I have a Canon Digital Elph S100 that we bought back in 2001 and has served us well in that time. Unfortunately, it’s recently gone haywire. I’m not sure what happened, but I suspect it may have got wet somehow. Two days ago I went to use it, and all of the pictures were showing up extremely blurry with giant light halos around all light sources. Wiping the lens with a soft cloth did nothing. I left it alone and went to try it again today, and the picture is much, much improved from two days ago, but still slightly on the blurry/light halo side. I don’t know if it’s just drying out or what, but I’m thinking it may be time to finally bite the bullet and get a new camera.
We don’t want to shell out the cash for a brand new recent model. All I need is something that takes reasonably decent pictures. We don’t need a video function. I had actually considered just replacing the S100 via eBay, but then thought, well, we might as well at least upgrade slightly if we’re getting something new. Anyone have recommendations? I was thinking of maybe just moving up a few model years in Canon’s lineup and going with the S200 or S300. Is this a bad idea? Help?
The Canon PowerShot A720 is about $200, and would do pretty well everything that you would want from a point-and-shoot camera. I had an A610 in the same series until I bought a DSLR, and it worked very well.
I never saw a bad Canon point and shoot the 10 months I sold cameras. Other brands make good cameras too but Canon never seems to be a bad choice, regardless of model. So get a Canon in whatever price range you’re thinking about.
If you want manual controls there’s not much better then the Canon A720 on the market today for the money. It’s compact, has an optical view finder, good lens, good zoom (6x), full manual controls, uses AA batteries (buy NiMH rechargeables), and SD memory cards. Image quality is excellent, movie quality is quite good.
The $200-300 is the sweet spot right now. There are lots of other cameras available depending on what you are looking for. If you want something that closely mimics your S100 (ultracompact, no manual controls, optical viewfinder, proprietary LiIon battery) look at the Canon SD1100 or SD890 or SD790.
Maybe. The A470 is the lowest end of the Canon line. It’s a good basic camera, but no IS, no viewfinder, and a relatively slow lens. You can also find under $100 models from Samsung and GE, but I’d prefer the Canon.
If you can push up another $30 you can get the Canon A580, Casio Z9, Nikon L18, or Panasonic LZ8.
You’ll also need to buy a memory card ($10) and some cameras will require rechargeable AA batteries/charger ($20).
Second the recommendation for the A470; that’s what I’m getting for my mother to replace her ancient, creaking, 4-year-old Olympus. I’d just add the caveat that without adding a little extra for rechargeable batteries, you’ll end up shelling out a lot more on batteries in the long run, so it’s definitely a worthwhile investment.
Buy Sanyo Enloops or a similar low discharge NiMH battery. They will last a long time in the camera without losing charge, unlike regular NiMH batteries which lose their charge sitting in the camera for two weeks.
Don’t use alkaline batteries. They’ll only last 30-40 shots.
We decided to go with the A720. I am tentatively excited, as this is the first time we’ll have had digital video capability, and Grandma Whatsit is going to be very, very happy about this.
We’re storing this one well away from the kitchen sink, though.
Sounds like a bunch of us have this camera. I’ve been reasonably satisfied with it. My nephew lent me his Sony (sorry, don’t know the model) which I thought did better. Mine is generally set to take 2Mb captures and it can take 5-10 seconds to record those (LCD screen blacks out), so I do wish that were faster.
FWIW I got a duracell 15 minute charger for AAs and have been quite glad I did. I also upgraded the card to a 2Gb which will probably be more than I ever need b/c I always transfer to computer and wipe clean. I have, on occasion, shot 250Mb in a few hours, however, and IIRC the card provided is 16Mb.
I’d go for the Canon SD790
if buying new, or I’d go with the Fuji F30
if you can find a used one on Ebay for about $200.
The canon will give you the latest in Image Stabilization but the quality of the pics won’t be as good as the F30. The F30 uses a better sensor (super CCD) with a lower resolution so taking shots in less then optimal lighting conditions will result in a better outcome with less noise. If you take a lot of photos in darker conditions (parties, indoor gyms, etc) you might want to look at the Fuji line of cameras with the super CCD. If you use the camera mostly in good light then you have a ton of cameras to choose from in any price range.
Go to Cnet.com and DPRewview.com and check out any cameras there before purchasing.
Here’s a snapshot of the F-series from Fuji. Fuji F-series
Whether they’re worth the price etc. I couldn’t say, but at least you have the option of adding an auxiliary macro lens, tele lens, wide lens, stronger flash… I come from an SLR background, so I can’t get my brain around not being able to add and change components.
Finally I don’t know if all cameras come with this, but mine has a cord that allows me to view my pictures on my TV. I thought that was kinda kewl.
That was one of the pleasant surprises for me with the A610: that you could shoot reasonable video with it. And, although I’m basically a still picture person, I did shoot a few videos. However, it does use up a fair bit of memory, so you’ll need a good memory card. Fortunately, those have become much cheaper than they were.
I had a Digital Elph S100 that served me well until last year. My family was in Brazil and the camera started doing weird blurry stuff all of a sudden. Since it looked like a terminal camera illness and we had a couple other cameras, I gave to one of my wife’s cousins down there who said her son might be able to fix it.
A few months later we found out that her son took it to a camera shop (in Brazil) and they took a look at it, said that it was covered by some manufacturer’s warranty (?) and they gave him a brand new camera on the spot. Happiness all around
I love love love my Canon Powershot SD1000 Digital Elph.
I’ve had it about a year now (replaced an old Elph II film camera).
It takes great pictures - way better than I ever accomplished with film.
For some reason the all-silver model is only $176.60 on Amazon right now. I paid $300 when I bought it last summer.
I bought a soft case for it and a bigger memory card. Many people will recommend that you buy an extra battery for it. I haven’t done so yet but am thinking about it for our vacation this fall.
Not sure what happened to your camera in Brazil, but the S100 is not on the list of cameras covered by the big recall. The SD100 is, maybe that’s where the confusion is.
Wow! I never looked into it, but that’s a pretty sweeping recall of cameras.
FTR, I think mine was the S100 since it used CF cards. Maybe they made a mistake and just handed over a new camera without seeing it was not SD100. No complaints here.
