This is a very popular digital camera, but somehow everyone I ask around here in my office knows about it but doesn’t actually own one.
My current camera is a Casio Exilim that’s about 3 years old and is starting to flake out: there’s something wrong with the light exposure detector so that about half the time, everything is completely overexposed. I have to turn the camera off and back on again, sometimes 4 or 5 times, to get it to work properly, which is unacceptable. Until now though, I’ve been quite happy with the camera.
In looking into getting a replacement, I’ve more or less settled on the Canon SD1100, but wonder about its “auto-rotate” feature. Apparently, if you take a picture vertically (as a portrait), the camera detects it’s being held at a 90 or 270 degree angle from normal and rotates the image accordingly.
This is a fairly big factor for me in moving from the Casio to the Canon line, as it would solve a major annoyance in transferring pictures off the SD card to my computer: having to rotate all the pictures that were not taken in landscape orientation, which can take a while (doubly annoying as my wife takes those shots holding the camera rotated to the right, while I take them rotated to the left, so I have to do two passes to get them all corrected).
BUT, is this “auto-rotate” a display-only feature? My Exilim doesn’t have auto-rotation of pictures, but it does have a manual rotation option in the picture viewing window. However I found that doing that rotation only orients the picture correctly for viewing in the camera’s LCD panel – when I download it to my computer as a JPEG, the picture is not rotated.
It’s not clear to me that the auto-rotate feature on the Canon is not similarly limited to viewing on the camera. Is it?
Also, does it rotate videos taken in portrait orientation?
I’m not familiar with your model, but I have a Canon powershot sd500 from 2-3 years ago. I love it! It is so easy to transfer pics and it is small enough to carry in my purse or pocket. I’m sure the newer models are even better. I definitely recommend Canon.
That’s great! But does yours have the auto-rotate feature, and if so, does it really rotate the image on the SD card memory properly so I don’t have to do it again after transferring the files to my computer? Also, does it support rotation of video clips?
Yes, I’ve had three recent Canons and the auto-rotate works without a hitch. Most cameras today have it, it just works and you don’t have to pay it a second thought. I don’t recall if you have to use the Canon software to download the images in order to have them stored correctly, that’s what I use most of the time.
The SD1100 is a nice little camera, but you might look at the SD890 or SD880 for more recent models with a few more features (at slightly higher cost).
Huh, I never thought of the fact that maybe I have to use some special translation software in conjunction with the camera settings to get the rotation to work. Kind of annoying really as the whole point of an SD card is to be able to drop it in a slot and use it as a media device, but I’ll accept an intermediate software layer as the price of in-line convenience (especially if it works for vid clips).
Hmm, the SD880 is a 10 MP camera, and I had set a max resolution of 8 MP when searching, on the basis that the files are already pretty huge at 8 MP (my Exilim’s resolution), and I rarely or ever do any large prints or significant cropping. At the same time, the SD880 has a wide angle lens (28mm) which is very attractive. Thanks for the tip!
We have the PowerShot SD1000 Digital Elph, and we love it. This is the 2nd Elph we’ve had (something died on the last one, after about 5 years). It’s really nice to be able to put it in our pocket/purse/diaper bag, and it takes great photos and video. It doesn’t support rotation of video clips (I really wish it did!) but I rotate them easily in Windows Movie Maker.
Almost all of the photos in my Flickr photostream taken since July 2007 were taken with this camera. You can’t see many of them, because they’re not public, but I’d be happy to make you a contact on Flickr if you want to see more (they’re almost all baby pics…).
It has a nice macro feature, and you can shoot in manual mode or not. I had another Canon when my husband got this one (it’s technically “his” camera), but I haven’t used it in a long time because I like this one so much better!
Nope, you have to rotate video clips using dedicated software, and it’s a royal PITA. Always shoot video clips in horizontal mode unless you are willing to do some annoying work on the computer.
Do you care for the optical view finder (which was a big selling point for me)? The SD880 has a 3" LCD but no viewfinder. I agree, the wide angle was another big selling point for me; I got the SD800.
So it seems the SD870 is the one I’m really looking for, with a 28mm wide-angle and an 8.1 MP resolution. The SD880 has replaced it as of 10/2008 so it wasn’t in the Canon product lineup. The only major difference between the two, aside from bumping up to 10 MPs, is the use of MOV rather than AVI for the movie file format, billed as achieving better file compression for the same video quality.
What do you think? Personally I don’t get the ever increasing size of digital photo resolution, 8 MP seems more than enough for taking the usual pics, but I see that 10-12 is becoming the norm now on the higher end. However there’s no significant discount between the SD870 and SD880; my searches turn up best prices $236+ for the SD870 and $245+ for the SD880 for new cameras, so maybe I should just go with the SD880?
The extra MP often degrade image quality, and I’m not a huge fan of the .mov codex, but the SD880 comes with the newer DIGIC 4 processor and slightly more zoom, so that would be my choice. They’re pretty much a wash otherwise, but I think there are enough slight improvements that I’d go for the SD880. (Actually, I wouldn’t, I can’t live without an optical viewfinder.)
I have a SD790,. It has the auto rotate feature on the display screen (it will change the orientation of the reviewed image as you rotate the camera). As far as auto-rotating the image when you pull it off the SD card, I don’t know about that. I don’t use the Canon software, though–maybe it has something that does it for you.
I’ve got an SD800IS which I’ve found to be quite an impressive instrument. It takes great photos under pretty much all conditions. This despite that mine has seen more than it’s share of ‘accidents’ including partial immersion and shared luggage space with a 5kg calibration weight…rolleyes and smackhead don’t seem to be enough…
Anyway, I did try a portrait shot and it copied it to my machine via Windows Explorer in landscape orientation.
I’ve had one for two years, I guess - I love love love it! Fits in my pocket, battery lasts forever, takes great pictures… okay, so my boyfriend who owns a film camera shop and a video production company calls it “your toy camera”, but for vacations it cannot be beat. I bought it when I was going to be on a traditionally rigged schooner for a week learning how to sail the thing and I didn’t want to be hauling around some cumbersome camera - I couldn’t be happier.
I have a brand-newCanon SD 890IS
It’s the third Canon I’ve owned and I can’t see any reason to ever switch. I love everything about it (except the new scroll wheel thingie…wish I could glue it down somehow)
Auto rotate is great and works smoothly. Face detection is cool and just amazes people. It’s small enough, yet sturdy in my hand.