Canon PowerShot SD780IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-inch LCD (Silver)

I consider myself an amateur photographer, and would probably be willing to spend more hours looking for the 'right' equipment than doing my homework. Now, that was the case when I purchased this little toy. I had a Nikon D40 dSLR (one of the big cameras), and I was looking for something smaller that I could carry around everywhere. Particularly, I needed something to take on my trip to Japan. I spent days reading reviews and testing products at stores, and finally decided on this camera. I narrowed down my choices to Canon cameras, because although I love Nikon cameras and dSLRs, I think that when it comes down to point-and-shoot cameras (small, easy to use cameras) Canon cameras are simply the best. I've never been disappointed by one of these. Among 10 different Canon models it was difficult to choose, but what finally made me decide on this one was the size and ability to record HD video. I watched on YouTube some of the sample videos (which you can find just by typing the camera model) and the HD was amazing, even in such a small camera! The resolution is great, and the picture quality simply great. 12MP of image resolution means more to love and more flexibility to crop when editing (it also means you should get an SD card with a couple of GB's) I got the camera with an 8GB card and I can take thousands of pictures at maximum resolution, or record over 45 minutes of video in one clip if I want to do so. This camera's pictures rival my Nikon dSLR pictures, and the flexibility the camera gives you in manual mode is great. I mostly use it in automatic modes, and it works perfect. If you are looking for a 'photographer' camera, then I'd still go for a Nikon D40 or something similar, since you can shoot in RAW format which is very valuable for heavy editing. But if you just want to capture easily all the beautiful things around you, and videos of your family/friends or you enjoying your days, this camera is perfect for all of it. One more note, the camera feels great in my hands and it's very easy to use. I was quite familiar with the Canon menus, so it might have been easier for me to use it, but I'm sure you can learn fast how to master this camera. Ask any questions you may have. :)

I have been using the Canon PowerShot SD line since SD300. Had experienced through so many of them already. I was never amazed by the photo quality of the SD lines but this camera has surpassed my expectations. I normally shoot with a Canon Rebel XT - 350D, with several lenses including a 28-75mm f/2.8 and a 10-22mm wide lens. Whenever I shoot photos indoors during dinner with my SLR, people are amazed that I do not need to use the flash. Well this SD780 is absolutely THAT. I was shooting photos in doors without flash on AUTO mode and it was capturing perfectly sharp images! I think the smartness of the camera's auto ISO selection along with the amazing canon line's Imagine Stablization - IS - really helped. The size of the camera is small, like a credit card. Anyone can easily drop it in their shirt pocket, and especially the girls out there with super tight jeans, I'm sure this can be dropped into your back pocket as well. It's extremely light!!! Modes - I remember when I first used night mode in the SD400, I really loved how the photos turned out. The idea behind night mode is that it'll use the flash to capture the foreground(subject) and also extend the shutter to allow the background capture. This method generated beautiful imagery with night shots! It's too bad there's no more shutter control on this camera because I was trying to shoot an outdoor photo at night, with no flash, but I wanted to make sure to capture the beautiful architectural lights in the background. I couldn't figure it out within the 15 secs I had so I gave up. I'm fairly familiar with the SD line's menus so I didn't bother reading the manual. Videos - 720p movies in .mov format. What more can i say? I think a 2min video came out to about 350-400mb large. So if you're planning to capture some videos, make sure you have a large capacity SDHC card. I usually don't shoot videos, especially since there's no video function on my SLR, but man was it fun to capture the moment with the dialogues and just facial expressions that cannot be captured with a photograph. I was debating between SD780 vs SD940 vs SD1400 since they're successors of each other. I knew the SD1400's shape was no longer like the small footprint of the SD780, but the latter two offered a 2.7" screen instead! A second consideration was the wide angle ability of SD940 and SD1400. Truthfully, this camera was for my gf, whom doesn't know much about photography. Whenever I ask her to take a pic with my SLR, it is always an epic fail. So I knew when she turns on the camera, if it defaults to wide angle, all her photos would look funky. So I knew a traditional 28mm equivalent would be best for an amateur shooter. Honestly wide angle is fun for architectural photography like indoor and buildings. Otherwise, wide angle really distorts the way people look in images. Wide angle is fun, but it wont be a photo I'd print out for frames. Anyways, I'm not a good writer, paragraph structure and grammars are bound to be wrong here. Just know this is A GOOD CAMERA and why it won so many editor's choice awards and why there's HUNDREDS of amazon reviews already raving about it. You can't get a better camera than this for one hundred and eighty dollars with a free 4gb SDHC class6 card!

