The Good: The Canon SD850IS offers great pictures, 4X optical zoom, and excellent battery life in a very compact package. The image stabilization makes it possible for anyone to get blur-free shots. It is an excellent point-and-shoot camera that is easy to pack around.
- Overall Experience: 10
- Features: 10
- User Friendliness: 9
- Style: 9
- Quality: 8
- Value: 9
- Total: 9.2/10
To see how I rate each category please click Rating Breakdown
In The Box:
Canon SD850IS
Wrist Strap
AC Powered Batter Charger
Audio/Video Cable
CD-ROM with Canon Software
32MB SD Card
Note: At this time I don’t have pictures of the camera. I will post them shortly when I borrow another camera to take the pictures.
Review: This is my third digital camera. The first two served their purpose, and I was able to get pretty good pictures out of them. On the other hand I was constantly frustrated with the amount of time it took to take a picture after turning on the camera and in between pictures. My camera search led me to the Canon SD850IS. It fit my budget and had a lot of features I did not expect to find.
Overall Experience: After I opened the box and let the battery fully charged it did not take long to find myself taking great pictures. I mostly use the auto mode because it seems to work for almost all situations. I have tinkered with the scene modes, and except for the “fun” modes I don’t see much improvement over the auto mode in the camera. I like using with the macro mode, since I can get unbelievable levels of detail from close-up objects. The camera takes pictures quickly, and there is a much faster flash recycle time than I am used to. That means I can turn the camera on and take a picture in about a second; much faster than my last two cameras. The only real downsides are that, as with many point-and-shoot cameras, the flash can only reach so far, so indoor shots can be tricky, and it tends to create red eyes. This can be corrected using the redeye correction in the camera itself.
I have no regrets from purchasing this camera. Although I would love to have an SLR to have a fully functional manual camera, that isn’t the purpose of this camera, so I consider it an excellent point-and-shoot camera for anyone. I give it a perfect score for overall experience because the few shortcomings are easily overshadowed by the feature set and usability.
Features: The feature that was really the selling point for me was the optical image stabilization. I was able to test a display model before purchasing, and even while shaking my hands up and down I took a clear picture. It was enough to convince my wife in an instant. Now that I own the camera I am no less impressed. It takes clear pictures almost every time.
Another feature that is new to many digital cameras is Face Recognition. This camera does a good job of identifying faces and focusing on them. It will focus on several faces at once as long as the faces are looking at the camera.
This Camera has a nice big 2.5” high resolution LCD on the back, and also a small optical viewfinder, although the viewfinder is essentially “for emergency use” since it is very small and difficult to see through. The high resolution of the LCD was one of the selling points that attracted me to the camera in the first place. Another feature I like is the 4X optical zoom, a bit more than the 3X that seems to be the standard for compact point-and-shoot cameras.
The Canon features a proprietary rechargeable battery. It is a high quality lithium battery that Canon says will get 230 shots with the LCD on. I think this is pretty accurate as I seem to be getting over 200 shots including shots with and without flash.
User-Friendliness: Using the SD850 is pretty straight forward, and should be easy for anyone to pick up quickly. The on/off switch is located just above the LCD to the right of the viewfinder. There are 4 basic shooting categories; Auto, Manual, Scene, and Video. They are accessed with a small selector wheel found at the top right on the back of the camera. The top position is the playback for pictures and videos stored on the memory card (the camera has no built in memory, and the included 32MB card will only take about 3 pictures, so plan on getting a card that is at least 1GB. My 2 GB card will hold about 560 of the largest, finest quality pictures).
The menus and functions are relatively easy to find using the various buttons and directional pad. One cool feature of the directional pad is that if you press it lightly, it will show you on the LCD screen what would happen if you press it all the way down. The zoom ring, which is wrapped around the shutter button is easy to use and has a nice feel.
The camera has many modes and features. Since I don’t have room to write about them all I will direct you to Canon’s Website
Style: Overall I like the design of the Canon SD850 IS. It isn’t flashy or colorful, but it looks nice and fits nicely in my hands. People with large fingers may find some of the controls hard to get used to, but I think anyone could use this camera. One of the most important style elements to me is the large LCD screen. No more squinting to see if I got everyone in the picture. I like the directional pad, and from a purely “looks” standpoint I like the look of the lens with the chrome bezel.
Quality: The SD850 would have scored higher in quality except for one problem area. The mode selection wheel on the side is very cheap feeling. It is obviously made of a cheap plastic. I don’t think it will break or wear out, but for a camera of this price I would expect it to be a bit nicer. The icons on the wheel quite line up to their corresponding arrow. A minor annoyance, but definitely a quality issue.
Value: Canon lists the SD 850IS with an MSRP of $299.00. It can be found for less than that. I got mine for $245.00 plus shipping. For an excellent camera, that anyone can get great shots from, I consider it to be an excellent value.
Final Thoughts: The Canon SD850IS is a great camera to pack around. I haven't had to worry about the batteries dying or whether I am getting good shots. I can just turn it on and take the picture knowing it will turn out fine. I would recommend this camera without hesitation.
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