Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Review

Camera Reviews Canon

Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Camera Experience
While I was in Beijing, I mostly used the Canon SD790 IS for “happy snaps” – spur of the moment, from-the-hip photos on the Olympics shuttle buses and in the media centers. The SD790 IS is slim, light, fits nicely into my pocket and turns on quickly. There’s a bit of focus and shutter-lag but most people won’t notice and you learn to compensate for it, anyway. The battery lasted quite some time. Over about three weeks I took somewhere between 400 and 500 images and the battery lost only one of the three bars.

Nhat Meyer in Beijing

The overall performance and design of the SD790 IS is so good that the inappropriately named “Control Dial” seems really out of place. The Control Dial acts as a button if pushed up, down, left or right. Unfortunately, it also spins. I say “unfortunately” because there is no lock on the dial. It’s super easy to accidentally spin it, and that drove me nuts. I’d be shooting in one mode, put the camera down, and when I picked it up again my thumb would brush the dial and I’d unwittingly change the shooting mode. When you’re shooting a movie the standard video resolution is just one little spin of the dial from the tiny e-mail video size. Accidentally rotate the Control Dial and your video isn’t even fit for YouTube. Similarly, when you’re using a scene mode you really have to watch your thumb to make sure you don’t spin the dial and accidentally shoot your kid’s whole birthday party in the Underwater mode.

Even though I carry top-of-the-line digital SLR equipment, there’s no replacement for the inconspicuous speed and convenience of a good pocket point-and-shoot camera. My experience with the PowerShot SD790 IS would have been pretty good if it wasn’t for the unpredictable Control Dial.

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