Canon PowerShot SD700 IS (Digital IXUS 800 IS / IXY Digital 800 IS)

Opinion: I purchased this camera a year ago based upon the excellent reviews. For the most part this camera produces excellent photos in good light mainly outdoors although the color saturation is somewhat unrealistic to my eyes. But overall very pleasing images for a pocket digicam.

However, indoor pictures are another matter entirely.

Opinion: I got this camera to replace my Canon S410, which had been dropped one to many times. Photo quality is excellent at the wide-medium angle zoom, but only fair at the telephoto - there is significant fringing, particularly noticable in high contrast shots. The IS is wonderful - I rarely use the flash if I can help it, and can get very good ambient light photos hand held down to 1/4 s. Controls are pretty good, but it took me a while to figure out how to get long exposures - you have to do it from the menu, and chose it instead of the option to bias the exposure. The option to put a grid on the LCD viewfinder is nice - much easier to get level horizons.

Opinion: Nice pictures, good and friendly menu, acceptable pictures in low light, macro excellent, very fast, stylish in design

Opinion: The camera is difficult to find new, but I located a demo version. I'm used to a full-featured DSLR/SLR plus a Canon S60 (which is still excellent).

I am very pleased with this camera. I was surprised that the "manual" mode was more a less-restricted auto mode and not the full-featured manual from my S60. That was my error in reading and interpreting the specs. Given that, I'm keeping the camera. The image quality at ISO400 is good enough for snaps and below that excellent for just about anything. You don't have the flexibility of RAW mode but the IQ is again good-enough that with care you can depend on the "jpg" output. Color is rich and saturated. The out-of-camera results are excellent. The reviews at dpreview rate this very highly and were a strong influence on my buying the SD700IS. I've been recommending it also highly based on this review - everyone including myself has very good things to say about the image quality, ease of use and extreme compactness. While I really miss the "tweaking" for my preferences, the limited configuration in "manual" (e.g. ability to select strobe mode and ISO) do provide enough control to mold the operation more to your preferences.

Startup speed is more than adequate. Auto focus lag seems very minimal and focus speed isn't nearly the bug-a-boo it used to be.

The IS works and is a boon to macro and tele work. You can crank out a bit more low-light performance also if you constrain ISO and disable strobe.

This won't replace my DSLR, but it has been a constant companion yielding excellent results.

Oh, for a 28mm equivalent WA offering in exactly this footprint. Please no more pixels. 6MP is awsome. Lets go for IQ, true active stabilization, and less ISO400 noise.

Opinion: I've had this camera for a year and 2 months.
I own a Pentax Optio 555 & it was at that time (in 2003) a pocket rocket. The IXUS 800 IS takes that crown now. I no longer use the Pentax after the IXUS came along.
The IXUS 800IS is an excellent camera all round! It features 1st-class exposure, focus and sharpness with low noise up to ISO 400 in the Image Quality front, with fast performance, real pocketability, solid construction, useable optical image stabiliser, widest focal length at 36mm, 4x optical zoom, a top-notch built-in flash and a high resolution 2.5-inch LCD to boot. O, did I mention that it took decent videos too, has a sexy design and enables one to view pictures right-side up with its auto rotate feature? I've taken easily more than 2,000 photos plus more than 10 video clips with this camera. I've even taken it with me as my only equipment on holidays instead of bulkier stuff. I've had no regrets with the quality of its pictures and ease of use! One gets the sense when using this camera that it is something really special, as if the company had poured everything it knew and the best materials possible into the design and development of the product. It will pass into history as an iconic camera!

Opinion: Great choice for all around point and shoot camera. IS comes in handy from time to
time. Images are well exposed and detailed. Worry free shooting to ISO 200, 400 very
usable. Solid build and nice screen complete the package.

Opinion: A sweet camera. Had this little Elph over a year now and have gotten some very
nice images from it. The 6 mp sensor produces clean low ISO results and the IS is a
real boon. I have been able to hand-hold down to about 1/4 second and gotten
sharp results. The benefits of IS will vary between users though, depending on how
big your paws are and how much your hands naturally shake!

I selected 4 for value for money because when I purchased this camera it was $499
new. This camera can now be had for around $300 US, which is a steal for such a
great camera. Of course it won't be available new much longer with the advent of the
850IS.

Opinion: We bought this camera to replace/upgrade our 3.2MP Olympus Stylus. However, we have been extremely dissapointed with the qaulity of the pictures vs. the older camera. One of our biggest frustrations is the amount of Red Eye in all of our pictures taken since we bought this camera. We use the "Red Eye Reduction" setting but this doesn't really seem to help. The Olympus simply took better pictures despite being a lower MP camera.

We are now going back to Olympus. Not only was this camera a waste of money but, more importantly, we wasted those precious moments since we bought this that we did not capture with a better camera. We have shared our frustrations with others and were surprised to learn that many others have had similar complaints (especially with the amount of Red Eye in Canon cameras).

Opinion: My criteria was a thin pocket camera with excellent, professional photo quality that I
could easily carry in a front pants pocket while backpacking across Southeast Asia
for a month. I'm picky and demanding. I want National Geographic quality images
from something the size of a credit card. I originally purchased a Panasonic Lumix
FX-9, but just couldn't get good quality photos out of it, so I went back to my tried
and true brand and purchased the Canon SD700IS.

I simply couldn't be happier with the results I got from this camera. I took 1800
photos over the course of a month-long trip and didn't get a single bad shot. In
terms of battery life, I took about three quarters of those shots on a single battery
charge. Granted, I rarely used the flash, but with the image stabilization, I rarely
needed it (and preferred not to use it, simply to capture the natural lighting, even
well after dusk). With the IS on and ISO-HIGH setting, I was able to get some
pretty remarkable well-post-dusk shots of some Ankorian ruins deep in the jungle of
Cambodia. I was certain they'd be so full of noise that they would be entirely
useless when I returned home, but was amazed to see that they really look pretty
darn good.

Midday light in that part of the world is a photographer's nightmare, with a harsh
bright sun directly overhead, I was sure that a point and shoot camera was going to
give me poor exposures and washed-out shots, but again, the Canon proved me
wrong. Colors were rich, intense, yet a natural representation of the subject matter.
When I deliberately fiddled with the auto-exposure (exposing for the sky, then
refocusing on my subject matter), I got some really amazing results. I even got
some great one-handed snaps while clinging for life to the back of a motorbike
bouncing across the dirt-roads of Laos.

As testament to the image quality of this camera, nearly everyone who viewed the
photos from this trip commented that it must have been a bear to carry a bulky
professional camera and requisite lenses around throughout my trip.

Overall, I wanted a great, super-portable camera that would be up to the task of
capturing my trip in vivid detail while doing justice to the experience, and this
camera entirely exceeded my expectations. I never thought I'd be so effusive about
a point and shoot camera, but this one disappeared once I slipped it in my pocket,
and did a magnificent job every time it emerged from there.