Hi All, I love taking pictures, and I'm pretty good at it. Before I bought this camera, I had the previous version -very wonderful. I loved everything about it. It made great photos. Then in December I decided it was time to try the new generation, which to me sounded like it would be even better than the one I had. I was so excited! Well... I've really tried to love my new camera. Really. But nope, the love connection is just not gonna happen. The quality of the pictures is not good at all. The quality of the video is ok, but there is a lot of noise. What I hate the most about it, is that I have no control in the automatic mode. I know, it's automatic, d'uh, but sometimes I don't want to mess around with the white balance and such, so I enjoy just taking my camera out and taking an "easy" picture in automatic mode. This won't happen with this one. I love taking macro pics, and it just won't work well in the automatic mode with this camera. I missed so so so many good shots just because the camera couldn't figure out that I wanted to take a macro picture. It's so frustrating when that happens! The manual mode sucks too. Even after setting the colors, it looks crappy. Anyway, I feel like I'm talking too much now and I should probably get to the point... My point is: if you like the previous version, keep it! Or, if you don't care about taking nice pictures and just want to take "so so" pictures, buy it!. But for people who enjoy nice and good quality shots, this is not the camera for you. Now I'm trying to sell it so I can get another camera...! It even makes me feel bad that someone is going to buy it! Hope this helps!

PROS: Easy to use, Simple controls/menu, Nice features/settings, Bright LCD, Excellent image quality, Lightweight/Portable, compact volume CONS: Poor Low-Light Performance, some noise in low light, tiny viewfinder, mini-HDMI to HDMI cable not included, SD/SDHC storage card not included Amazon has the best price at under 250 bucks. Most sites are charging full retail since this camera is so popular. High Definition video is very good at 720p. This will not replace a full size camera or the 5D Mark II for video quality. But, it is a lot better than most including the original Flip video camera. An HDMI cable IS NOT INCLUDED with the camera. You will need it to watch HD video directly from the camera on an HDTV. I bought a 3 ft miniHDMI-to-HDMI cable online from Monoprice for 8 bucks including USPS first class shipping. They have quality cables for the lowest price on the Monoprice site. UPDATE: I am very happy with the mini-HDMI to HDMI cables. They were so inexpensive that I bought 2 of these at 3ft long: one for the iMac, the other is for my travel bag. I bought a 6ft mini-HDMI to HDMI cable for the HDTV in the first floor family room. I should have gotten a longer cable since you have to control the video start/stop/next buttons on the camera. You have to get up often to start the next movie clip. I also bought a small 1x3/4inch miniHDMI to HDMI adapter to carry everywhere I take the camera which is everywhere! UPDATE: The small cover that protects the miniHDMI and USB ports feels a little flimsy. The hinge stretches. I have to force it slightly beyond my comfort to insert cables. I can see this covering breaking off with a lot of use. An SD storage card IS NOT INCLUDED. They are available at low cost, under 15 bucks, on the net. Check the Dealnews site for the latest sales. I used a 4GB SD high capacity (SDHC) card which will hold about 30mins of video. Some complain 2.5inch is too small for the LCD. There is no place to put a larger 3inch LCD on this camera without making it a touch screen like the iPhone or increasing the camera size. Plus, 2.5 inch is common on a lot of cameras. I have no problems with it. TINY VIEW FINDER: It was hard peering through the small hole. I mainly use the LCD screen about 95% of the time. So, NOT A PROBLEM. Got this camera to try out the 720p HD, face/blink detection and other features. They all worked great. I was surprised by the small size since I only saw this camera online and never tried it out at a store. It is slightly smaller than my average size business card and about as thin as a new deck of playing cards. I'm female, but, I never bought an ELPH-size Canon camera because they seemed too small. I was concerned I would not be able to comfortably operate the buttons or it would slip out of my hands. I don't have that fear with the SD780. The brushed metal finish provides some friction. The buttons are placed well. Also, the wrist strap is always available as protection against dropping the camera. SMART AUTO feature is great! I use it often to take closeup (macro) shots or when I don't have time to adjust the settings. I hold the camera about 4 inches from an object and the camera self adjusts the settings. It amazing to watch it work. I partially press the shutter button to see where the camera is focused and move it to focus on my area of interest. The camera selects of the pre-programmed 18 modes to find the one that creates the best image. As many stated, the images are superb thanks to the 12.1 mega pixel resolution, Digic 4, and the image stabilizer (IS) function. You should not live without IS unless you are into the artsy blurry pictures. It takes great pictures of kids who don't sit still. Great if you don't have steady hands. Images are crisp, clear and can be easily seen in the beautiful 2.5inch LCD. I noticed the noise in some of the photos. Did not have too much problems with it. The 3X optical is fine. Best for the photographer to move in or out to zoom/out on the subject matter and not worry about the camera lens zoom when just taking photos. Zooming during filming would be better. Hopefully, Canon adds this feature to future powershot ELPH models. Overall, a great camera that is thin enough to hide in a small purse or pocket yet still deliver superb photos for it's size! (I have owned 7 Canon cameras including 5 digital cameras. I have used this camera for about 1 week.)

