Remarkable camera

I kept seeing glowing reports on the ELPH 330HS, so I finally bought one.  Well, the glowing reports are true.  This seems to be one of those cases where everything came together really well.  Resolution is quite good, comparable to my G15 at 5 lines/mm on my resolution chart. (an 8.5" 11" chart, shot to fill the frame, top to bottom)  That's quite good for a compact.  Noise is quite low and well controlled by the DIGIC 5 processor, so that even ISO 1600 is useful.  I did add a Flip-bac stick on G2 grip on the front for a finger hold.  I even bought a second ELPH 330HS, as they are difficult to find, and it lives in my car 24/7.  Focal length range is 24-240 mm, equivalent - a good range for a travel camera.  The lens is a reasonably fast f/3 at 24 mm; but quite slow at f/6.8 at 240; but fortunately the F# changes fairly slowly until 120 mm or so, and then ramps up quickly to 240 mm.  That's unusual, and very helpful.  Since indoor shots are seldom at a long focal length and the camera has low noise and a reasonable F# at 100 mm or less, it still works quite well indoors in bars and restaurants, or for street scenes.

Color is typical Canon and with good saturation and contrast even at ISO 1600; so pictures tend to "pop"; but still look natural.   I use the camera with a neck cord that I made out of a round, soft, and fairly thick shoe lace with some braided nylon fishing line at the camera end.   In my pocket, I just wrap the cord around the camera between the lens and the added grip.

There's only the 3" LCD panel on the back.  It works pretty well, even in Caribbean sun, if I take my sun glasses off.

Right!  I think maybe the key to it's success is that they didn't try to do too much with the lens, or the sensor; keeping the focal length range and the MP count to reasonable levels.

A "real" Mini with a 998 cc, 47 HP engine.  10ft. long and 1450 lbs.  Set up as a rallye car.

Plus, they did use BSI-CMOS and DIGIC 5, which is one of their better processors.

I took mine to a local car show this morning, and got some very nice shots.  A little hard to see the LCD screen in the sun; but OK if I took off my sun glasses.

I have two of these.  One is my "car camera" (a Canon refurb for $79) which stays in my car 24/7, and which took this shot.  And the second one is in the condo and is a regular travel camera for cruises and major land trips.  #2 was bought from a friend who bought it new and hardly used it at all - in-box with all the accessories for $50.

More's the pity.  You have some really nice shots to share, and a great little camera to tell about, and nobody seems to care.

I've been looking at 1" sensor compacts, and so far, I'm not finding much benefit over the ELPH or my G15.  The Canon G7X is attractive; but it's about the same size and weight as my G15, and sample shots at ISO 800 and lower don't look any better.

It's not that we don't care at all, it's just that I only today checked in on the PowerShot forum. I still use a S95 once in a while (as well as a ELPH 300 that's just so easy to toss in one's pocket) but don't read this forum every day. That said...I really enjoyed viewing your photos with the ELPH. In fact I think I enjoy seeing nice photos with these types of cameras more than I do the "pro" models. Perhaps because we don't expect as much and I think it proves the point that some people can produce excellent results regardless of what they use to capture the image. And you captured some really nice images. Thank you for posting them.

I have been trying to locate one to replace my trusty  Powershot SD880 IS .

A few shots taken with the ELPH330:

I realize this thread is 7-8 months old, but this camera has come back to the forefront for me because I recently found another 330 HS on ebay for $50. The seller didn't have a battery to test it so was selling "as is" complete with box and everything that was included when it was new. I sold mine some time ago, having gotten caught up in the G7X/G7X II frenzy, but recently saw some shots taken with one, and remembered what an outstanding little camera it is. Once it arrived in the mail, I put a battery in (I have a whole host of batteries from the many cameras I seem to continuously buy and sell!), and it works perfectly! It's also in excellent cosmetic condition as well. I'm always amazed at the sharpness of the lens and the amount of detail the camera captures. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the Olympus Stylus Epic (Mju II) in that it's a simple point and shoot camera in a very compact body with an outstanding lens that consistently yields excellent results. It really is an example of everything coming together just right!

Andy

racollins wrote:

I realize this thread is 7-8 months old, but this camera has come back to the forefront for me because I recently found another 330 HS on ebay for $50. The seller didn't have a battery to test it so was selling "as is" complete with box and everything that was included when it was new. I sold mine some time ago, having gotten caught up in the G7X/G7X II frenzy, but recently saw some shots taken with one, and remembered what an outstanding little camera it is. Once it arrived in the mail, I put a battery in (I have a whole host of batteries from the many cameras I seem to continuously buy and sell!), and it works perfectly! It's also in excellent cosmetic condition as well. I'm always amazed at the sharpness of the lens and the amount of detail the camera captures. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the Olympus Stylus Epic (Mju II) in that it's a simple point and shoot camera in a very compact body with an outstanding lens that consistently yields excellent results. It really is an example of everything coming together just right!

Andy

No problems, I still got notified!!

You would have noticed that my shots were all in pretty much ideal conditions. i like to travel to sunny destinations a lot at least partly because they get me the kind of pictures i like. This camera is so good for travelers - tiny but still with a 10X zoom. I hope to post more images taken with the Canon P330 after the Memorial day. But I believe against most of the recent 1" sensor cameras, its image quality viewed at 100% will be competitive but not quite as good.

Your C&C of the pictures I posted will be appreciated.

Looking forward to them!

Andy

toomanycanons wrote:

What we have here, GW, is a dead forum. It's almost like this thread doesn't exist.

That's because Canon hasn't released a Powershot camera worth commenting on for several years. The last excitable cameras they released and that generated great commentary were the G1X, G10, and the G15/16. All the cameras up to and including those three always filled the Powershot forum with a whole page of commentary.

Powershot forum hardly worth looking at these days.  Sad!

A little odd, replying to my own thread 8 months later; but I thought I'd update my post.

I still have the ELP 330HS.  One of mine is in my car 24/7.  I've also added another one that is in mothballs as a reserve - just in case.  I've now owned 3 of these little gems (the third was a gift to my grandson) and they were identical in image quality.  More on that later.

I have also added a Canon G7X II.  IMHO a significant step forward over the G7X, thanks to the DIGIC 7 processor.

I also went and bought a used SX260HS.  Since it has pretty much the same sensor as the ELPH, and a similar processor, there's no real improvement over the ELPH; but it's got over 2x the zoom range.

Over several years, I have owned four different SX260HS or SX240HS with quite a lot of variation in image properties.  Two were very good, the other two were not and were promptly returned.  In contrast to my very positive experiences with all the ELPH 330HS's.  I can't recall seeing a bad report on the ELPH on this forum.   I also got lucky with my G7X II.

Quite right, the ELPH 330HS does use the DIGIC 5 processor.  My bad!