Blog

It’s a new camera by Canon named Powershot SD 1300 with 12 megapixels,4x optical zoom,Optical image stabilization 2.7-inch LCD monitor,Video mode,Captures to SD/SDHC memory cards,Rechargeable lithium-ion battery….

The Canon Powershot SD1300IS is already a big hit among the point-and-shoot camera community. It has received some overwhelming reviews on Amazon.

The Powershot SD1300IS is available for a price of $180. This is slightly more expensive than other cameras with similar capabilities but the SD1300IS is still a solid choice for various reasons.

Extended zooms, indestructible casings, and new mirrorless formats are all exciting, of course. But the new camera I’ve been most excited to get my mitts on this season is the Canon Powershot SD1300 IS (known as the IXUS 105 in some regions). It’s a simple $200 ultra compact with no headline grabbing features or outwardly distinguishing characteristics. Why do I care so much?

Because you, dear reader, voted with your clicks and made it known that cameras like this one appeal to a huge amount of people. Its predecessor, the SD1200, has been the most popular camera on Digital Camera HQ for the past year by a wide margin. It’s cheap, it fits in your pocket, it has the Canon name, and most importantly, it takes great snapshots. Casual snap-shooters are happy with it as their primary camera, serious hobbyists often keep it as a pocket-sized backup.

One big difference between the SD1200 and SD1300 is the viewfinder. the SD1300 has no viewfinder but this is compensated with a 2.7 inch LCD screen. You no longer have to squint as hard to view the photos you have taken in the past.

Even at first glance, it’s obvious that the SD1300 comes from the SD series design tradition: small, minimalist, classy. The body is almost exactly the size of a credit card, except, you know, about 0.8 inches thick. It’s far from the smallest camera that I’ve ever seen, but fits easily into any pocket in my wardrobe. The shell is primarily plastic, but it weighs enough to feel well-built.

The button layout on the back is intuitive and should be familiar to Canon users: A directional pad, function button at the center, menu, display, and a dedicated playback button. My favorite touch is the three-way switch in the upper-right corner, allowing for quick changes between Auto, Manual, and Video modes. Up top, the chrome shutter works like a shutter should. The zoom tilter is elegantly and ergonomically integrated into the base of the shutter.

One complaint: In what I (and I’m sure many others) consider a downgrade from the SD1200, the SD1300 lacks an optical viewfinder. Few compacts are still equipped with viewfinders, which is a shame, but the SD1200 stood out even more from the pocket-sized pack because of that — more on this later, though. At least the 2.7-inch LCD is quite good. It’s clear and vibrant in good lighting conditions, and mostly visible in ridiculously bright ones — not up to the level of OLEDs I’ve seen, but much better than the cheap screens on some lesser brands.

The Smart Auto mode is quite intelligent, as always, and churns out a sharp picture about 9 times out of ten. This is a camera that you can point and shoot without thinking twice, and still come away with a stellar snapshot. Canon nailed this feature on the SD series a few generations ago, and little has changed.

Manual controls are on-point for a semi-serious point-and-shoot — nimble, but not fully adjustable. ISO ranges from 80-1600, several white balance settings are on offer, as are a number of color filters, exposure compensation settings, light metering techniques, as well as macro, normal, and infinity focus settings. Auto exposure and flash exposure can be locked as well. So as strong as Auto mode is, there’s room for experimentation if you’re feeling inspired

Image quality is superb for this class of camera. Shots are quite crisp and noise-free up to ISO 400 (and not awful up at 1600, though not very pretty either). Color reproduction is life-like, maybe a bit blue-tinted. There are a few color settings to experiment with, including Vivid or Neutral modes, as well as sepia and black and white filters. Full-zoom shots (well, it is just a 4x zoom lens) are almost always sharp and focused as well, proof that the image stabilization is doing its job

When I sat down to compare its specs to the SD1200, I found that the two models are barely distinguishable from each other. The SD1300 has a wider-angle lens and a longer zoom (4x vs. 3x), cool with me; a higher resolution, which is nothing but a stat for the marketing sheet, one that I do not consider an improvement; and, in a disappointing step backward that I mentioned above, no optical viewfinder. The SD1200 is one of the few ultra compacts left with a viewfinder, but the SD1300 is just another LCD-only model,

The last section probably came across as hard on the camera so let me be clear: The SD1300 is an excellent pocket-sized camera with which anyone, regardless of experience or know-how, can take sharp, vibrant snapshots. The image quality is great for the cost, the interface is, as always, intuitive and painless, and it even has enough horsepower for some photographic experimentation. But rather than the step forward that we saw from the SD1100 to the SD1200, we’re getting a step sideways. Had Canon named it something else and kept the old price point, I wouldn’t be complaining. It will still turn out to be one of the best point-and-shoots for under $200 this year, but if I had to spend my money on one, I’d wait a few months for the price to drop.