I have always liked Canon Digital Elph cameras. I liked the 5-Megapixel SD450 and the 7.1-Megapixel SD550. The SD450 was smaller and I liked the way it looked better than the SD550. Now I bought the 6-Megapixel Canon SD600. It looks as good as the SD450, but has higher resolution and costs about $45 more. Is resolution the only difference between the SD450, SD550 and SD600?

Pictures

The pictures of the Canon PowerShot SD600 as well as sample photos I took using it are available at the address below:

Click here to see the sample photos I took with this Canon SD600 camera and photos of the camera

What Is Canon PowerShot SD600?

The Canon PowerShot SD600 Digital ELPH is a 6-Megapixel super-compact stylish digital camera with metal case, 3x optical zoom (35-105 mm equivalent), large 2.5-inch LCD screen, zooming optical viewfinder, acclaimed fast Canon DiG!C II (DIGIC 2) Image Processor and 9-area smart AiAF auto focus, powered by a compact rechargeable battery. The camera can also record videos at up to 640x480 30 fps.

The camera stores pictures and videos on SD (Secure Digital) or MultiMedia memory cards (16 MB SD supplied) and features fast USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to PC and Mac computers. It also supports direct printing (without computer) with PictBridge compatible printers. The strap, cables, software and rechargeable battery with charger are included.

Getting Started

The SD600 arrived in a box similar to one the other cameras of SD series come in. After the camera arrived, I opened the package eager to see how much different the SD600 is from the SD450 and SD550 (I used both).

The camera looks similar to the SD450 - same square-ish shape with rounded corners and metallic surfaces. I like this look and shape better than that of the SD550 (matte finish and more curvy shape). The SD600 looks cool. It is miniature, looks stylish, feels sturdy and heavy in your hand with its metal case and buttons.

The SD600 looks and feels durable as well. It has a retractable lens that extends and has a lens cover that opens when the camera is powered on. When the camera is powered off, the lens retracts and the lens cover closes.

The camera has an on/off button on the top deck as well as a zoom rocker and a large shutter release button. The bottom of the camera has a metal threaded tripod mount and a battery and SD card compartment lid. The lid is made of plastic but the outer surface looks like metal.

The rear panel has a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, an optical zooming viewfinder, control buttons and menu controls with a select button in the middle of it. There is also a sliding switch between review, movie and still picture taking modes. This sliding switch has well-calibrated effort - not too flimsy yet not too stiff. The side has a small cover, underneath which you can find a USB jack, A/V jack and a DC power input jack.

I was eager to try the camera without waiting to charge the battery. Fortunately, the battery had some charge in it upon arrival. The battery is a compact proprietary Li-Ion type that looks like a cell phone battery. After I inserted it and my SD card into the battery/memory compartment, I was ready to shoot.

Usage

The SD600 is very easy to use. The menus and icons are slightly more descriptive than that of the previous Digital Elphs like SD400 or SD300 due to more available space on the screen (2.5-inch vs. 2-inch). For example, the pictogram that shows mountains now says Infinity underneath to tell you that in this mode the focus is fixed on infinity. The SD600 uses the latest Digic 2 processor by Canon that provides responsive operation and low power consumption.

If you have used a Canon camera before, you will be able to use the SD600 in no time. I have not read the manual (I have not even opened it), but was able to use the camera and all its features in no time. The SD600 can be used by any member of the family and by photographers of all levels of expertise from novices to advanced ones (albeit it will not give you much control over the shutter speed or aperture; even Manual mode will only allow you to use exposure compensation and that is about it).

The camera is very fast and responsive. The large bright LCD screen shows pictograms of selected modes (e.g. Macro, Flash mode, etc.) appear large and legible on the screen (sometimes with subtitles) and then move to the side of the screen. A very cool and useful feature, especially for people with impaired vision.

The camera comes pre-set to Auto mode, in which you have no need or way to adjust settings. You do not have to do anything other than point and shoot - the camera takes care of the rest. The camera uses 9-area intelligent autofocus. You press the shutter release button halfway to make camera focus and the camera shows you (on the LCD screen) where it focused by displaying one or more green rectangles. Then you take the picture by pressing the shutter release button all the way. In dim conditions, the camera uses its focus-assist light, which is effective in focusing upclose.

In Auto mode, you can select Macro setting, but not the Infinity focus setting. The latter becomes available in Manual mode. Both are accessed by pushing the left arrow button (there are no actual arrows on the menu control ring, but I will use this terminology throughout anyway). Also, the ISO settings (arrow up) can be set to Auto or Auto Hi Sensitivity in Auto mode. In Manual mode, you can select fixed ISO 80, 100 or 200 as well.