I really love this camera, when they say its "small", they're not joking! The modes set with the camera are somewhat easy, you need to play with it for a while to get the hang of it. You can record and take phots in black and white, vivid, etc. which is really cool. It also has the color accent feature which is really nice too. As for the picture quality, I find that its not as good as my previous camera but the video quality makes up for it. It is true HD and it looks amazing. As for the ease of editing for Youtube can be a real HASSALE!!! For one thing you have to convert the video to be able to even edit it. I use Windows Movie Maker and the files have to be converted to AVI. or WMV which lessens the quality of the video. So if you like editing your videos on a PC and want HD video, this is not your camera. But APPLE computers take the file and you can edit it with more ease. Also the image stabilizer does not really work unless you zooming in on something. I do makeup videos on Youtube and want to show the small writing on a product but it ends up looking blurry. But overall its a nice camera to have. But if your looking for just a video recorder and no picture taking I suggest getting a camcorder. I really wish I had gone that route but hey im happy with it! Hope this helps!!

I wanted a camera that I could carry in my pocket to shoot HD video of my daughter's graduation. I looked at those pocket camcorders, but when I found I could get a tiny Canon that would shoot HD video and was also a regular camera, that sounded more versatile to me. I have owned several Canon digital cameras before, and have always been happy with them. After reading reviews of this one, I had two concerns: Would it be so small that it would hard to operate with my average-sized male fingers, and would such a small device have adequate image quality? After using it at the aforementioned graduation, I am happy to say that neither one of those concerns was a problem. It has a quality feel and is VERY small, actually a bit shorter than my iPhone 3G, about the same width, and only a little bit thicker. But it is very easy to operate. It fits easily and comfortably in both my pants pocket and shirt pocket, but I bought a small cellphone case that fits it very nicely, so I can also clip it to my belt. I have a couple of suggestions for anyone who might want to use this camera for video: First, I wasn't sure how much memory card capacity I would need, so I went ahead and bought 2 16G SDHC cards. Good move! I filled the first one up before the end of the ceremony, and was able to quickly swap in the second one. The thing I didn't consider, though, was battery life. I got a low battery warning even before I filled up the first memory card. Fortunately, there were two parts to the ceremony, and during the break I was able to find an outlet to charge up the battery. In general, I like the small rechargeable battery that comes with its own charger, but it would be good to have a second charged battery on hand. Another idea I had was to screw a mini tripod into the bottom to use as a handle. That worked out very well. It made it easier to shoot over the heads of the people in front of me, and was probably more comfortable too. In summary, I'm completely satisfied with this camera. The image quality is more than adequate for my needs, and I love the small size.

