The primary purpose for us purchasing this camera was so my stay-at-home wife could quickly and easily capture the "firsts" and other special moments of our almost 11 month old. It was a day-to-day replacement for a Pentax istDS digital SLR (great quality but impractical and SLOW autofocus on indoor/flash shots) and a few years old lowest-end miniDV JVC camcorder (a pain to capture/edit/archive.)
The last semi-compact digital we purchased was a Canon A40. Really great camera. In 2002.
Top Three SD770 Pros:
- Size: There's hardly an excuse not to bring this anywhere you might want to take real photos and quick videos. It's barely thicker than a deck of cards and smaller than one of said cards. (See customer photos)
- Overall Real-world Performance: Truly a joy to use. Even for someone like myself who has handled pro and "pro-sumer" photo and video equipment and has VERY high usability expectations.
- Useful functions: Image stabilization is the best thing evar. Face recognition is better than I expected, especially for this type of camera. Macro works quite well.
Top Three Cons:
- Size: You could EASILY forget this in your pocket and wash it in the laundry. No joke.
- Quality: By default, edges are soft and daytime indoor shots can be grainy (noise), since the auto ISO bumps up to keep the shutter speed fast enough to reduce motion blur. I intend to check settings to remedy this, if possible.
- Useless functions: There's 3 or 4 SOUND themes alone (not including silent). Lots of bloated "features" and photo "effects" that are better forgotten after you play with it the first couple days. Seriously, forget them. If you dare post any online you will be mocked the world over. If there's a way to disable/hide them, someone tell me...
Top Three Accessories: (buy these at the same time or very SOON after)
- Memory card: Simply not optional. The camera includes a 32MB SD card which is roughly equivalent to including a free tank of gas with a new Porsche. "Gee, thanks." We went for the Transcend 16GB SDHC Card with Compact Card Reader which fits over 3,500 photos at full-quality or over 2 hours of video, or some combination of both. It sounds like overkill, but we bought this camera to be the sole capturer of memories on week-long trips with our first child. I changed the resolution to 6MP at Superfine compression and the camera reports we can take photos through 2017.
- Spare Battery: Somewhat optional. Like most modern ultra-compacts, the SD770 uses a proprietary battery pack so you won't be running down to the drugstore in a pinch. Just get it.
- Camera bag/pouch: Not in the same class as a the previous two, but where are you going to keep the spare battery otherwise anyway? It does fit (snugly) in a playing card box, so there is that...
To be sure, I am biased towards Canon, in that I have had nothing but good experiences with their products (scanners, printers, cameras). But considering the exhaustive research I do for most purchases over $10 and my high expectations, the Canon SD770IS does not disappoint.
See more reviews about: Canon PowerShot SD770IS 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
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