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| Canon PowerShot SD870IS 8MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver) | 
 enlarge | Brand: Canon
Category: Photography
List Price: $599.96
Buy New: $242.95
You Save: $357.01 (60%)
New (33) Used (1) Refurbished (3)
Avg. Customer Rating:  357 reviews
Sales Rank: 31
Color: Silver
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Includes Software: Yes
Optical Zoom: 4
Digital Zoom: 4
Connectivity: AV
Display Size: 3
Maximum Focal Length: 17.3
Minimum Focal Length: 4.6
Maximum Resolution: 8000000
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 3.6 x 2.3 x 1
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: SD870IS
Model: SD870IS
UPC: 013803085136
EAN: 0013803085136
ASIN: B000V20S3G
Release Date: September 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 In some ways excellent, in others poor December 8, 2007
287 out of 339 found this review helpful
I recently purchased the sd870is for a vacation, based largely on the moderately good reviews that it gets. During my two weeks with the camera, I found it in some ways to perform better than any other digital camera I have ever used, and in some ways to perform very poorly.
Let's start with the good. Any shots in very bright light turned out great using both the manual settings and the camera's automatic settings. If you take all outdoor shots, this is just about the greatest point and shoot camera in the world. Video also looks pretty dang good, and while not a feature I considered when buying the camera, it was something I used quite often. The controls were all easy enough to use, and while the buttons and settings aren't the best designed things in the world, after playing around with the camera for an hour or so it's not too hard to figure out the main features and how to use them (although some features remain a mystery that even the manual couldn't solve).
And on to the bad. While all my outdoor shots were excellent looking, especially for a lower priced digital camera, the camera was really not up to par on indoor shots. On its automatic settings, I found the camera to be rather 'stupid' in determining how to process the shot. Even in moderately bright rooms with plenty of indirect sunlight in the middle of the day, the camera loves to flash the immediate subject and darken the background. Photos in a well lit restaurant would come out with the subject looking pretty good and the background looking like we were in a medieval dungeon. And we were in Florida, so when I say a well lit restaurant, I mean pretty dang sunny.
The manual settings performed much better indoors - many of the shots taken at 400 and 800 ISO on the manual setting turned out great. The only problem with these is that you experience quite a bit of blurring when there's not 100% sunlight outside, so for every good indoor photo there were 2 or 3 bad. And of course, if it happens to be dark outside, you get a huge amount of blurring. If one were to look at my photo of the Disney World castle at 7 pm, the automatic setting photo came out as a almost completely black photo with just the windows in the castle barely visible (and that thing is pretty bright). On manual, I had the choice of a blurry mess at 800ISO, or a moderately less blurry mess at 1600 ISO that was so grainy it looked rather like an old newspaper photo. The other digital cameras in the group were quite capable of taking a photo of people with the castle in the background and exposing them correctly while capturing the glowing castle, but the 870 was not.
Of course, no inexpensive camera is going to function all that well in darkness, and I wouldn't expect it to. What I do expect from a camera this price is to be able to point and shoot a photo of friends in a well lit hotel lobby without blurring everything or coming out with completely darkened backgrounds. The 870 did not seem to be able to handle this at all, and photos in any lobby or lounge came out like we spent our vacation in the most dimly lit place on earth.
As a side note, someone in our party brought their Fuji s700 digital camera, and in my opinion it outperformed the 870 in almost every aspect. The best 20% of the 870's photos looked a bit better than the Fuji's, but the other 80% didn't look anywhere as good. So, despite loving the size and features and most things about this camera, upon arriving home it was packed up and returned. I wouldn't pay more than $150 for something that performs the way the 870 did. Who wants a camera that becomes useless every day at 6:30 pm?
 Exceeded expectations, great value. December 7, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Great camera. I prefer to use the image stabilizer and High ISO mode and no flash. I've been able to take some FANTASTIC indoor shots that capture the mood of the environment far better than the flash-heavy, sterile-looking images that all point and shoot cameras seem to take when in automatic mode with the flash turned on.
These shots are better than the ones I'd be able to take by hand holding my Digital Rebel XTI -- no I have not yet taken the plunge and purchased an image stabilizing lens for it.
I also love the wide angle lens, even the small bit of spherical aberration that shows along the edges of the images when fully zoomed out.
Pros:
- Image Stabilization will change the kind of shots you attempt with such a small camera -- it's like having a tripod on hand at all times.
- Minimal shutter lag
- Good looking images
- Much easier to use (compared with recent predecessor models I've played with)
- Great battery life even with image stabilization on.
Cons:
- High ISO mode is a bit grainy
- Camera should charge when plugged into USB -- it does not.
- I wish it had a fill flash mode -- if it does I can't find it.
- I wish it had RAW mode -- I have come to appreciate the superiority of this mode thanks to the Digital Rebel XTi -- wow.
Bottom line: I bring this camera everywhere. You will too.
Great point and shoot camera December 6, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's small, really fast and takes better than average pictures for a point and shoot. Love the wide angle for getting everyone in the shoot. The large LCD display works fantastic so I don't miss the optical view finder at all. The movies are unbelievable when shooting inside with only the table lamps on. The camera feels well built with out being overweight or hard to handle.
Easily the best of the lot December 4, 2007
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
I extensively researched, tested and compared the Sony T200/70, Canon SD800, and SD870. While the Sony T200/70s are sleeker, more stylish, and have touchscreen displays, they suffer from poor picture quality and LCD screens - grainy/noisy pics, and slightly pixelated LCD, especially the T200.
The SD800/870s take much superior pics with a high-quality LCD display. The wide-angle lens rocks big-time - almost 33% more detail in shots. The main difference between the SD800 and 870 is that the 870 has a 3 inch LCD (800 has a 2.5 inch LCD, with the optical viewfinder) and no optical viewfinder. The bigger screen is worth the extra bucks, in my opinion - but if you wanna save some $, then the 800 does everything else the 870 can.
The SD870 almost delivers on everything - great wide angle lens, great quality pics, LCD screen visible even in bright sunlight, easy to use and pocket.
On the downside, the body build is not very solid, due to use of plastic parts, it has no HD video mode (only VGA), and there is no zoom in video mode.
It still gets 5 stars, because it comes way ahead of its competition. Easily the best in its category.
Poor battery life, on of button too easy to activate. December 1, 2007
16 out of 59 found this review helpful
I had about 8 different digital cameras from $300 to $1,300 and generally I'm happy with Canon. It looks to me each new one is a beat worse. More mega pixels means more memory it will use not necessary clearer picture. Better quality picture comes from high quality lance. Some 5 MP cameras that I have used have better picture quality then this one.
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