I'm not a photographer--but I LOVE this camera. I have been using it a lot everyday since January 2010... When I first received the package I opened the box and when I saw this camera I was disappointed--it was so small not what I hoped. I thought--this is going back!! But I really wanted and needed the camera so I decided to play. I am so glad I did. I began to take images and was amazed. When I loaded the images onto the computer I was in awe!! The images were stunning, and wonderful. Since opening the box--I use this camera everyday in the classroom and the images are striking. I truly capture the work in my classroom. I love the continuous shots--it just keeps going as long as I hold it down! My classroom assistant uses a small Pentax and can only get 5 images continuously vs my unlimited. Outside the classroom the images captured just take your breath--I love flowers and nature and the macro images are stunning! The camera captures every small detail--even water and dew drops. The images of flowers and nature is beautiful. Although I'm not a professional photographer this camera makes me feel like one by the quality of images that I take. Our Studio teacher has a high end Canon and the images I am able to get rivals that camera. There are lots of options and settings that one can use--I'm able to capture good shots even in low lighted areas... I do love the small size--for travel you can take this small camera knowing you are going to get awesome shots! Why lug a huge camera around. Cons: which really isn't a con but really a recommendation--because you are going to love the quality and taking images--I would HIGHLY recommend--a 16 GB memory card and an additional battery. Video--this really eats into your battery life--the video is good use it when in a pinch but I have a Sanyo that I use for video shooting. My two teaching assistants ---are in love with this camera as well and are going to get one asap now that the price dropped--parents love the images of their children from this camera and some are going to purchase this camera as well. As the saying goes--good things come in small packages--I say awesome things come in small packages when it comes to this small camera--don't let the size deceive you. Bought this through Amazon as a present to myself--amazed at the speed of delivery--love that the ship free to anywhere with a purchase over $50. I'm very satisfied and pleased!

Some background so you know where this review is coming from... I'm a semi-pro photographer, which means I've sold some work (mainly those kind of high-end greeting cards you buy that come wrapped in individual cellophane, "nature" images..) but don't make enough money off it to quit my day job. I've been through many cameras in my life. In film, started with Canon SLR's (AE-1, then A-1), switched to Nikon 20 years ago (FM2, multiple N8008 bodies), have also owned medium format (Rolleicord, Yashica, Mamiya 645..) Current outfit is much simplified - a Nikon D80 digital SLR with a bunch of lenses... Have also owned lots of digital point and shoots - from the Sony Mavica (remember saving to floppy disc?) through some Sonys and Canons. My latest Canon point-and-shoot (the one my wife uses) died recently, and since we live near the beach and have a pool (and three small children who shoot pictures) I thought I'd get something waterproof as well as small. Did not want to spend a lot of money on that - I have enough money in cameras, thank you very much - and it looked like a Pentax WS80 fit the bill. Oops. Although the Pentax seems like it might be a good camera for some people, for me picture quality is paramount. If the camera doesn't take good pictures, you might as well not take them. Pentax did a good job with exposure (with and without flash) but despite the megapixel count the final image was always "noisy" - a grainy-looking effect, noticeable without an extreme amount of magnification. I tested this under every condition I could think of - bright sunlight, shade, indoors with flash, and with the camera at every setting (ISO and picture size) that I could think of. Same result. I've reviewed that camera on it's own page, but to move on... After giving up on the idea of getting an underwater camera that produced acceptable pictures for not a lot of money, I did quite a bit of research and ended up back with Canon. I love the picture quality - it seems to match my Nikon D80 under most normal lighting conditions and situations. The HD video is not quite as good as my dedicated HD camcorder (a Sanyo) but it's still WAY better than the video my old Canon point and shoot made, and this camera doesn't have the stupid 30 second limit that the old one had. Shutter lag is great also - we have three kids under 10 and that's always been a key feature for me. Not so sure about the red color, but that's my wife's choice, and she's the one who carries this one... Hope this is useful in some way to someone!