auto, Manual (similar to Program Auto), Macro, Portrait, Landscape, Night Snapshot, My Colors, and Scene (with choices being Kids & Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, and Underwater). Shutter speeds range from 1/1,600 to 15 seconds (with the Long Shutter option on). With image review enabled, a small histogram is displayed along with the image to help evaluate exposure. Slow shutter speeds of 1.3 seconds or slower automatically invoke a Noise Reduction system to eliminate excess image noise in longer exposures. In straight Auto mode, the camera controls everything about the exposure except for file size, flash, etc. Manual mode on the PowerShot SD30 provides more hands-on control, with White Balance, Exposure Compensation, ISO, and some creative effects, but it isn't true manual control because the user is not allowed to set -- or even to know -- the aperture or shutter speed settings. Camera operation is straightforward, as you typically just point and shoot most of the time. Pressing the Shutter button halfway sets focus and exposure, and a focus confirmation target and beep let you know when the camera is ready to take the picture.

The special automatic and additional Scene modes on the PowerShot SD30 provide creative options and tweak exposure variables to accommodate common photographic situations. In Portrait mode, the camera opts for a large aperture to blur the background, making the subject stand out. Landscape optimizes camera settings for wide, expansive scenes. Night Snapshot mode uses the camera's flash and higher sensitivity if necessary to try to obtain an exposure with your subject and a dark background correctly exposed. My Colors provides nine creative options, including Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Color Accent, Color Swap, and Custom Color. The Scene submenu includes even more options. Kids & Pets mode opts for a faster shutter speed to freeze quick motion. Indoor mode biases the white balance system toward tungsten or fluorescent lighting, attempts to reduce camera shake with wider apertures and higher sensitivity, and avoids using flash where possible. In Foliage mode, the Canon SD30's saturation is boosted to offer bold colors in foliage. Snow and Beach modes both bias exposure so that the camera is not fooled into underexposing images because of a bright background; Snow mode also adjusts white balance appropriately. Fireworks mode uses a long exposure to capture the trails of fireworks. Finally, Underwater mode -- designed for use with an optional underwater housing -- uses a white balance setting appropriate for correcting the cold tones of an underwater photo, and also tries to avoid using the camera's flash.

The nine options in the PowerShot SD30's "My Colors" mode, available for both still image and movie shooting, are worth a closer look. The Positive Film setting attempts to replicate the bold colors of positive film in the Red, Green, and Blue channels. The Lighter Skin Tone and Darker Skin Tone settings attempt to alter skin tones appropriately, without affecting the rest of the photo. The Vivid Blue, Vivid Green and Vivid Red options emphasize saturation in one channel only. Most unusual are the Color Accent and Color Swap features, however. In Color Accent mode, you place a small square in the center of the camera's LCD over a color you want to accent, and press the left arrow on the Four-way navigation controller. A narrow band of colors surrounding the color you selected will remain untouched in the final image; the rest of the photo will be in black and white. In Color Swap mode, you similarly select two colors with the square at the center of the LCD (one by pressing the left arrow; the other with the right arrow). The Canon SD30 will then replace one color with the other in your final image -- for example allowing you to make a green car appear blue. Both effects allow a little fine control over the color you selected using the left arrow key; you use the up and down arrows to slightly adjust the color you want to accent or swap. You can't, however, fine-tune the color you want to replace the swapped color with for Color Swap mode. Both the Color Accent and Color Swap modes are rather fun, and they're definitely very unusual, but the effects can be rather unpredictable. You generally end up with a slight fringe of the old color surrounding your replaced color in Color Swap mode, and it can be difficult to control the exact color you want to affect in both modes. For this reason, it is rather nice that Canon has provided the ability to set the SD30 through the Record menu to capture a duplicate copy of images captured in My Colors mode, without any color changes made. If you end up throwing away your color-altered image, you'll still have your original source image to change with an image editor, or just enjoy as a photograph. Finally, the Custom Color mode allows you to manually fine-tune the saturation of colors in the Red, Green, and Blue channels (plus the saturation of skin tones), with five steps of control over each.

