Canon PowerShot SD990 IS reviews – a power packed and compact 15 megapixels camera

Thursday, January 22, 2009, 5:58
Digital Camera
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The Canon PowerShot SD990 IS boasts of having the highest resolution in its family of cameras. It has a resolution of 15 megapixels. The SD990 produces amazing photo quality, offers a plethora of shooting options, and is pretty good in looks. The successor of Canon’s SD950 IS, the SD990 IS shares the typical Cannon camera body design. The camera measures 3.8 inches wide by 2.5 inches high by 1.1 inches thick. The weight of the digital camera including that of SD card and battery is around 6.5 ounces. The camera also boasts of a 2.5-inch LCD that offers a maximum resolution of 230,000 pixels.

Most of the camera buttons lie below the mode dial button. As the features, the on/off button finds its home at the left of the shutter. The center is occupied by a Function that helps in accessing mode-specific settings. The Special Scene mode (SCN) of the camera enables shooting with the help of its 16 shooting selections. The optical view finder above the LCD comes handy when the camera is operating in the new Quick Shot mode but doesn’t offer accurate framing. The Quick Shot mode of the camera makes it possible to automatically adjust focus and exposure when the faces are detected in or around the viewfinder.

The camera offers Program AE and Manual modes for shooting. However, in the Manual mode, the user has the option of only two apertures at any given focal length. Also, in this mode, there are no semi-manual priority-exposure modes. The auto mode captures at 30fps 640 × 480. The camera is blessed with a 3.7x f2.8-5.8 36-133mm-equivalent lens. The lens provides optical image stabilization to take care of image blur resulting from things like hand shake at slower shutter speeds. The face detection mode locates up to nine faces in the frame and accordingly sets exposure, focus, and flash. The camera has a sensitivity range of ISO 80 through ISO 1,600. The camera’s shot-to-shot time is 1.9 seconds and if the flash is turned on, this time increases to 3.6 seconds.

The camera offers excellent photo quality and offers a tremendous noise control in images. The colors in the images are very accurate and well saturated. All in all, the Canon PowerShot SD990 IS is a package of excellent photo quality and compact design.