In case you want more control, you can select Manual mode, which is not a real manual mode where you would be able to select the shutter speed and aperture, but rather a mode in which you get access to selection of several parameters. In Manual mode, you can set the ISO, white balance (several presets and custom), use exposure compensation to make pictures darker or brighter, use picture effects, color replacement effects, etc.

In addition to fast ISO selection, the camera gives you instant access to the flash mode selection (flash off, red-eye reduction, night portrait, auto flash), macro or infinity mode as well as drive mode (single frame, timer or burst/continuous shooting) at a push of a button: arrow down and arrow right.

More on Features and Controls

The Canon SD600 is very similar to the popular SD450, but has higher image resolution as well as higher-resolution LCD screen and higher-ISO modes. The SD600 has a bright low-light focus assist illuminator that helps it focus in low light.

The camera features selectable Evaluative, Center-Weighted and Spot metering modes. The camera has a built-in flash that is quite powerful or its size and has a red-eye reduction function. It features a shutter speed range of 15-1/1,500 sec and selectable ISO of 80-800 as well as ISO Auto and High ISO Auto.

The camera also has a Macro mode where it can focus as close as 1.2 inches (3 cm) at wide angle or 1 ft (30 cm) at telephoto. The available movie mode records movies with sound (the camera has a microphone and a speaker) at 640x480, 320x240 or 160x120. The 640x480 movie mode is available at up to 30 fps, providing fluid playback.

The camera has an aperture range of f/2.8-5.6 at wide angle, f/4.9-10 at telephoto. It seems that the aperture is a two-step type with no fine control over aperture. The camera doesn't let you control the aperture or the shutter speed directly, but even if you select Infinity mode (the icon looks like mountains) or try shooting in different lighting conditions, you will soon discover that your resultant photos have only one of two aperture values at any given focal length. For example, I only get f/2.8 or f/5.6 at wide angle.

This might explain the fact that there is not indication of the aperture (or shutter speed) on the screen during the shooting or even in review. The camera only shows you a red icon, which serves as a warning that the shutter speed might be too slow and you should use a tripod or place the camera on a stable surface.

Still, it would be rather useful to know the shutter speed when shooting handheld or while shooting fast-moving objects. And it is good to know the aperture while shooting at telephoto to figure out if the background will be blurry.

There are a bunch of scene modes as well, which help the camera tweak the focusing and exposure settings according to the type of scene.

You can use the exposure compensation in the manual mode and it comes in handy in the morning or sunset hours as the camera overexposes the picture trying to preserve the shadow detail. I had to use about -2/3 EV exposure compensation with outdoor photos in the morning.

Build Quality and Ergonomics

The camera has a solid feel and excellent build quality. The camera a bit too small but for its size, but it is convenient to hold and its compact size lets you put it in a jacket pocket or a purse easily. In fact, it is so small, you can put it in a shirt pocket. The major controls are within easy reach and the tactile response is good.

Tripod Mount

The camera has a metal tripod mount. It is useful if you want to take macro pictures or pictures with long exposures (e.g. nighttime). The camera has a timer (2-second or 10-second), which you should use to avoid blurry images when the camera is on the tripod.

The camera has noise reduction that is activated with exposures longer than 1.3 seconds and takes a picture with the shutter closed and then subtracts it from the original picture, thereby eliminating so-called "hot pixels" and reducing noise in long exposures.

Performance

The camera uses the latest version of Canon DiG!C processor - DIGIC II. It is the same processor used in larger Canon digital SLR cameras and it gives this Digital Elph excellent speed. The camera takes less than a second to power itself on in review mode and only about a second or two to power on and extend its lens in shooting mode.

Zooming is reasonably fast, but I wish it was more responsive. You can fully zoom in or out in about 2-3 seconds. I find the 3x optical zoom the camera has sufficient for most situations.

The camera can capture images at about two per second in burst mode (I used a Kingston Elite Pro SD memory card). In single-frame mode, the camera could snap pictures as fast as I could push the shutter release button. The focusing takes less than a second, even in dim lighting, at wide angle. But at telephoto the focusing can take a little more than a second. And in dim light at telephoto, the camera may fail to focus at all. The shutter lag, when pre-focused, is almost unnoticeable.

Battery Life

I have not fully tested the battery consumptions, but after fully charging it, I took more than 70 pictures and the low battery warning has not appeared yet. Canon claims you can take about 160 photos on one battery charge with the LCD on or 600 with LCD off.