The Canon PowerShot SD30 uses an Evaluative metering system by default, which means that the camera divides the image area into zones and evaluates both contrast and brightness among all the zones to determine the best overall exposure. A Spot metering option ties the exposure to the very center of the frame, and is useful for off-center or high contrast subjects, letting you pinpoint the exact area of the frame to base the exposure on. There's also a Center-Weighted metering option on the PowerShot SD30, which bases the exposure on a large area in the center of the frame. Exposure Compensation increases or decreases the overall exposure from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third step increments. A White Balance option offers Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, and Custom (manual) settings. The Canon SD30 also offers a creative Photo Effects menu, which adjusts sharpening, color, and saturation. Sensitivity equivalents include 50, 100, 200, and 400 ISO settings, as well as an Auto setting. The SD30's built-in flash operates in Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Forced On, Forced On with Red-Eye Reduction, Suppressed, and Slow-Synchro modes.

A two- or 10-second self-timer option counts down by flashing a small LED on the front of the Canon SD30 before firing the shutter, giving you time to duck around the camera and get into your own shots. In addition, a Custom timer function allows you to set the camera for a delay of 0-10, 15, 20, or 30 seconds, and a number of photos to be captured once the delay has been elapsed (from one to 10). After the timer expires, the camera will capture the number of photos requested with an interval of approximately one second between photos, and the flash does recharge quickly enough to capture 10 photos in a row with flash. This could be rather nice for people trying to take photos of a large family gathering. Thirty seconds gives you plenty of time to get into your photo, and with the ability to capture 10 images with one press of the shutter, there's a better chance you'll get a shot where nobody blinked or made a funny face. This is an innovative feature that brings the fun of the old photo booth into the digital era and makes it portable. As such, it should be renamed "Photo Booth Mode" to make it better understood by those most likely to use it. The tech-heads likely to find this mode are less likely to use it.

Stitch-Assist mode is the Canon SD30's panoramic shooting mode, which lets you shoot as many as 26 consecutive images. As each image is captured, a portion of it appears alongside a live preview of the current scene, helping you to line the next image up with a proper overlap. The series of images can then be "stitched" together into a single panoramic frame with the accompanying software. A Continuous Shooting mode captures a series of consecutive images (much like a motor drive on a traditional camera), at approximately one frame per second, for as long as the Shutter button is held down. The actual frame rate varies slightly with the resolution setting, and the maximum number of images will also depend on the amount of memory card space and file size.

The Canon SD30 also has three Movie Record modes, which record moving images with sound. Focus and optical zoom are fixed at the first frame, but you can use digital zoom while recording. Standard captures 640 x 480 images at 10 frames per second up to 1-GB. Compact captures 160 x 120 at 15 fps for emailing up to three minutes. My Colors captures 320 x 240 at 20 fps up to 1-GB. The PowerShot SD30's Playback mode allows editing movies longer than one second. You can save the new movie over the old one, or as a new file. During playback, you can also step through images frame by frame.

The My Camera settings menu lets you customize camera settings to a specific theme. Everything from the startup image to operating sounds can be assigned to a theme, either one of the pre-programmed themes or one downloaded from the camera software or stored on the memory card. The PowerShot SD30 also lets you record short sound clips in WAV format to accompany captured images, via the Sound Memo option, great for lively captions to vacation photos or party shots.

The Canon PowerShot SD30 stores images on SD memory cards (hence, the "SD" in its name). A 16MB card accompanies the camera, but I highly recommend picking up a larger capacity card, so you don't miss any shots. These days, a 128MB or 256MB card is a good tradeoff between cost and capacity. The camera utilizes a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, which accompanies the camera, along with the necessary battery charger. Because the Canon SD30 does not accommodate AA-type or any other off-the-shelf battery format, I strongly advise picking up an additional battery pack and keeping it freshly charged. The included dock functions as an AC adapter, charging the battery and powering the camera when downloading images. It's also where you connect the included USB cable or A/V cable connects the SD30 to a television set, for reviewing and composing images.

Also included with the Canon SD30 is a small wireless controller to control the camera when it is placed in the dock. Powered by a 3-volt lithium coin battery, the controller can manage playback on a television set when using the A/V cable, erase images, print when connected to a printer and download when connected to a computer via the USB cable.

A software CD accompanies the PowerShot SD30, providing any necessary drivers and editing software for both Windows and Macintosh platforms. The CD holds Canon's Digital Camera Solution Disk version 25.0 and also features ArcSoft's PhotoStudio. The Canon SD30 is Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) and PictBridge compatible, with detailed print settings in the Playback menu. Canon offers a selection of direct-connect printers as well, which simplifies printing even more. And Exif Print optimizes print settings when images are captured.