Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Canon SD550/IXUS750 v's SD700/IXUS800is

by lettie1 Apr 12, 2006 4:09AM PDT

I'm curious as to whether anyone knows much about the new Canon SD700 yet? I have search for reviews but to no avail. I have been thinking of purchasing the SD550 however have just noticed the SD700 coming onto the market. It's 4x zoom is impressive. I am also intrigued by the image stabilisation, however I'm not sure how great it is, or what exactly it is going to do for me? Can anyone tell me how great a difference this stabilisation will make to my photo's. I am trying to work out the trade-off between these features - and the fact that it is a step back from 7mp(SD550) to 6mp(SD700) with an increase in price. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Growler

Discussion is locked

11 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
Canon SD700
by snapshot2 Forum moderator Apr 12, 2006 8:44AM PDT

The SD700 is not yet available, so there is little information available.

It appears to fit between the SD450 and SD550.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_sd450%2Ccanon_sd550%2Ccanon_sd700is&show=all

Image Stabilization is not going to do much for you.
The average person can hold a camera steady enough for 4X optical zoom. It will help if you are shooting in low light and the shutter speed drops below 1/60th of a second. Slow shutter speeds usually produce blurred photos when you hand hold the camera.

But if shutter speeds drop below 1/15th of a second, Image Stabilization can't help the average person.

The real test will be, how good the image quality is.
Since it is a new lens, I would like to see some sample photos.

The SD550 has better image quality than the SD450.
Not by a great amount, but better.

...
..
.

- Collapse -
Canon SD550 vs SD700
by CombativeSoul Apr 14, 2006 3:47AM PDT

I own the SD550. It's one of the best pocket size cameras out there. But I do miss the SD700's 4X zoom and image stabilization.

On the SD700, 6MP is plent of resolution and should not stop anyone from buying it. The image stabilization claims to take the shake out of the picture when you are using the digital zoom and reaching way out there. I have an Olympus C-2100 with a combined 27X zoom and the stabilization works great. However, I have read articles that some cameras stabilization don't do much of anything. You would have to check it out for this particular camera.

- Collapse -
Olympus C-2100
by snapshot2 Forum moderator Apr 14, 2006 7:11AM PDT

Olympus C-2100
Better known as the UZi.

It came out in the year 2000.
One of the truly great digital cameras.

I wonder why Olympus does not currently offer a long lens camera with image stabilization.
The C-2100 proves that they know how to build one.

...
..
.

- Collapse -
sd5500 vs sd700
by ntwrk Apr 15, 2006 7:28AM PDT

There is only one conceivable reason to even consider the 5500 over the 700, and that is if you use it for poster-size printing where the exta megapixel could make a difference. otherwise there are 3 reasons to go with the sd700, any one of which, alone would be determinative, but together it's a no-brainer: (1) 4x optical vs 3x. Big difference that will be notceable. (2) image stabilization. One of the biggest limitations of pocket-sizers until now, and this feauture will save a lot of shots, esp. low light. (3) and probably the biggest reason, which you don't even mention, is the size of the aperture. look at the 5500 next to the 700, and then ask yourself what a difference that could make in the quality of the photo/print. bottom line. 55oo was the best in its class, but the advances in this model are way too good to pass up. (i think price of 5500's will drop very fast becasaue of dramatic improvements in this camera.)

- Collapse -
Up on Dell.com
by eaadams Apr 17, 2006 7:26AM PDT

Dell.com now has the SD700 for sale. So there is no excuse for reviews not to start showing up. If they don?t start showing up then there is a reason. I never buy something until I see a review and the best products usually have reviews up right when they go on sale and the NDA's expire.

- Collapse -
eaadams is right
by ntwrk Apr 17, 2006 1:31PM PDT

there is something strange about the sd700 release. onlydell and one other internet retailer have it. that could mean a lot of hings, but certainly would be wise to see if the delay is becasue of a problem. but still, the features of this camera are revolutionary for this size, so it's worth holding off on anything else while this unfolds.

