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Canon PowerShot S400 4MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

Canon PowerShot S400 4MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

List Price: $449.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Camera!
Review: Only one word to describe this camera:

WOW!

small, efficient, good battery life, easy-to-use...great resolution, good quality of photos in low light...

BUY THIS CAMERA!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A nice but expensive point and shoot electronic camera
Review: Overall, its a very nice camera. It takes very nice pictures.
But for what it does, I don't think it deserves the price tag.

What is missing is:
1. Manual controls. You have some very limited control, but you
cannot set up e.g., shutter speed (in fact, you can set it
to high value, so why wouldn't cannot let you set it up all
the way? strange design).
2. Small lens. The lens is small and does not seem to be of very
high accurracy, especially at the wide angle spectrum. It is
also hard to focus (perhaps since the camera is small).
3. Quality. I have two large flat screens in my work. I have no
bad pixels on them. When CANON says it would not care for
bad pixels if they are less than 0.01%, it means I think two
things: a) this is not the highest quality flat screen that
they could manufacture, and b) that you cannot expect a
really great support. In addition to my bad pixel on the
screen I have a bad pixel on my CCD. Canon's response? No
response. Unfortunately, I'm in the UK right now, and
doubt that my US service would help me.

Conclusion: a nice camera, a nice toy, looks like you can get
much better bang for your buck buying some others.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Near enough perfect
Review: This little Canon is ideal for somebody who likes to let the camera do the work most of the time, but occasionally likes to be a little more creative.
It does a great job left to its own devices, with clever metering and focusing. The manual functions don't stretch to full manual control of aperture and shutter control (aperture priority would've been nice, to avoid - light permitting - the extreme differential focus effect you tend to get on close-ups,), but you do get control over metering modes, focussing modes, ISO, EV and various flash modes, as well as a 'long shutter' mode that lets you det up to a 15 second exposure and invokes an excellent noise reduction system.
I very much like the way you can adjust most of these directly from a button. It encourages you to be creative. Even when you do have to delve into a menu, it only takes a second. Canon's control system is one of the simplest I've seen, and I've had and used many digital cameras. This is a delight to use.
It's nice to hold too, and has a big fat shutter button that you can't miss, even with big fingers. It reacts almost instantly if you pre-focus.
The display is not the biggest around, but it's fast and clear, and even fairly usable in sunlight. All the indicators are clear and easy to see. The optical viewfinder is pretty good too, for such a small camera, despite the lack of parallax-correction marks.
The zoom control is a little bit hit-and-miss though, and you find yourself going beyond the point you intended before it reacts properly.
The pictures it takes are the most important thing though, and it's nice to see that the lens is up to the challenge of the 4.0 megapixel CCD. That high resolution is great because you can crop images quite a lot and still print them or view them at a decent size. The images the Canon takes look at the same time crisp and natural, with little of that 'processed' look I've seen from other digital cameras. If anything, the images start out a little flat, but a tweak of brightness and contrast brings them up to scratch. I'd rather this than get images that can't be tweaked in a photo editor without making them worse.
Battery life seems quite good. The battery didn't last so long the first charge, but now keeps me going for a few days, even though I use the screen all the time and often review photos. There's no battery-level display until the battery gets low, which is slightly unnerving but doesn't really matter. A spare is a good idea.

You can have fun with this camera too. By taking panoramas and stitching them together with the supplied software (works much better than I expected), or by setting the camera up to make different sounds for different functions. You can even record your own sounds using the camera's microphone. Once you start delving into all the things this camera can do, you wonder how on earth they pack it all inside.
What don't I like? Well, to be honest, there's nothing worth mentioning other than the slightly clumsy zoom action. That's how good it is. I've changed cameras a lot over the last few years; it'll take something truly amazing to get me to swap this though.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Wonderful Little Camera
Review: This camera is a joy to use. It is small enough to carry everywhere. It's about the size of a pack of playing cards. Image quality is wonderful. The prints that come straight out of the camera on my Epson 960 inkjet printer are stunning. The white balance adjustment works well and the metering is very accurate. It is a good idea to buy an extra battery as there is no battery meter so you really don't know when you will run out of juice. The battery is small and carrying an extra battery is easy. The optional case is very handy. The camera comes with a wrist strap which is a safe and unobtrusive way to carry this little wonder when you are out and about shooting.

