Each fall a barrage of new cameras hits the market, anticipating the year-end holidaysThis year's batch of Canons includes the PowerShot SD870 ISFrom its model number, you might think that it's a follow-up to the SD850 IS, but with its wider-than-normal, 28mm-to-105mm, f/2.8-to-f/5.8, 3.8x optical zoom lens, it's really more of a successor to the SD800 ISAside from a step up to an 8.3-megapixel CCD sensor, a larger 3-inch, 230,000-pixel LCD, and Canon's new Digic III processor, there's not much different in the SD870 IS other than some nice cosmetic enhancementsAlong with the new processor comes Canon's Advanced Face Detection, which can pick out up to nine faces in a frame and use the faces to set autofocus and exposure
Possibly the saddest change with this new model is that Canon omitted an optical viewfinder from the SD870 ISThis was probably done to make room for the larger screen, but it's an unfortunate compromiseOn the upside, Canon spruced up the look of the camera's back, making it almost identical to the back of the SD750This includes the newer version of Canon's multicontroller padIt's more responsive than the pad on the SD800 IS, and a raised ring around the edge gives it a better feelPlus, when you rest your thumb in any particular direction on the pad, a graphic appears on the LCD to show you what you'd do if you press fullyThis helps you to keep your eyes on the screen when you have to change a setting while shooting
Probably the only real ergonomic flaw on the SD870 IS is that there's no convenient place to rest your thumbSo, while all the shooting controls can be accessed through buttons on the right side of the camera, one-handed shooting can be annoying as you're forced to put your thumb on top of the right edge of the LCD screen--thereby blocking some of what you're trying to frame in the pictureThough the camera's optical image stabilization (hence the IS in the name) should help keep things steady, you may welcome the use of a second hand, since the SD870 IS weighs in at a somewhat hefty 6.4 ounces, with the battery and an SD card installed
As usual with Canon's Digital Elph cameras, you won't find any manual exposure controlsInstead you have to rely on the camera's exposure compensation if you want to tweak the camera's automatic exposure, or resort to one of the camera's 10 scene modes to handle out-of-the-ordinary shooting scenariosFlash exposure compensation lets you control the output of the flash, so the flash doesn't overpower your subjects if you're too close--a nice touch that's not found in all compact cameras
We were very impressed by the SD870 IS's performance in our lab testsIt took the camera 0.9 second to start up and capture its first JPEGThereafter, the camera took 1.6 seconds between subsequent JPEGs with the flash turned off, and 2.4 seconds between JPEGs with the flash turned onShutter lag measured a stunning 0.4 second in our high-contrast test and 0.7 second in our low-contrast test, which respectively mimic bright and dim shooting conditionsIn our continuous shooting test, the SD870 IS captured 1.3 frames per second regardless of image size or compression
The PowerShot SD870 IS yields very high-quality images with accurate colors and tons of detail, and which are very clean at lower ISOsThe automatic white balance does a very good job of neutralizing colors in different kinds of lighting, but with incandescent lighting, its images have a very slight warm castSome people prefer this, since it gives a natural look, as incandescent lighting does give off a warm glowHowever, if you prefer a more neutral look in these situations, the tungsten preset does a great job of serving up neutral images
Canon keeps ISO noise well under control through ISO 200You probably won't notice much in the way of noise even when viewing ISO 200 images on your monitor, which tends to be more revealing of such noise than printsAt ISO 400, noise becomes readily apparent on monitors, but Canon's noise reduction algorithms manage to smooth it out so it doesn't take on that fine, snowy look that some cameras--including some older Canons--tend towardPlus, most of this noise should become minimized when making inkjet printsAt ISO 800, noise is much more apparent and should show up in prints, but Canon does a good job of preserving some fine detail, and images show impressive shadow detail for such high sensitivity in a compact cameraImages at ISO 1,600 are very noisy with the SD870 IS, showing large, grainy noiseMost fine detail is lost, giving images a soft look, and a large portion of shadow detail goes by the waysideStill, given that this camera has a small sensor, the results are somewhat impressiveThe images may be usable for small prints, or for use at small sizes on the Web
Canon's PowerShot SD870 IS is a worthy addition to the company's Digital Elph lineExperienced photographers looking for a pocket camera will lament the fact that the camera doesn't have any manual exposure controls, but if you don't feel the need to tinker with your camera's settings and aren't caught up in the pointless megapixel race, you'll likely be very pleased with this point-and-shoot