LCD and Viewfinder

The camera has a 2.5-inch non-articulated (fixed) LCD screen and an optical zooming viewfinder. The LCD is large, bright, gains-up in the dark (increases brightness) and is fluid. It is very fluid in good light, but not as fluid as the LCD of Nikon P1 or P2. The resolution of the screen of the SD600 is excellent and is better than that of the SD450. And the icons/menus are large, colorful and legible.

The LCD coverage as about 100% - you can see exactly what will be recorded. The viewfinder, however, cover only about 80% of what will be recorded.

Computer Connectivity

The camera uses USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to transfer pictures to a computer. You can also remove the SD memory card and use a memory card reader (if you have one), or use the camera with the USB cable supplied. I did the former.

Flash

The SD600's flash is quite bright for its size. It has a red-eye reduction mode and is sufficient at up to 10-12 feet away. It has a recycle time of about 7-10 seconds. But just as the case with the SD450, the SD600 produces red-eye problems in dimly-lit indoors. You can fix them in Adobe Photoshop or other image editing software later.

Image Quality Settings

The camera lets you select between Super Fine, Fine and Normal compression levels (regardless of resolution). You can detect occasional JPEG artifacts in the mode of highest compression and some fine detail may be lost. But the two lower-compression modes (Fine and Superfine) are rather good.

Color and Picture Effects

You can adjust color saturation by selecting Vivid or Neutral color in addition to the standard setting. In Vivid mode, the saturation is increased and I find that it provides too much saturation. I don't use this mode. In the Neutral mode, the saturation is decreased. I find it useful mainly in the low light conditions to reduce noise and make images more true-to-life.

Also available Black and White, Sepia and Low Sharpening effects. The former two are nothing to write home about - just regular modes that are quite useful if you want to give your photos an old look. The Low Sharpening effect reduces in-camera sharpening and lets you sharpen your photos later, in software (e.g. Photoshop). This gives you more control over sharpening.

White Balance

The camera's automatic white balance is usually quite accurate with the exception of the incandescent lighting, where you are better off either selecting Incandescent white balance setting or using the available manual white balance.

Focusing

You let camera focus using its AiAF 9-area focusing system and the camera will show you green rectangles over the areas where it focused so that you can confirm the focus areas. There is no manual focusing provision.

There are also two special focusing modes, accessible at a push of a button: Macro mode and Infinity (Infinity available in Manual mode).

Image Quality

I usually take photos that contain all primary colors at different focal lengths, apertures and compression ratios. Some photos are taken outdoors, some indoors with and without flash.

Oftentimes, I take a bunch of photos from my balcony. Those photos features all colors: blue sky, green foliage, red curbs, yellow fire hydrant and cars of different colors.

Taking photos at different focal lengths and apertures reveals the camera's optical quality: corner sharpness, chromatic aberrations, overall sharpness.

Taking photos at different ISO settings shows how well a given camera can keep noise levels low in dim light. I mostly evaluate the image quality using my computer monitor, but I also print some photos at different sizes using either my printer or online services like Shutterfly, Snapfish and Sam's Club's online photo center.

The SD600 produces excellent photo with well-exposed, sharp, contrasty and richly-colored images (see the samples). The photos have pleasing "Canon" color with slight oversaturation and nice blue skies - the kind of color consumers like.

The corners of the frame are not as sharp as the center at some focal lengths. This will be mostly unnoticeable in printed pictures since corners normally don't make it to the print due to the aspect ratio difference and other factors. Aside from slightly blurry corners, the photos came out sharp with very pleasing colors.

The image noise is present at ISO 80 in shadows, grows (slightly) at the ISO 100, gets more pronounced at ISO 200 and gets worse at ISO 400. The ISO 800 is even noisier, to a point where I would not consider using it at all. If you are printing 6x4 or 5x7 pictures, the noise should not be visible up to ISO 400. At ISO 80-100, you can print your photos at up to 11x14 inches with good detail and ISO 200 should be good up to 10x8.

Overall, for its size, the camera produces pictures that are the best in class.

Movie Mode

I tried the 640x480 movie mode wt 30 fps. The video was fluid and sharp, although not a replacement for a camcorder.

Wishes

I wish the camera at least displayed shooting parameters (shutter speed and aperture).

Bottom Line

I like the Canon SD600 a lot. It retains the good qualities, looks and size of the SD450, but raises the bar with higher resolution, higher-resolution LCD screen and higher-sensitivity modes. It is compact, nice-looking and capable. Its 6-Megapixel resolution and 2.5-inch LCD screen make it capable and cool. And for its size, it produces best-in-class photos. I highly recommend it.

Recommended
Yes

Product Rating
(Excellent)

This review is also available at Epinions.com: Canon PowerShot Digital ELPH SD600 Digital Camera Review on Epinions.com

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