I had been looking for a small camera to take with me everywhere with excellent image quality and now I have it. Canon really did a beautiful job. The camera also feels great in the hand.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Satisfied, great features and easy to use, except...
Review: - No battery indicator until the battery almost run out - missed the pictures of most important moment :(
- Small video screen (max 320x240)
- Easy to get scratched

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CANON S400- Compact, durable, and excellent pics. THE BEST!!
Review: This is the third digital camera that I've owned. I was looking for a camera that was durable, compact, and produced good photos. This camera has far exceeded my expectations. My previous camera (Canon G2) did a great job but since I travel frequently I wanted a camera that was more compact and easier to carry. I "test-drove" the latest cameras from Canon, Casio, Kodak, Konica, Nikon, Olympus, Samsung and Sony. This camera blew all the others out of the water by a mile. My highest recommendation! Fits nicely on my belt, in my compact Targus camera bag, next to my Blackberry and Samsung V205 cellphone. WOW, talk about handy and easy to use!!! You need not look any further that the Canon S440 Elph.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Really Good one
Review: It was a pleasant experience buying this camera (till now). Red-eye reduction really works and the resolution is fantastic, If you are looking for big pictures with better quality this is the one to go, although the movie mode is'nt really interesting, the quality was not upto the mark. after all i did'nt buy this camera to take movies.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great camera in a tiny size-even better than higher model
Review: I like this little digital camera. It does everything a point and shoot digital camera should do and more. For me, a point and shoot camera should be small and light so that it can conveniently go with me everywhere. That's the power of any point and shoot camera actually. It goes with you in your daily life and subsequently you get shots that you could not get with other larger cameras either because it would be too conspicous, or too inconvient to carry with you.

The S400 camera is barely larger or heavier than a pak of cigarettes and even fits in a shirt pocket with relative ease.

I originally had an S50 but ended up getting rid of it because it was too big and heavy and the manual controls on it were cumbersome to use. In the end, the manual controls on the S50 were not worth having to carry around such a brick-like camera. The S50 often ended up staying at home or in the car and I missed out on shots because I did not have the camera with me.

The images out of the S400 suprisingly enough, look even better to me than those out of the S50. I can't really explain why this is considering that the S50 is a full 1 megapixel higher than the S400.

I don't miss having the full manual controls that the S50 has at all. When I had the S50, I found that I hardly ever used the manual controls anyway because they are a bit cumbersome. I actually longed for more ease and simpleness, which frees one up to take pictures more spontaneously. So the small size and convenience of the S400 more than outweighs the lack of full manual controls for me. And the S400 does have manual mode where you can dial in some settings manually, just not f-stop and shutter speed. Further, you can often achieve the same effects as if you had full manual controls just by knowing how to set the S400. For example, if I want to shoot an outdoor portrait with a shallow depth of field (so the background will be blurry), I would set the camera's ISO to 50 and then meter off of something fairly dark (like the shade) while holding down the shutter down halfway to lock the exposure and recompose to the subject to take the picture.

To conclude, I am happy with this camera because it does everything a small point and shoot digital camera should do, yet it is quite small, light, feels sturdy (metal case) and has very pleasant ergonomics both with regard to the layout of the controls as well as to the on screen menu functions.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cool Cam!!!
Review: I got an S400 last week. This is my second digital camera. My first was also a Canon, A200 Powershot. What I love with this camera is it's battery life. Quick charging and goes a long way. I took about 300 images before I had to recharge. My old one was an AA battery kind. Never buy ones using AA. Life will be short. Times when you are about to take the most important pics, you're dead already.

Very handy, pocket size. I was able to carry it everywhere I go. Clearly the best!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Size, speed, and quality ...
Review: *** UPDATED ON 7/21/03 ***

I have changed my rating of the Canon S400 from 4 to 5 stars. No problems have arisen in over three months of use. I have also experimented with some of the manual controls (macro mode and shutter length), with excellent results.

My original conclusion stands; this camera's combination of size, speed, and quality is unrivaled in the digicam point-and-shoot market.

I have nothing but praise for Canon on producing such a fine product (which is increasingly rare these days).

My original review follows below.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I purchased the s400 less than a week ago and put it through the paces at a wedding last weekend. I did wide shots,telephoto'd shots, indoor/outdoor, and even some videos. It worked flawlessly. Everything behaved as I expected, and the pictures I took came out well.

I recieved a lot of compliments on the camera, with size, startup time, and image quality being the things people commented on the most. Although I considered all of these things when I decided to purhase the s400, hearing this from other digital camera owners really solidified my conclusions and convinced me that I made the right choice.

The bottom line on this camera is that it is very small and takes excellent pictures. From what I have seen so far, I hardly think anyone could go too far wrong with the S400.

The only drawback is the price, hence the four star rating, but IF this camera holds up for the next few months without throwing any kind of a techno-fit, I'll push my rating up to five stars.


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