Canon PowerShot SD890 IS (Digital IXUS 970 IS / IXY Digital 820 IS)

Opinion: Might be worth saying that I tried the camera for a few days and it was returned for
reasons as below.

The IXUS 970IS is a nice camera to look at, I bought it primarily for the 5x optical
zoom and improved optical image stabilizer and as its an IXUS model thought I
could not go wrong - I own a IXUS 950IS.

I would say that right off to me the camera just does not feel right in the hand
compared to my 950IS or even my friends 960IS, much lighter and the build
quality is no where near as good as the 950IS either. The camera is all metal but
just feels wrong to me, I don't know if this was down to the shape of the camera or
the smoothness of the metal surfaces, its just not for me. The battery cover due to
the design and position of hands when taking pictures moves a little too (which to
me at least is very off putting) the IXUS 950IS is very solid where as the 970IS feels
less so.

Picture quality is also I feel is lacking something, the colours are good but the level
of fine detail seems to be lacking and not as good as previous models. The images
are still good and noise is better handled up to ISO 1600 when comparing it to my
950IS.

Features are pretty much as other IXUS models with a some ability to tweak settings
but no real manual control mostly scene settings. The menus have been slightly
improved over earlier models but nothing major - to me a menu is a menu. The
buttons on the camera do have to be depressed quite hard which I found made the
camera creak a little (goes back to build quality)

Lens does show signs of barrelling at wide angle and corners are soft when looked
at, fringing is also very evident in strong contrast areas.

At the end of the day I decided the camera was not for me, I also had a go of one
in a shop just to make sure it was not a fault with the model I got but the same
issues with build quality were there.

Opinion: I have had 2 SD890s --- in my experience, the image quality of both was very bad --- almost all my shots needed extensive sharpening, tweaking, etc. in Picasa or iPhoto afterwards...very disappointing. Just about images were very "soft" in appearance and needed varying amounts of tweaking (especially sharpening) in Picasa or iPhoto to produce even marginally acceptable shots.

I checked the point of focus (which the camera will capture and display for you) just to make sure I had not aimed incorrectly, and that as not the case.
The link attached below will take you to an earlier forum discussion about my early experiences with the SD890.

Your mileage may differ (and I hope it does), but I could not recommend the SD890 to anyone.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1010&message=27631106

Opinion: test

Opinion: I've had this camera for just over a month now, and I'm really pleased with it. It's recently been on holiday to Norway with me and I've managed to get some lovely scenic shots from it. If, like me, you need a camera that is small and portable, with a better than average zoom, and that produces decent quality pictures I'd definitely recommend it. Outdoor 'scenic' shots come out particularly well.