AT&T Tech Support 360
While the SD850 IS wasn't one of the fastest point-and-shoots we'd ever tested, it did clock in mostly above-average results. The SD890 IS' performance is more mixed. It wakes up and shoots in a solid 1.3 seconds, and delivers very good focus-and-shoot speed: 0.4 second under optimal lighting and 0.8 second in harder-to-focus conditions. However, its shot-to-shot performance, typically 2.5 seconds and 3.7 seconds with flash, makes it the slowest PowerShot SD model we've tested over the last 12 months in those respects. Burst shooting clocks at a mere 0.9 frame per second. I suspect it's simply too slow writing data to the SD card. (I tested with a fast Class 6 card.)
The 2.5-inch LCD is on the small side, but that's a given if you want to retain an optical viewfinder. The screen gets hard to view in direct sunlight, though bumping up the brightness helps a bit. Its colors look very saturated, though, and it offers a relatively wide viewing angle that should deliver a good group-viewing experience.
Overall, the SD890 IS' photo quality just tips over the fence from above-average to excellent, mostly because of the great color and usable high ISO shots under many conditions. It's not the best lens--the photos generally look a bit soft and there's some fringing on edges--but the camera renders good exposures with accurate, saturated colors. (Click through the slide show for more details on photo quality.) It captures very nice 30fps VGA movies--at a file size of almost 2MB per second, it had better--but you can't zoom the lens while recording, which seriously decreases the usefulness.
I miss Canon's traditional if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it approach. There was very little wrong with the SD850 IS; while the PowerShot SD890 IS delivers a decent shooting experience, it can't escape the shadow of its more talented older brother.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
 |
Time to first shot | |
Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Shutter lag (dim) | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
- See more CNET content tagged:
- Canon Inc.,
- wheel,
- thumb,
- Canon PowerShot,
- camera
User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 6 reviews
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
-
Showing 3 of 6 user reviewsSee all 6 user reviews
-
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
- See all 6 user reviews Write review
Canon PowerShot SD890 IS:
