Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Features
The Canon PowerShot SD790 IS is a pretty standard point-and-shoot as far as features go. The 3x (35-105mm equivalent) zoom range is pretty good and there’s a macro setting that will allow you to shoot as close as 1.2 inches. Optical image stabilization helps keep things sharp. The SD790 IS has no optical viewfinder, but with the large 3-inch LCD, I didn’t really miss having one.
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The SD790′s Special Scene menu (SCN) has 12 modes, including normal stuff like portrait, kids and pets, and snow. It also has some more interesting options like foliage, aquarium and ISO 3200. The auto focus options are Face Detect, AiAF, and Center. AiAF detects the subject for the photographer and selects the best AF point for focusing. Face Detect is the default auto focus setting for the SD790 IS. It automatically detects faces in a scene and adjusts focus, exposure, and white balance for best results. The camera’s sensitivity range is ISO 80 to 1600, with a Special Scene mode for ISO 3200. There are also Auto ISO and Hi ISO settings. The Hi ISO setting will select an ISO that will help freeze action. For best image quality, I wouldn’t recommend going past ISO 400 or 800, but the option is there if you really need it.
Point-and-shoot digital camera video quality just keeps getting better and better. The PowerShot SD790 IS can capture 640 x 480 video at 30 frames-per-second and unlike many compact cameras you can zoom in and out while in video mode. The 640×480 resolution is definitely big enough for the web, but it doesn’t compete with some newer cameras that can shoot 720p or 1080p HD video. One minute of high quality video takes up approximately 125 MB of space on the memory card so a high-capacity SDHC memory card is a good idea if you plan to shoot a lot of video.
Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Design
The all-metal Canon PowerShot SD790 IS is a great looking camera – elegant and modern with clean, angular lines. The On/Off button is well-placed and the shutter release and zoom lever are in the standard Canon PowerShot position. There’s a switch on the top right of the camera back to toggle between video, scene modes, and normal still photography. The rest of the controls are a departure from previous Canon SD digital cameras. On the back of the camera are four dedicated buttons for playback, printing, display, and menu access. Actually, buttons isn’t quite the right word. They’re really cutouts in the metal that act as buttons. They look awkward but they actually have a nice positive feel and are easy to find without looking. The Control Dial on the back of the camera serves double-duty. It has dedicated buttons –top, bottom, left, and right — as well as to accessing shooting modes when you rotate it. Unfortunately, the Control Dial did not work well for me and really colored my whole experience with the camera. But I’ll talk more about that in the next section.
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| Canon PowerShot SD790 IS back controls & lens | ||
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this camera is great i love it so much. thxs god for making the people who invented it.
This camera is a great disappointment. It is impossible to take beach pics. in sunlight due to the funky viewfinder. It is also very noisy and inconvenient taking nature shots. it was purchased by my wife for a B-Day present and I am not willing to disappoint her by returning it. Also, I don’t need the video cam function, play it to your TV function, record sound function. This is NOT a worthwhile tool for what I’d like to do.