Powershot Sd300 Views

General Goods

Canon shrank the dimensions of the 5.5-ounce PowerShot SD300 down to an ultraslim 3.4-by-2.1-by-0.83-inch package that can slip into any pocket. This Digital Elph is made even more easily pocketable by its reduced number of protrusions, starting with the hand-strap lug, which is now recessed into the body. The camera's exterior is all metal, except for plastic doors covering the battery/SD memory card slots and A/V and USB ports.

While you can operate the PowerShot SD300 with one hand, a two-handed grip makes it easier to work the zoom lever, which is concentric with the top-mounted shutter-release button. A recessed on/off button and a green power LED are the only other adornments on the top surface. The major controls are concentrated on the right side of the back panel, which is dominated by a brightness-adjustable 2-inch LCD viewfinder. A three-way sliding switch lets you select recording, movie mode, or playback, and three other buttons provide access to the three-page menu system (with shooting, setup, and customization options), display options (status info, no info, and monitor off), and print/share features.

The PowerShot SD300's modest feature set includes most of the basics, starting with a 35mm-to-115mm 3X zoom lens (35mm-film-camera equivalent) with a nine-point autofocus system that's accurate down to 1.2 inches in macro mode. Only six scene modes are available, which is a modest selection in the current market. However, they're generally useful and include a Digital Macro option that fills the frame with the center of the image to provide the equivalent of digital zoom in close-up mode. Other scene modes include Portrait, Night Snapshot, Kids a Pets, Indoor, and Underwater, which you can use with an optional marine housing. Unfortunately, there's no sports scene mode nor any way to manually control shutter speeds, which seriously limits this camera's excellent 3fps burst mode.

Performance was another big plus, thanks to the new Digic II DSP. The PowerShot SD300 woke up and reported for duty in about 2 seconds and thereafter was willing to snap off a shot every 1.2 seconds (4.6 seconds with flash). In burst mode, we captured six images in a hair more than 2 seconds at full resolution and lowest compression, but if you're willing to sacrifice a minimal amount of image quality and switch from Super Fine to Fine compression, this Canon will happily snap away at a 2.4fps rate up to the capacity of your memory card.