First impressions, New Canon SD700 IS
August 22, 2006 – 11:31 pmMy Sony DSC F-717 spoiled me in three ways (or is this just how a camera should work?)
1. I could take pictures w/o flash in low light circumstances by concentrating on keeping the camera still while it was taking pictures.
The Canon seems to jump to 1 second exposure a lot more than is necessary, and the Auto ISO goes to 800, which makes great 200 pixel wide pictures, but is absurdly noisy when you look at it full size (or even 800 pixels or so wide)
2. Most of the settings had dedicated buttons or dials on the Sony.
The Canon uses buttons that change functions depending on the context… This is alright, unless you want to be able to quickly change more than one option in the manual shooting mode (like change the white balance and then adjust the exposure)
I was a little frustrated that on the Sony the white balance was selected by a button that just moved you to the next option… I wanted a dial, but a dedicated button is better than drilling down through menus.
3. The Sony remembered that I turned off the flash.
The Canon remembers for the manual shooting mode (the one that I use most of the time) but if I switch over to auto or scene mode, the flash turns back on… I would just put a piece of black tape over the flash, but I don’t want it killing my battery. Thankfully it remembers that I want all my pictures taken as Superfine in all the different modes, but I did have to set that in each mode separately (I hate the flash)
The camera isn’t too bad, but I’m disapointed with the lack of low-light shooting. Another thing is occasionally I just can’t get the colors right… You can adjust the color space and the white balance, but it takes a while. That Sony usually had great color. I also expected that the pixel noise would be completely gone considering I rarely dealt with it on the Sony and this camera was designed after the Sony was discontinued. Oh well.
All this means that I have a great snapshot camera and I want a real one soon :-D