- Collapse -
Canon SD700
by taboma Apr 17, 2006 2:36PM PDT

Joe, what is the SD700 all about?
I can google it, but prefer your input.

-Kevin

- Collapse -
SD700
by snapshot2 Forum moderator Apr 18, 2006 12:19AM PDT

This is a mystery here.
The SD600 seems to be the same as the SD700 except for the lack of 4X lens and Image Stabilization.
And both camera seem to fit somewhere between the SD450 and the SD550.

But Canon's model numbering system goes askew quite often.

The SD700 Image Stabilization is probably an effort to get better low light performance, along with the ISO800. But the reviews of the new "A" series of cameras with ISO800, indicate that 800 is quite noisy.

I would like to see some sample photos from the 4X lens on the SD700.

Most of the camera companies are trying to improve the low light performance of their small cameras.
They are playing catch-up to the Fujifilm fifth generation low noise sensor.

Sony is the biggest supplier of quality sensors, and they need a breakthrough in noise reduction.

...
..
.

- Collapse -
Thanks for the input.
by lettie1 Apr 18, 2006 12:38AM PDT

Cheers guys (and/or girls),

I'd like to thank everyone for their advice. I'd neglected to mention that I currently have an IXUS 4mp (which was has been an awesome camera - and it just goes to show that return customers still exist) and still works fine but was looking to upgrade predominantly to get a few extra megapixels and had picked the arbitrary figure of 7 as making it worth the upgrade, hence my questions about 6 or 7mp. Whilst I don't normally print much in the way of poster size photo's I do often find myself taking photo's from a great distance and like to crop them significantly (no i'm not paparrazi or a peeping tom Happy and the 7mp affords me a decent image still. Of course the 4x zoom is going to help in this department, and from most opinions it appears that the SD700 is worth a serious look.

So I guess that as the 4mp is still doing it's thing, and my old SLR is still around (although I find I never have it in my pocket when I do need to take a photo Happy, and I'm not in desperate need of a new camera, I can afford to wait out and see how the SD700 turns out.

Cheers for all of your help - I'll be watching this board to see what other great stuff people input.

Growler

- Collapse -
What's about Video?
by SamDovels May 4, 2006 8:56AM PDT

Have someone tested the video? Is it still the uncompressed AVI format as other canon cameras? Why most other cameras are MPEG-4 compressed (or QuickTime for Kodak) which lets you capture a 1-hour high quality clip on a 1 GB card, and only Canon still have the uncompressed format which lets you capture just about 8 minutes on a 1 GB card? And that's while Canon knows how to do it, they are the same people producing camcorders, aren't they?

And when will the optical zoom be available to use during video recording as other cameras does?

And the 2.5" LCD offer just 175,000 pixels (still better than the 118,000 of the prior SD digital elph cameras), and is falling short of other hi-resolution LCD's which offer 230,000 pixels, as Kodak, Sony, and maybe Pentax, and some other.

The controls are very small and tiny, uncomfortable to use even with small hands, leave alone bigger fingers. I think the Casio Exilim line controls are much better than Canon.

The new released Casio Exilim EX-Z850 have many improvements over the Canon SD700, examples include: 8.1 MP, 8x digital zoom (although, Canon's 4x optical zoom is recommended over the 8x digital); it's much faster; almost double battery life; super flash which is adjustable; ISO 1600; White beam which helps in low light conditions both for no-flash shots and video recording; better controls during video playback (zooming is enabled, and you have a bar while playing, similar to WMP); video format is compressed, and more.

Canon: it's time for you to take note, and start copying more stuff from other cameras!

- Collapse -
um how do you know?
by eaadams May 4, 2006 3:23PM PDT

Wow, I'd love to know how you know so much about the 700's performnce when no one has reviewed one yet.

Also just reading stats is not enough. We need a good comparison done. But digital camera reviews seem to be few and far between.

Back to Cameras forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info